Spooky Silent Cinema Night

Cozy up in the barn to experience a playful homage to a bygone era of storytelling. The Unsilent Picture is a spooky hybrid event that blends a live foley sound effect performance with an original black&white silent ghost story film. The film stars Bill Irwin, the last great American vaudevillian and Tony Award winning “Clown Prince of Broadway.” (Also known to millions as Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street). This screening of The Unsilent Picture will feature the world famous sound effect artist, Leslie Bloome, in person performing live foley sound effects to accompany the film as it runs. Co-founder of Alchemy Post Sound, Bloome is an award winning Foley artist, who has been featured performing sound effects stunts live on The Tonight Show and who has contributed Foley sound to more than 400 films and television shows. 

An in-person artist talkback on the history of spooky silent cinema with Bloome and, director, Alex Harvey, will directly follow the screening. 

A double feature of the fantastic 1920 expressionist horror film THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI will play as a double feature following a short set break. 

The Unsilent Picture was meticulously shot to imitate in the detailed style of the silent two-reeler films of the 1920s. Loosely based on the Adventure of the Mysterious Picture by Washington Irving (“the father of the American ghost story”), the movie follows Dr. Geoffrey Crayon (played by Mr. Irwin), who is invited on a hunting weekend at the estate of his niece and her fiancée, both devotees of the occult. Crayon - the only vegetarian in this carnivorous party, not to mention the only "man of science"- has no time for the ghost tales his companions tell each other by the fire. 

But everything changes for this stodgy old atheist when he’s asked to sleep in a “haunted” chamber with the “mysterious” painting above the mantelpiece. Dr. Geoffrey is then thrust into a fitful night of classic halloween shenanigans (featuring Irwin’s rubber-faced antics) that will change his life forever. 

 The Unsilent Picture is a gothic, buffoonish, live foley silent film adaptation of a Washington Irving ghost story that reminds us that no matter how much we grow up, our fear of the unknown is always lurking nearby. 

Race Brook Lodge is a hidden gem in The Berkshires, at the foot of Mt. Race and a short hike from the Appalachian trail. The yoga & event barn at Race Brook is simultaneously rustic and sublime, steeped in hundreds of years of New England history. The Stagecoach Tavern is unpretentious fine dining, exquisite farm-to-table cuisine in a relaxed atmosphere. Much of the food is sourced from Race Farm, right on the property!