Dance Of The Damned (NC) [Four Films By Katt Shea]
Mon 20 Oct 2025
6pm
€10.50/€5
82 mins - United States 1989 Director: Katt Shea Starring: Starr Andreeff, Cyril O'Reilly and Debbie Nassar A vampire (Cyril O’Reilly) is searching through the late-night streets of Los Angeles, looking for his next victim. He ends up at a run-down strip club and is drawn to Jodi (Starr Andreeff), a dancer on the verge of committing suicide. Together, over the course of the evening, they cross the unspeakable boundaries that separate the living and the undead. After the success of STRIPPED TO KILL, Roger Corman approached Katt Shea to make another film involving exotic dancing. With her creative partner Andy Ruben, they came up with the screenplay for DANCE OF THE DAMNED. Shot briskly in two weeks, the resulting picture has a seductively dreamlike atmosphere with stylish cinematography (by Phedon Papamichael, who would later be nominated for an Academy Award for his work on NEBRASKA), a compelling script, and a winning performance by Andreeff as the distraught heroine.“A breath of fresh air in the overcrowded vampire genre.” The Bloody Pit of Horror
SHOOTING AT THE SPEED OF THOUGHT - FOUR FILMS
BY KATT SHEAIn Peter Traver's Rolling Stone review of the Katt Shea film POISON IVY, he writes: “why settle for the usual walk around the exploitation block when Shea offers a wild ride with the top down into uncharted territory?”. This comment could easily be applied to all of the genre movies that the filmmaker helmed during the 80s and 90s. A pioneering female director who started out working on low budget productions for the king of the B's Roger Corman, Katt Shea made films in this male-dominated world with taut screenplays (which she often co-wrote), snappy dialogue, innovative visuals, thoughtful characterisations and great performances. With the Museum of Modern Art and the British Film Institute hosting retrospectives of her work, Shea has been recognised as a notable filmmaker and Triskel Arts Centre is delighted to present a selection of her films, some of them never before seen on a cinema screen in Ireland. Katt Shea kindly took some time to talk to Triskel's Head of Cinema Chris O'Neill about her career and work. This interview will be appearing online soon (watch this space).
[F-Rated]
