The Grand Illusion

The Sprocket Society presents: a yacht blithely strays into a deranged trap in this legendary pre-Code thriller, shown with spooky shorts — all on 16mm film!

Castaway Joel McCrea washes ashore on a remote jungle island. In an incongruous gothic manor, wealthy Russian exile Count Zaroff (a gloriously villainous Leslie Banks) blithely hosts survivors of other such “accidents.” But Zaroff’s hospitality comes with a terrible price: the satisfaction of his psychopathic kink for hunting…humans. The manhunt is on! With comely Fay Wray at his side, armed only with a knife and his frayed wits, McCrea must somehow survive the cunning bloodlust of Zaroff and his ravening hounds.

As short and hard hitting as a crossbow bolt, this low budget studio throw-away has been copied countless times, yet never bested. Helmed by the director of KING KONG and shot on the same jungle sets, the tension and fog-choked visuals linger in the mind long after the credits roll.

All aboard: your berth awaits!

Presented with selected short subjects.

“The filmmakers deliver terrific set pieces and exotic atmosphere, resulting in one of the most lavish and best-looking B-movies ever made, with wonderfully lurid pre-Code flourishes: gruesome violence, sadism, and sexual perversity.” Sean Axmaker, Video Librarian

“There isn’t an ounce of fat and no line is thrown away. Films like this really aren’t made anymore, and it’s a breath of fresh air, even after 90 years.” Dan Roberts, We Are Cult

“[O]ften dismissed as a kind of proving ground for King Kong, time has demonstrated it to be much more than that. Though the film is approaching 95 years old, the ripples of its influence seem stronger than ever.” Brian Keiper, Bloody Disgusting

The first feature film wholly produced by Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, directed by Kurtis M. Spieler (Re-Director of New York Ninja).

A group of friends in a punk rock band discover a hidden cemetery in the woods, where they accidentally raise a horde of undead friars. Shot entirely on 16mm film, NIGHT OF THE VAMP-FRIARS is a loving tribute to the homegrown horror films made during the height of the video store era.

20th anniversary screening of Sofia Coppola's pastel-soaked cult classic, newly restored in 4K.

Coppola brings a candy-colored palette, a dreamy synth-pop soundtrack, and Converse high-tops to eighteenth-century Versailles for this exuberantly subversive, extravagantly stylized anti-biopic of one of history’s most infamous (and perhaps misunderstood) figures.

Kirsten Dunst portrays Marie Antoinette as a rebellious teenage princess, who marries the awkward young dauphin of France (Jason Schwartzman), soon to be crowned King Louis XVI. Feeling isolated in a royal court rife with scandal and intrigue, Marie Antoinette defies both royalty and commoner by living like a rock star—which can work for only so long.

Named the 10th best movie of the 21st century by The Big Picture podcast.

“A buoyant, passionately sympathetic dream-bio.” Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

“With lyrical intelligence and scrappy wit, Coppola creates a luscious world to get lost in. It’s a pleasure.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“A startlingly original and beautiful pop reverie that comes very close to being transcendent.” Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

Eleanor Coppola's behind-the-scenes documentation of her daughter Sofia directing the 2006 film MARIE ANTOINETTE, capturing the craftsmanship and challenges of being a young female director.

Polarizing upon its release, Sofia Coppola’s MARIE ANTOINETTE is now, 20 years later, widely embraced as a 21st-century cinematic cornerstone and a distilled expression of its director’s recurring themes of celebrity, wealth, and isolation. For the first time, Coppola’s dynamic craftsmanship in creating her personal vision for the brief life of the 18th-century queen in the years leading up to the French Revolution is on full display in this diary shot by her mother, filmmaker Eleanor Coppola, on the film’s set in Versailles in 2005.

From almost 80 hours of video, Eleanor began to assemble the footage during the pandemic lockdown, and Sofia helped finish editing it after Eleanor’s death in 2024. Narrated by Diane Lane, reciting Eleanor’s journals from the time, this is a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse that is both process-oriented and touchingly personal.

“Lush, intimate and compulsively watchable, this Coppola family affair bottles the fleeting nature of time and invites us to the ultimate Versailles party.” Tomris Laffly, Variety

“Making Marie Antoinette is considerably more than meets the eye… [It is] a circular and tenderly meta-textual film unto itself — one about two generations of women paying tribute to each other across space and time, seeding each other with the strength required to be seen in a world that would sooner flatten them into the wallpaper.” David Ehrlich, IndieWire