Drive-In Double Feature! Zombie Apocalypse

Thursday, May 17, 2012 @ 8:00pm

Event Info

Admission

$15/general admission (per car), $12/WBEZ members (per car)

Venue

Cascade Drive-In

1100 E. North Avenue

West Chicago,

60185

Presenter

Chicago Public Media - WBEZ 91.5FM
312-948-4600

WBEZ's Off-Air Event Series extends your listening experience to nights on the town – come see what you’ve been hearing and celebrate Chicago! Each month promises to be different and something not to miss—with discounted tickets for WBEZ members.
_____

It is vital that you stay in your homes… Unless you’re venturing out to Cascade Drive-In, Illinois’ largest outdoor cinema, where Filmspotting hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen will be on hand to usher in a Zombie Apocalypse Double Feature! Don’t miss your chance to treat that delicious brain of yours to 2009’s smash hit Zombieland and Edgar Wright’s 2004 genre send-up Shaun of the Dead on the big screen.

Zombieland is a 2009 American zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Together they take an extended road trip across Southwestern United States in an attempt to find a sanctuary free from zombies.

Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British horror zombie comedy directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, and co-written and starring Simon Pegg alongside Nick Frost. Pegg plays Shaun, a man attempting to get some kind of focus in his life as he deals with his girlfriend, his mother and stepfather. At the same time, he has to cope with an apocalyptic uprising of zombies.

Both films toy with a genre created by legendary schlock filmmaker George Romero, who almost singlehandedly defined the concept of a Zombie Apocalypse with his groundbreaking films Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1982).

Booming in the United States in the early 1950s, the Drive-In Movie Theater became one of the best ways to see multiple movies with the family in the comfort of your car. In 1952, the Cascade Drive-In opened as one of the largest in Illinois (with 1,200 car spaces) where it remains one of the few still in business. It is located at the intersection of North Avenue and Prince Crossing Road in West Chicago, which is about an hour drive due west of the city. Click here for suggested directions.

Your hosts:

Adam Kempenaar is the co-host and executive producer of the popular film discussion podcast Filmspotting, also broadcast on WBEZ. Kempenaar holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Iowa and bachelor's degrees in Film Studies (Iowa) and English (Grinnell College). Kempenaar has also taught four film classes at the University of Chicago's Graham School – “The Auteur and the Hack: Hawks vs. Curtiz”, “The New Hollywood," “Nobody’s Perfect: The Films of Billy Wilder” and "Hollywood Reflected: Movies About Movies."

Josh Larsen joined Filmspotting as co-host in January 2012. Prior to that, he spent 11 years as a film critic for Chicago-based Sun-Times Media. Josh writes about movies at LarsenOnFilm and is editor of the faith and culture magazine Think Christian. You can follow him on Twitter @LarsenOnFilm.