Halloween Poe-A-thon: Karloff and Lugosi face off in The Black Cat (1934) w/ The Tell-Tale Heart

Arkadin Cinema & Bar is spending Halloween with Edgar Allan Poe. On Saturday, Oct. 31, they're running a day-long tribute called the Halloween Poe-A-thon, nearly 12 hours of Poe adaptations stretching from avant-garde silents to stone-cold classics. The lineup includes three films starring St. Louis horror hero Vincent Price and two free events, and the whole thing is billed as a tribute to Poe as the "granddaddy of horror."

One of the centerpieces is The Black Cat (1934), a Pre-code chiller directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. It's the first time horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi team up and face off on screen—a pairing that anticipates The Rocky Horror Picture Show by four decades. The film takes its title from Poe's tale of terror and follows American honeymooners held captive in a creepy mansion by the Black Mass high priest Hjalmar Poelzig, with Lugosi playing Poelzig's frenemy, the psychiatrist Dr. Vitus Werdegast. The plot runs through necrophilia, ailurophobia, drugs, a deadly game of chess, torture, and human sacrifice.

That's paired with The Tell-Tale Heart (1941), the directorial debut of Jules Dassin. It's described as full of Orson Wellesian tropes, and The Guardian called it "a bizarre, utterly irrational masterpiece."

The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart run from 3:15 PM to 4:45 PM at Arkadin Cinema & Bar, 5228 Gravois Ave. Tickets are $7, and each screening is ticketed separately.