Friday Late: Gothic Halloween

JD persuaded CD and his girlfriend and me (and I persuaded M and HS) that it would be a good idea to go and see The Cabinet of Dr Caligari at the V&A after hours on Halloween. What he failed to tell us was that it was part of a gothic extravaganza. There were after hours tours of the galleries, magic performed by gothic magician Dr John wearing odd contact lenses, tarot, music by DJ Steve Weeks of the Slimelight, short films hosted by the Halloween Society and a horse-drawn hearse at the entrance.






The best part of the evening really was to be able to wander around the galleries of the V&A after hours. I once did a drawing class here where we were using the empty galleries as inspiration - really was quite eery but also nice to be in the galleries when everyone else had gone home - you feel quite privileged.

The place was swarming with goths. Pale faces, spiky hair or big morticia hair. Black robes and purple. At the end of the evening a couple were overheard admiring each other's cloaks - one had bought it second hand, the other was hand-made by her mother. Men in Christopher Lee Dracula garb or kind of leather Edward Scissorhands-alike. Black lipstick. MAC doing gothic makeovers (you don't see these kinds of results in Selfridges).




So eventually we got into see The Cabinet of Dr Caligari which is a silent black and white film from 1919. A new sound track to the film was provided by the ear splitting sound of death metal band Unsanctum. People sat and watched for a bit and when they couldn't stand it any longer left to make way for other people who in their turn left when they couldn't stand it any longer. I have never seen a band perform with so little energy and yet still have such a profound effect on the audience (at the end it seemed to be split between love and hate of them). They didn't actually add anything to the film in terms of atmosphere and possibly detracted from it enormously. But it was all in the spirit of the evening.