Vampire Movie and Live Organ Concert at GR Church

It might not be a religious experience, but the Halloween Pipe Organ Spooktacular at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church on Friday, October 29 at 8:00 p.m. should prove to be a unique one.

For the second year in a row, the church will present a silent horror movie to improvisational musical accompaniment by Thomas Mustachio, the church’s minister of music, who will play organ.

Referring to the recent pop culture vampire phenomenon of Twilight, the event uses the tagline “before there was ‘Team Edward,’ there was Nosferatu.” The church is looking to build on the success of last year’s Halloween-time screening of The Phantom of the Opera by showing the 1922 German movie based on Dracula . Last year’s event attracted some 350 people and proved to be “the largest attendance we’ve had at any of the events in many, many years, except for the Christmas concert,” noted Mustachio, who has been at the church since January 2009. The church is bringing in a special 9-ft. by 12-ft. screen for the event, to be held in its sanctuary, and there will be popcorn.

Mustachio, who’s originally from Wayne and recently moved to Bloomfield, says that the concept is one he is especially excited about. The event wasn’t a hard sell to church leadership, as a previous minister of music also screened Phantom in the same way some years ago.

To prepare for Nosferatu, he watched the movie a few times and created four-measure musical themes for each character, and in certain instances more than one — notably in the case of Orlok, the Dracula character, who has both a good and bad side. Mustachio says he uses a cue sheet as well. “It’s an informal listing of the dramatic points that are happening so I can prepare for them rather than to react to them,” he explained. Mustachio will not be visible to the audience; he will sit behind the screen at the church’s Schantz organ and watch the movie on a monitor on the instrument’s console.

According to nosferatumovie.com, “the earliest surviving screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel has had a long and dangerous life of its own. Almost destroyed by Stoker’s widow because of copyright infringement, this film has outlasted many others of the silent era.”

Though the movie is inherently scary, “we encourage [the audience] in the pre-movie dialogue to feel free to cheer for the good guys and boo and hiss for the bad guys,” says Mustachio, and therefore the scarier scenes are “dissipated quite a bit by audience’s lighthearted reception of the piece.”

The church was pleasantly surprised with last year’s turnout, and is looking for a similar if not better reception this year. “We’re hoping it’s as successful and that it can become a tradition,” says Mustachio.

Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Children under 12 accompanied by an adult are free. Tickets may be purchased in advance and picked up at the door.
Glen Ridge Congregational Church
195 Ridgewood Avenue, Glen Ridge
8p.m.
For tickets and information, 973-743-5596