Freer Gallery Gets Spooky on Halloween with Free Special Event “Fear at the Freer!”
For the first time, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will celebrate Halloween with a free special event “Fear at the Freer!” Friday, Oct. 31, featuring special screening of Japanese horror film Ringu—the original that inspired the American thriller The Ring. Complimentary ghoulish masks of creatures from the museum’s collection will be available, and visitors can take a self-guided tour of eerie museum objects.
From 5 to 7 p.m., visitors—encouraged to arrive in costume—can stroll the gallery and classical courtyard spaces of the Freer Gallery as they explore the darker side of Asian art with a self-guided tour, including stops to the meteorite dagger belonging to Emperor Jahangir in the 17th century, 700-year-old wrathful wooden guardians and ancient funeral accessories. Visitors can don masks of ominous objects from the museum’s collection that were designed to terrify, including human dragons, demons, tigers and taotie, or gluttonous ogres. Refreshments by food truck Tokyo and the City will be available for purchase.
Then at 7 p.m., visitors can get in the Halloween spirit with a free screening of Ringu (Ring), the 1998 Japanese film by director Hideo Nakata that kicked-off the J-horror craze, a genre that specializes in psychological horror and tension-building suspense.
“If you want to know how unspeakably creepy J-horror can be, watch Ringu,” said Tom Vick, curator of film for the Freer and Sackler galleries. “There’s a scene in it that will make you fear your own television.”
The movie, screened with English subtitles, begins with teenage friends Masami and Imako discussing the latest urban legend about a mysterious videotape: after watching it, people receive a phone call telling them that they only have seven days left to live. After Imako admits to having seen the tape—and dies days later—her aunt Reiko, a TV journalist, tracks down a copy and watches it herself. When her phone rings, she knows she only has seven days to solve the mystery and save her own life.
For a full listing of events at the Freer and Sackler galleries, including lectures, films and concerts, visit asia.si.edu/events.
About Film at the Freer and Sackler Galleries
For more than 15 years, the Freer Gallery’s film program has provided Washington, D.C., audiences with a broad selection of the most critically acclaimed films from Asia. In addition to annual events such as the Iranian and Hong Kong Film Festivals, the museums present retrospectives of particularly noteworthy actors and directors, and series focusing on the cinemas of various Asian nations and regions.
The program is helmed by Vick, an expert in Asian cinema and curator of film at the Freer and Sackler. Vick holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from Purchase College in Purchase, N.Y., and a master’s degree in film/video from California Institute of the Arts. Before coming to the Smithsonian, Vick was the coordinator of film programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is a consultant for the International Film Festival Rotterdam and has served on the juries of the Korean Film Festival in Los Angeles, the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal and Filmfest DC. Vick has contributed essays to World Cinema Directory: Japan, Film Festival Yearbook, Asian Geographic and other publications. His book, Asian Cinema: A Field Guide (2008), provides an insightful overview of the dynamic world of Asian cinema, and he is currently working on a book about Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located at 1050 Independence Avenue S.W., and the adjacent Freer Gallery of Art, located at 12th Street and Independence Avenue S.W., are on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day (closed Dec. 25), and admission is free. The galleries are located near the Smithsonian Metrorail station on the Blue and Orange lines. For more information about the Freer and Sackler galleries and their exhibitions, programs and other public events, visit asia.si.edu or follow twitter.com/freersackler or facebook.com/freersackler. For general Smithsonian information, call (202) 633-1000.
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