This week on Kaleidoscope, WYSO music director Juliet Fromholt spoke with filmmaker Victor Bonacore, host of Cult Movie Monday at The Neon movie theater in Dayton. The series brings underground classics from regional and national filmmakers to the big screen for one-time screenings, and features Q&A sessions with people who helped make the films. The final film for this season of Cult Movie Monday will be Blood Rage, at 7:30pm on Monday, November 20. In the interview, Victor Bonacore spoke with Juliet about why he wanted to start the series, and what viewers can expect from Monday’s screening.
Earlier this year, Victor Bonacore founded the Cult Movie Monday series at The Neon, an independent movie theater in downtown Dayton. He explained why he wanted to bring classic cult films to the local community:
“I have a little bit of history working in indie theaters and going to festivals, and it was a fun idea to do a weekly cult movie night in Dayton. We only have a few independent theaters, and some of them are one or two screens. Cult films have a very niche audience and sometimes get surpassed.”
So far, he said, the series has been a success. Each Monday features both a feature-length and a short film. This season’s offerings included several rare, difficult to obtain films that audience members may be unable to obtain elsewhere, he told Juliet, including Ohio-made horror films The Barn and Possibly Michigan. The series has also brought directors like Lucky McKee to the theater for Q&A sessions following the screenings. Bonacore also said that he tried to made themed selections for the series. For example, he called this Monday’s film, Blood Rage, “the original Thanksgiving Slasher.” He Told Juliet, “It’s got a good sense of humor, it’s got really good gore gags, it’s over the top–as a lot of the stuff that we play at Cult Movie Mondays–and it’s short and sweet.”
Victor Bonacore said that Cult Movie Mondays will return in 2024. For more information about the screening of Blood Rage on November 20, visit neonmovies.com.
Text by Peter Day, adapted from an interview by Juliet Fromholt aired on November 15th, 2023.
