Take a break from horror with these tone-twisting Oct films

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OKLAHOMA CITY – As soon as the calendar finally changes to October, any movie fan knows that means wall-to-wall horror, slasher, thriller, and gore options as the scary movie month barrels toward Halloween.

But let’s be honest, not everyone wants nothing but gruesome horror all the time, even during the spooky season.

So for those movie lovers that want to celebrate the season, but with a different tone or more laughs than screams, there are some fine – and less frightful – selections around town this month.

With a tone-hopping, macabre classic by the master of suspense, a brand new spin on the ghost story, and the fishnet-clad mommy (or daddy) of all sci-fi/horror musical comedies, OKC theaters have you covered (and not in blood.)

‘D(e)ad’ – Oklahoma Film Exchange – October 11^th

Not just a testament to the too-often undertapped potential of the supernatural in comedy, but also the rapidly growing power of truly independent film, this new ghost comedy comes by way of writer Izzy Roland from the breakout internet comedy channel Dropout.

Roland plays Tillie, a lost twenty-something whose strained and difficult relationship with her alcoholic father hits a wall (as it does) when he dies.

So he comes back as a ghost, of course, but ends up haunting everyone else in Tillie’s life except her, forcing her friends and family to attempt to commune with the dead just to help father and daughter resolve the frustrating mess of their relationship.

Ghosts, hauntings, séances, and fractious family dynamics make for some essential October-style comedy viewing, but what’s really set this one apart is its unique making, funding, and distribution.

Funded primarily through crowdsourcing, directed by Roland’s own mother, starring their real friends and family, and entirely self-distributed, the so-far success of “D(e)ad” is rewriting the rules of how indie film can function by fully sidestepping the studio-oriented distribution industry in favor of direct-to-theater screenings.

The newly minted Oklahoma Film Exchange on Film Row is the only theater in the state that secured it for screening, and their October 3^rd showing was so strong and popular that they added a second for the 11^th.

For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit oklahomafilmexchange.com.

‘Rope’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – October 16^th through 18^th

You just can’t have October without some Alfred Hitchcock.

The master of suspense built his career from the kinds of dark and sinister yarns that make for perfect scary story fodder, but while he included plenty of death, thrills, and outright scares on screen, his most chillingly cold concept comes in a one-room bottle tale focused entirely on conversation.

That’s right, it’s “Rope,” Hitchcock’s 1948 experiment of both technicality and tone that spent decades as a misunderstood footnote in the legend’s filmography before finally being respected and elevated among the classics for its psychological gamesmanship, morbid playfulness, and general strangeness for its time.

Though most of the discourse around “Rope” tends toward examinations of its “hidden” cuts that give the impression of the whole film running in just few single takes, the real discussion is about the motives, minds, and mild-mannered monstrousness of the killers at its core.

Loosely inspired by the terrifying true-life murder-for-curiosity’s-sake perpetrated by Leopold and Loeb, Hitchcock’s real-time oddity presents two young men that have secretly committed a murder before hosting a dinner party that sees their lauded professor attempting to unwrap and unravel their twisted game.

Like practically any film in which he starred, it’s notable for Jimmy Stewart’s quietly nuanced, unflinchingly intelligent performance, but also for the decidedly odd, shifting tonality throughout, sprinkling in elements of dark comedy, winking campiness, and more than a bit of unspoken sexual commentary that was particularly taboo in the 40s.

For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit okcmoa.com.

‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ – Oklahoma Contemporary – October 25^th

You knew it was going to be here, because of course it’s going to be here.

Yes, the single greatest cult-classic film of all-time (no matter what Entertainment Weekly tries to say) and one of the most essential viewings of the entire spooky season each year, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is set to stomp its stilettos all over the Contemporary lawn near month’s-end.

And for the movie’s 50th anniversary, no less.

As I laid out in my recent recap of the committedly comedic and cowboy-costumed country version of “Rocky Horror” currently running on stage at Lyric, the gender-bending song-and-dance explosion of sci-fi sexuality has become such a staple that’s easy to rush through and put all the focus on the songs and the fun.

But each and every time that you do the “Time Warp” again and revisit the 1975 film that brought Richard O’Brien’s opus to the masses, you’re reminded of just how creative, how exploratory, and how truly, unexpectedly emotional and even tragic it really is.

Through the filter of campy B-movie sci-fi, O’Brien was confronting the very real struggle of accepting his own sexuality and of longing for a place (or planet) where all proclivities could be entertained and embraced. And even in his wild sci-fi spectacle, it all ends in a violent and confused lack of understanding.

So yes, the songs are infectious, the comedy remains riotous, and the urge to dance, sing, throw things, and yell at the screen will never die, but maybe this year – of all years – is the right time to appreciate a story centered on sexual liberation and cross-gender acceptance.

But I said I wouldn’t talk about the horrors, didn’t I?

For showtimes, tickets, and more, visit oklahomacontemporary.org.

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Catch Brett Fieldcamp’s film column weekly for information and insights into the world of film in the Oklahoma City metro and Oklahoma. | Brought to you by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

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