For the past eight years, something spooky has been stirring down at Neukölln’s Rollberg Kino on Saturday nights. The cinema, in the back of an old-school shopping mall just off Hermannstraße, is part of the Yorck Kino chain of indie movie theatres – and home to Creepy Crypt, a weekly horror programme offering all manner of video creeps past and present.
The series has also branched out into a popular podcast – with merch to boot – where head programmer Daniel Denzin and his friend Cebo discuss the genre at large. The podcast is in German, though its fans are international, and makes a great sidekick to the weekly screenings, which are all either in English or with English subtitles. We sat down with Denzin to find out how Creepy Crypt became a staple of the Berlin film scene and what it means to be a horror-head all year round.
I just wanted to do something where you could be sure you could watch a horror film every Saturday.
How did you get involved with Creepy Crypt, and how did it become such a frequent event on the Berlin film calendar?
I work at our [Yorck Kinos] head office, that’s where I started out. I do a bit of accounting, a bit of marketing and a little programming, especially with our various film series. I approached my team and said I want to do this horror film series, and a colleague of mine helped to get it off the ground. It was special, since it was the first film series someone else curated for Yorck outside of our original programmer, which at the time was just a solo role. We hosted our first event in March 2016 – we did it, and the following Monday we began to organise the programme for the following week and my boss was like, “Oh so it’s happening every week now?” And we were like, “Yes, every week!” And since then it’s been a weekly affair that he’s very happy with.
What was the reason behind wanting to programme for horror specifically?
It all started when I was watching Insidious alone on my computer. In my opinion this film has the best jump scare in horror history, and I screamed aloud. This experience made me realise how lost that reaction was in that context – I could have had that in the cinema with others. That was the driving force behind the idea. It’s definitely a genre for collective experience. I like to be scared, and I like to sit in the cinema and something scary happens and people react, make a noise, something like that. It gives me joy.
I felt like horror wasn’t really represented at all in our [Yorck] programming, and it wasn’t happening in Berlin as a whole. There was one cinema – it’s since closed – called Eiszeit Kino, and they were putting on a horror show each Friday. And that’s why we did it on Saturday originally, because of their night on Friday. They eventually closed down and then we were the only horror event series running for quite some time. Now we have more of these kinds of film series, and horror as a genre is very big this year. It doesn’t necessarily all work for me, but there are a lot of horror films out there, which is a good thing.
What do you personally find so interesting about the genre?
I think it’s the trauma element to it. I mean, I’m not saying my childhood was horrible, but it wasn’t easy. I think that’s the thing a lot of people are attracted to. If you’re growing up and you’ve got something hidden inside of you, you can be drawn to these stories where people are hiding something, or have a monster inside, so to speak. I’m gay and grew up in a very small town, it took me a long time to be true to myself. So I think that was a part of it, this feeling of hiding something, and horror is great for this.
What’s the programming process like, how do you select the films?
I’ll look at what’s new, whether I can get my hands on it for a screening. And then once those new titles are lined up for the weeks ahead, it’s about filling the programme with classics. I like to try and get films that have only had release on DVD or Blu Ray – then there’s the possibility to show people something they’ve never had the chance to see on a big screen.
In my mind, horror is always at the forefront of new things.
There’s often a strong formulaic aspect in genre cinema. Do you think that lends itself to timelessness, or is there room to be more topical?
Horror is always something different and evolving. It’s aware of what is scary within that moment in time. Get Out was such a crazy moment. We had this race-conscious shift by using the horror genre to amplify what was happening. It’s amazing you can do this with a horror film. So in my mind, horror is always at the forefront of new things. It can channel so many stories. Look at The Substance – whether you like it or not, it’s telling an interesting story on how we view ourselves, how women evolve in their career or are not able to.
Can you talk to me about the podcast side of Creepy Crypt?
I started it with another person, Cebo. He has a true crime podcast, Seriously Crime, on all manner of true crime things. He was visiting Creepy Crypt film nights regularly and we got to know one another, and then we went to a premiere together for a film called Mad Heidi, an Austrian movie about a Swiss mountain girl named Heidi. Very B movie vibes!
Afterwards we walked to the train station and stood in the cold for about two hours, gushing about this movie and horror films. At one point Cebo’s girlfriend was calling like, “Where are you?” I’d always wanted to do a podcast on horror movies but I didn’t want to do it alone and didn’t know how to, so it manifested through that night. Cebo’s production knowledge helped with that side of things. It comes out every Wednesday, we have a rotation, one week we discuss three new movies and then on the next we discuss some classics. It’s so much fun.
Is there a particular type of person watching and listening? What’s the Creepy Crypt demographic?
I mean, with the Yorck Unlimited programme we get a lot of people who are coming through their membership, exposing themselves to different screenings all the time, broadly browsing our programming. Then we get horror regulars who are coming weekly for their scary fix. It’s interesting sometimes to see which people are coming to which movies – you play Friday the 13th and you see people turn up you’ve never seen before.
The same for a new horror like Longlegs – we’ll have faces that have never heard of Creepy Crypt. It is interesting, after eight years of running it, how new faces can always get drawn in and then maybe get into the podcast afterwards too. But that’s normal; Berlin is big and this is one small Kino in Neukölln. But we have our regulars, and fans aware of the podcast and generally in love with the horror genre.
After doing this for so long, does Berlin have what you would call a healthy horror film scene?
Drop-Out Cinema is a small German distributor that backs a lot of this kind of cinema, and a lot of smaller Kinos will show this kind of stuff in Berlin. If you’re looking for it there is always something. With Creepy Crypt I just wanted to do something where you could be sure you could watch a horror film every Saturday, at the Rollberg – it’s reliable, it’s a community.
Yes, horror definitely has a community – in the film world, it’s really the genre with the most ride-or-die fans. What do you think it is about horror that creates that longstanding commitment?
I think it’s the variety horror brings. There’s so much – monsters, trauma, slashers, psychology. There’s so many different stories in there. Horror comedies, for example, or zombies. And you know you’re probably going to have a reaction to them, whether that be gore or a humorous edge.
- Saturdays at Rollberg Kino, Rollbergstr. 70, Neukölln, times vary. Visit the Creepy Crypt website for the full programme, and listen to Creepy Crypt Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Titles from the Crypt
A few horror favourites from Daniel Denzin
Fright Night (1985)
“My favourite movie of all time.”
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
“Robert Englund [who plays Freddy Krueger] is the funniest guy ever. I met him once at a signing and he was so lovely and nice.”
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
“[This] is one a lot of people dismiss. I love it, it’s very camp.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
“I think that’s the best out of them all. The first one is good, it sets the tone, but the vibe hasn’t been found yet. But in 3 we actually [get backstory on] Freddy Krueger, it’s a crazy story and I love it the most.”
Jason X (2001)
“I love Jason X, because it’s so stupid and dumb. There’s that expression “jumping the shark” … they took the series to the most ludicrous depths, literally to space.”
