Scary Silent Films and Organist Spook Salem's Grace Church

By David Jonathan Lavin
September 19, 2018

Salem, MA – A Transylvanian count and Paris Opera House phantom are poised to spook Salem again this October at Salem’s Grace Episcopal Church, thanks to screenings of two silent horror films and the accompanying supernatural music of accomplished church organist Ryan Patten.

Hosted in Grace’s perfectly cavernous Gothic Revival sanctuary located on Essex Street in Salem’s McIntire District, showings of the 1920s silent film classics, Phantom of the Opera (1925) on Saturday, October 13, and Nosferatu (1922) on Saturday, October 27, resurrect as consummate organist Ryan Patten merges his improvisational talents alongside the film’s monsters to expand the city’s must-see offerings for Halloween.

Starring horror movie icon Lon Chaney, Phantom introduces Salem to a catacombic lair beneath the Paris Opera House where a phantom hides his disfigured face and obsessive love for the opera’s ingénue, Christine Daaé – favoring kidnapping and even murder to his tortured ruminations. Nosferatu, on the other hand, the gold standard in classic horror, brings the City of Witches its themes of desire, fear of infection and the unsuspectable dangers of Transylvanian house guesting – the hungry Count Orlok hatching his own obsessive quest in search of “fresh” love and a cozy new crypt. Ryan Patten, who has accompanied the films on pipe organ since their inception at Grace, relishes his role in reanimating the undead and frightening audiences with haunting Ukrainian folk tunes and eerie cacophonies.

“If you have a smaller organ it’s harder to scare someone, but if you have a larger organ, you can pull out all the stops and scare people,” says Patten, and “Grace’s organ is larger than many in this part of the country, and New England especially.”

When it comes to organs Patten says size generally equals volume, and “Grace’s organ has 2,100 pipes.”

Basking in the opportunity to play the dissonant melodies, ranging from playful to unnerving, the spooky silent films macabrely satisfy those who, as Patten calls it, “appreciate the silent film, not only as a form of entertainment, but also as an art form.” The movies have “really developed a following,” Ryan says.

In their third (Nosferatu) and fourth years (Phantom) at Grace, respectively, the scary silent movies provide Halloween lovers a sophisticated outlet for the oddities of classic horror amidst Patten’s haunting threnodies and the fitting backdrop of Grace’s medieval-like sacrarium – a surprising place for vampires, opera house recluses and maybe a few bats. What would Halloween be, after all, without a trip to Transylvania. A sure sign that words need not be spoken to convey fear, the hair-raising black and white visuals of the 1920s picture shows might this October just drip velvet red.

Phantom of the Opera
When: Saturday, October 13, 2018
Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm
Tickets: $20 (in advance or at the door)
Where: Grace Episcopal Church, 385 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970

Nosferatu
When: Saturday, October 27, 2018
Time: 7:30pm-9:00pm
Tickets: $20 (in advance or at the door)
Where: Grace Episcopal Church, 385 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970

TICKETS ONLINE:
https://grace-church.ticketlea...

HAUNTED HAPPENINGS POSTINGS:
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Contact
For more information about these event, please contact:
Jane Eskelund, Grace Episcopal Church
385 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970
Web: www.gracechurchsalem.org
Phone: (401) 486-0877