Celebrate Halloween with a spooky film:

• The Grand Illusion presents the comedy-horror Return of the Living Dead at 7 and ooky 1962 sci-fi horror The Brain that Wouldn’t Die at 9pm; go to both for a brainy double-feature. They’ve also got an 11 pm late night screening of Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell, a 1968 Japanese horror film featuring a bloodthirsty space vampire.
• Another comedy-horror combo is Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, this weekend’s Midnight at the Egyptian flick.
• Fears of the Dark is a new animated film about nightmares, fears and phobias, created by six top graphic artists and cartoonists including Lorenzo Mattotti and Jerry Kramsky; it opens Friday at the Harvard Exit.
• SIFF Cinema continues its “Dark Nights” series with Tod Browning’s controversial Freaks on Halloween night and again Saturday and a film that inspired years of childhood nightmares for me, Rosemary’s Baby, starting Saturday. If you’re looking for a film you can show your children, put aside the horror for a while and visit SIFF Cinema Saturday morning for The Karate Kid.
• NWFF celebrates 25 years of “Thriller”, the groundbreaking Michael Jackson video that catapulted Jackson from mere internationally known pop singer into internationally known pop culture phemonenon. In addition to a full length screening of the long form video, NWFF presents an hour long TV special–”The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” and other videos and performances.