UPDATED 10/6/2014: Marcus Theatres has added Tuesday showings at 4:00p and 7:00p to their Harry Potter series
By hook, crook, or budget exhibition packages, Marcus Theatres’ children’s series have a habit of retreading 21st century animation — and October’s “Flick or Treat” program is no different.
Well, almost no different.  Monster House — the tricycle/dog/tween-eating haunted house movie that’s scarier for the uncanny valley it hits with Zemeckian facial expressions — begins the series on Friday, Oct. 3. But 1995’s live-action Casper (Oct. 10 -12) is a definite outlier in both its nearly 20 years of age and the fact that it’s a pox on Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman’s careers.
Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Oct 17 – 19) pits Aardman Animations’ Anglo inventor and his slightly effeminate dog against a rabbit that grows hyper-intelligent and gigantic in size when one well-meaning, misguided invention goes awry. As the series standout, it’s also the lone selection worth more than the discount $2 admission Marcus is charging for these screenings. Even a few dollars for the Adam Sandler vehicle Hotel Transylvania (Oct. 24 – 26) seems criminal.
“Flick or Treat” doubles alongside a“Harry Potter Moviethon,” which will screen an installment in the eight film franchise on Wednesday and Saturday each week for $5. The series begins Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 7:00p with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and runs through late November. A Potter series is an easy cash grab and unabashedly autumnal, but with the current state of YA adaptations in disrepair, who can blame ’em?
- Full details on Macrus’ series can be found at MarcusTheatres.com