It’s the 20th anniversary of Child’s Play, one of the very small handful of 1980s thrillers that could qualify as a modern horror classic. It’s also the project that brought Brad Dourif and screenwriter Don Mancini together for a collaboration that’s lasted through four sequels and the in-the-works reboot of the franchise (after the screening, Mancini will do a Q&A). The story involves a serial killer, Charles Lee Ray (Dourif), who is gunned down by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon) in a toy store. As he’s dying, Ray transfers his soul into a “Good Guy” doll (your “friend to the end”) that ultimately finds its way to young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) when his mother (Catherine Hicks) buys the malevolent toy for Andy’s birthday. The film holds up quite well—really, only the decor and Joe Renzetti’s score date it—and it’s surprising how subtly the film is built up (more than 20 minutes separate its blood-and-thunder opening and the first mayhem), and how comparatively serious it is, compared to the sequels. That’s not to say that it’s lacking in horror or humor—sometimes in skillful combination, as in the scene where Chucky attacks Detective Norris in his car. It all works, thanks to the clever blend of the fresh with the expected horror tropes (including having the apparent hero join the ranks of classically worthless heroes by spending much of the climax unconscious). And let’s face it, Chucky is a singularly creepy concept, made all the creepier by Dourif’s voice performance and the doll’s resemblance to the then-popular My Buddy doll.

“What we have here is—failure to communicate.” So says Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke (1967), one of the few iconic American films of its era to stand the test of time. It may not quite be a great film, but it may be something more: the embodiment of a way of thought. It is certainly the quintessential screen persona of the late Paul Newman, who stars as Luke, a man sent to a prison farm for vandalizing parking meters. It seems a rather senseless crime, but—like everything else about Luke—it’s part of a kind of messianic statement. Luke is a willful martyr, a self-made Christ; he comes to be something of a real Christ in his refusal to be broken by the cruelty of a world he sees as wrong-headed, and in being all things to the downtrodden who surround him. He embodies their dreams, their hopes—and he will, ultimately, pay the price for them. At every turn, Luke—almost masochistically—is ready and willing to suffer for others and his own sense of what’s right. Whether it’s taking a beating or painfully eating 50 eggs, it’s all the same to him. What makes the film still work, 40 years after the fact? Newman and the screenplay. Newman keeps the character real and engaging. He never lets on that there’s anything more than what you see, yet there obviously is—but what it is is left to the viewer. The screenplay is in on the game, crafting a role for Newman that’s just right: It plays to the anti-establishment mood of 1967 without pandering to it and seems just as fresh today because of it. Reception with screenwriter Frank Pierson will follow the screening in Pack Place’s lower lobby.

With Elton John’s “Amoreena” on the soundtrack, the mood, the era and the tone of Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is set in under three minutes of screentime. The blend of an in-period song (with plenty of subtext) and images of a summer day on the often unappealing streets of Brooklyn make a perfect introduction to this fact-based modern classic about an ill-conceived crime that goes wrong, yet turns its perpetrator into a kind of folk hero—for a day at least. Al Pacino stars as Sonny Wortzik, a man who attempts to rob a bank in order to pay for a sex-change operation for his boyfriend, Leon (Chris Sarandon). The bank turns out not to have much money. That, at least, is the bare-bones reading of the story, which, ultimately, is also about the whole business of being a celebrity, and the thin line between fame and notoriety. Consider the early scene in which the teller prefers to go back into the bank as a hostage with Sonny. Why? Because she’ll be on TV and part of the excitement that’s unfolding. It’s part and parcel of a shrewdly observed comedic tragedy that benefits from the stylishly documentarian approach of director Sidney Lumet, the wonderfully constructed Frank Pierson screenplay and the fascinating Pacino performance, which runs the gamut from swagger to pathos. The psychology of the film is never less than penetrating as Sonny goes from instant celebrity and a crowd favorite (“Atttica! Attica!”) to instant decline (the crowd learns that he’s bisexual) and then back to celebrity (thanks to a gay contingent). Without actually commenting on this, the film, wisely, leaves the viewer to ponder it. Bracing and surprisingly deep, Dog Day Afternoon remains one of the ‘70s brightest moments.

After being failed by his professor, medical student Peter (Jeremy Strong) finds himself involved with a young actress named Bogart (Fairuza Balk) who takes him to northern California and her family of marijuana farmers. These include Brad Dourif as the physics-professor-turned-hippie father and Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) as the mom, who help Peter loosen up and undergo a transformation. The story focuses on greed and the difficult relationship between fathers and sons. In a funhouse-mirror inversion of Peter’s situation, Dourif’s character is at odds with his own son (Chris Messina), whose impatience threatens to bring the feds down on the whole benign, living-with-nature-and-smoking-it operation. Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times writes, “First-time writer-directors Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs have assembled a strong cast around fellow first-timer Strong, augmenting the proceedings with Ernest Hozman’s lovely ‘70s-throwback cinematography.” Time Out New York‘s David Fear says, “In case the retro title credits and character-actor casting (Peter Bogdanovich, Brad Dourif) didn’t tip you off, Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs are aiming for an offbeat ‘70s vibe. Though the movie achieves that New Hollywood contact high only in fits and starts, this familial drama still leaves a pleasant buzz.” Dourif specifically requested this quirky indie film—his latest—be screened as part of the festival.

Another coup for this year’s festival is the closing-night film, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival and has been chosen for the closing-night film for the London Film Festival. And to sweeten the deal, there’s the fact that Danny Boyle—director of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later ..., Millions and Sunshine—is an Asheville favorite. The press notes tell us that this is the story of “Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Intrigued by Jamal’s story, the jaded police inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show. When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the inspector and 60 million viewers are about to find out.” Reviews have been ecstatic. Richard Corliss (Time) writes, “Boyle’s most ambitious film to date is also his greatest. Simply put, Slumdog Millionaire is one of the best—if not the best—films of 2008, as teeming with life as the slums it depicts.” The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Morgenstern goes even further: “There’s never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria—groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style. Mr. Boyle and his colleagues, including his Indian co-director, Loveleen Tandan, have pulled off a soaring, crowd-pleasing fantasy that’s a tale of unswerving love, a searing depiction of poverty and injustice, and a marvelous evocation of multinational media madness.” Reception will follow the screening in the Pack Place Lower Lobby.

Also being screened out of competition at this year’s festival is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, described as “a wrenching Holocaust story about a young German boy and his forbidden friendship with a Jewish child. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is living a charmed life in Berlin as the son of a high-ranking Nazi officer when his father (David Thewlis) is suddenly transferred to a job out in the country. Bruno, as well as his sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) and mother (Vera Farmiga), must all join the father at his new post. Bruno is lonely and confused by his new surroundings, and he doesn’t understand why he can’t wander the grounds or play at a nearby farm. The ‘farm,’ of course, is a concentration camp, though Bruno doesn’t know this. He soon sneaks away to explore, and meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a prisoner of the camp. Shmuel is 8, the same age as Bruno, and the two form a timid, careful friendship, playing checkers and catch through the barbed wire fence.” The centerpiece of the film—aside from the relationship of the boys—lies in the awakening consciousness of Bruno and his mother as they come to terms with the horrors of the Nazi doctrine and the participation of their father/husband in those horrors. “Builds a tightening sense of dread that finds no release in the final, tragic twist. Expect a sleepless night,” says Matthew Leyland of Total Film.

Director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) teams up with actor Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler, which takes a place of honor as the opening film of the Asheville Film Festival this year—and that’s something of a coup, since the film is also the closing-night film of the New York Film Festival and has already won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Rourke is also heavily favored for an Oscar nomination for his performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a washed up wrestler who is working his way through the independent wrestling circuit in hopes of one final match with his old arch-enemy, The Ayatollah (Ernest Miller). In the midst of this search for professional redemption, the film also charts Robinson’s quest for personal redemption with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). Reviews from the festivals where it’s already played are ecstatic. “Who’d have thought that one of the great movies of Toronto (and the year) would turn out to be a wildly original, existentialist tragicomedy decked out in frosted-blond hair extensions and spandex tights?” writes Scott Foundas in the Village Voice, while David Ansen in Newsweek says, “The miracle and mystery of perfect casting came to mind at the Toronto film festival as I sat alongside 580 enthralled viewers witnessing the resurrection of Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s gritty, deeply affecting The Wrestler.” Reception in Pack Place Lower Lobby following the screening.

“My church is the Church Without Christ. I am a member and a preacher for that church where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way.” So preaches Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif), the reluctant evangelist in John Huston’s film version of Flannery O’Connor’s short story Wise Blood. The legendary Huston is reputed to have considered this his best film, and he may well have been right. It’s almost certainly his most heavily layered work, thanks to the source material and Huston’s reaction to it. (The film can be read as both deeply religious and deeply nonreligious at the same time.) The story follows Hazel’s fortunes from his Army discharge through his aimless drifting across the rural South. Though not (he thinks) spiritually inclined, Hazel gives in to “the calling” in large part because people keep mistaking him for a preacher. But what he preaches has little to do with anything like scripture and is more like Southern-fried existentialism. The problem is that Hazel can’t get away from Christ no matter how hard he tries—despite both the unpleasant memories of his evangelist grandfather (played in flashback by Huston) and the constant evidence of hypocrisy and corruption he sees in the religion practiced around him. With its catalogue of Southern Gothic characters and strange obsessions, this bitterly funny film is a richly rewarding work that contains what is possibly Dourif’s greatest performance. Long out of circulation and yet to be released on DVD, this screening of Wise Blood presents a rare opportunity to see this neglected American classic.