By Daniel R. Durrett
@FilmDitz
A Film Festival perfectly placed in the heart of Garland’s historic downtown, featuring films from an era matching the décor of the age of the films featured in this festival. A theater has existed in another form on the square, and at one point the downtown area had as many as three theaters in the early 1900s near the Garland town square’s origin.
In 1899, after a devastating fire only a small handful of buildings remained due to their brick and iron construction, over 50 buildings and homes were leveled to the ground. Just 6 years later the square had nearly doubled in size. These elder structures do much to connect the audience to the age of the films being shown.
The Plaza Theater added to the square in 1941, is the screening home for the Film Festival, for a collection of ‘50s through ‘70s, predominantly of the B Drive-In Style films anchored by the cult film Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) directed by Toby Hooper and written by Kim Heinkel and Toby Hooper.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be screened on Saturday, October 28th at 7 pm.
A sinister story about friends who stumble upon an old and possibly abandoned house while en route to visit a grandfather’s grave site. Where they are terrorized by a chainsaw-wielding assailant. The film indie nature provided a film that helped birth the modern horror genre in a ground-breaking way for American cinema.
Overcoming extreme heat, casting issues, and all sorts of independent film issues, will be the discussion for the filmmakers who are in attendance for the film’s 49th anniversary screening.
Kim Henkel as well as Production Manager Ron Bozman. Bozeman also won an Oscar for his Producing of The Silence of the Lambs.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be followed by a special double feature of Don’t Look in the Basement and Don’t Look in the Basement 2, screening for the first time together.
In addition to these special Texas shot films the festival will host Sunday, October 29th a pair of double screenings at 11:30 am Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) and The Amazing Transparent Man (1960). Followed at 3 pm with the double feature of Attack of the Eye Creatures (1967) and The Killer Shews (1959).
Significantly more information can be found at
It Came From Texas Film Festival
Also that Sunday, at 7 pm the Mocky Horror Picture Show will perform a live riffing of The Giant Gila Monster (1959).
