Hammer & Tong’s East Van Showcase: The Haunted Saloon

Hammer & Tong’s East Van Showcase: The Haunted Saloon

The best Halloween shorts in town!
Plus Virtual Reality!

DOORS AT 6pm — SHOW STARTS 6:45!

$10 at the door
$8 advance tickets through Eventbrite!

+19 with 2 pieces of ID for alcohol and main floor access. Minors in the balcony.

Wear your Halloween Costumes if you’ve got them…
We have a best costume prize!

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Come one, come all-
The East Van Showcase returns!

Problem is that something has gone terribly wrong…

We were all set for another great Showcase. We locked a group of exciting halloween & horror films from around the world for the HALLOWEEN SCREAM. We put together a fantastic foursome of local shorts for the SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN. We even secured our first ever VIRTUAL INSANITY with a VR section to delight and terrify you.

But something is stirring in the bowels of the The Rio Theatre…

It all started with eerie saloon music. It was as if the Rio’s piano was playing itself!

Then something strange happened with the awards for the Showdown. We had awards for best acting, makeup and best short film…

But one disappeared. The makeup one. It was replaced by BEST MONSTER.

Okay, a little creepy sure, but nothing too scary.

Just as we were calming down though, we found a strange bloodstain backstage at the Rio. Rachel Fox assured us that this was typical. That bloodletting had become a part of their late night shows.

We took her at her word.

Then the next day we were testing out people in our VIRTUAL INSANITY chamber. The very first person who used it was VanChan – Halloween Special‘s very own Zia Marashi, who screamed the whole way through. We thought Zia was just really into the experience, but when we took the goggles off him he was speaking in tongues, attacking anyone who came near, and doing copious amounts of pushups. Luckily our four Showcase Showdown directors- Jem Garrard, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Jordan Barnes-Crouse, and Karen Lam, were on hand. As we looked on in shock, the four directors took action. They restrained Zia, and got him back into VR, where he still is to this day (Please feed him some popcorn if you see him at the event).

Starting to get a little freaked out at this point. Hammer & Tong held a meeting to decide how to proceed with the 4th ever Showcase. After much deliberation, we decided to follow through with our plans to hold the show, and hopefully distract from some of the creepy things going on by embracing them. And thus the HAUNTED SALOON was born.

We’re charging $10 at the door and $8 in advance through eventbrite (who has no idea how risky this venture is).

DISCLAIMER- if you become a zombie, engage in a shootout with a demon desperado, or get eaten by a werewolf, you ARE NOT getting your money back.