Clark also learned that the best way to appreciate a good horror film was with other people. He and his friends would frequently rent five or six horror movies at a time, enjoying both the good and the bad.
"As I got older, I would find some of those movies on DVD, but I discovered it wasn't the same to just watch them by myself," Clark said. "I wanted to recreate that social movie experience where you could watch these classics on a big screen, but in a venue where you wouldn't get shushed for talking to your friends during the boring parts."
Thus, Midnight Murderama was born. Hosted in Columbia's own New Brookland Tavern, Murderama has brought the gore every Sunday at midnight for the past four years with a variety of horror films. Weekly selections run the gamut from zombies to serial killers with everything in between.
Recent picks included the 2006 cult hit "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" as well as the 1977 redneck romp "Eaten Alive." And with thousands of bloody films to choose from, Clark said he never has to repeat movies.
"I try to pick movies based on anything I think would be fun to watch in a group setting," Clark said. "Usually the time frame is anything made in the 1970s through current time, both U.S. and foreign. After that, anything's fair game. The only movies I try to stay away from are the overly realistic ones. I don't hate the genre, but in a crowd setting it just seems to take away the fun mood and generally bums people out."
It all began with a movie about a possessed gym that begins killing off its members one by one (the ironically named "Death Spa"). Clark said he was trying to get some friends together to watch the movie when he got the idea to start a weekly event that would bring horror fans together to watch some of the best (and worst) films out there.
"I hadn't watched 'Death Spa' because I wanted to get a group of people together to check it out," Clark said. "I heard through a friend that New Brookland had purchased a projector, and they were looking to make better use of it. My friend put me in contact with them, and it went from there."
As far as the crowd goes, Clark said numbers can fluctuate. One week will see 30 or 40 people, and sometimes there will only be five to 10. And with the laid-back setup at New Brooklyn Tavern, Clark said the event is ideal for people who want to watch the flick on the big screen as well as for those who want to socialize while watching it on the bar's televisions.
"Being on Sunday at midnight limits a lot of the crowd who have to wake up early on Monday, but it's been around long enough to become a staple for those looking for something to do," Clark said. "There's a certain kind of dedication people have who are willing to miss sleep and wreck their Mondays at work in order to watch someone get killed with a chainsaw."
Midnight Murderama runs every Sunday night, with NBT doors opening at 11:45 p.m. For more information, visit Midnight Murderama's Facebook page.
New Brookland Tavern music venue hosts weekly showing of modern, classic scary films
