Inspired by tabloid headlines, music icon David Byrne stepped behind the camera for the idiosyncratic TRUE STORIES. When a mysterious visitor arrives in the the town of Virgil, TX, he meets several eccentric citizens as they prepare for its 'Celebration for Specialness'. Ace cinematographer Ed Lachman (with music by Talking Heads) evokes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of voodoo rituals, shopping malls, conspiracy theories, and pre-fab buildings in this tribute to extraordinariness of the ordinary.

After South Korea’s film industry suffered under authoritarian rule throughout the 1970s, filmmakers in the following years were eager to make up for lost time. Enter SUDDENLY IN THE DARK. When Kang Yu-jin brings in a housemaid to help around the house, his wife Seon-hee grows weary of Mi-ok presence not only because she suspects an affair between her husband and their new guest, but mainly because Mi-ok carries around an old wooden doll that resembles her. As her suspicions grow, Seon-hee is thrown into a world of nightmares and madness as things spiral out of control. Blending domestic drama, psychedelic visuals, and haunted dolls horror - SUDDENLY IN THE DARK is a underseen precursor to the modern K-horror movement in a sizzling, new 4K restoration.

A painter chasing his big break. His younger sister, still on fire with ideals. One New York summer to expose the gap between them.

When her grandson, a professional Tour de France cyclist named Champion, is kidnapped by mysterious square-shouldered henchmen, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters — an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire — to rescue him.

Shaw Brothers meet THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO in this visually stunning, action packed, Wuxia martial arts fantasy film made entirely with puppets!

Dusty Nelson's EFFECTS-a gritty, independent psychological thriller, presented by Death Gods Film!

Crew members on the set of a horror film suspect that staged murders for the camera may be real. Created by George Romero’s crew between projects, EFFECTS is unsung masterpiece in the world of regional, low-budget horror! Featuring a surprisingly tender lead performance from horror actor Joseph Pilato!

Three feet tall! Two inch fangs! It's SOV Summer series time once again Kansas City and we're kickin' off with a bang. This month, we're delving into a regional vampyric tale with a little twist. Ready the garlic and adjust your eyeline as Analog Sunday presents: Ankle Biters!

“A small town is overrun with ankle-biting-blood-sucking dwarf vampires. Things get complicated when the vertically-challenged coffin-creepers get their hands on a sword witht the blood of the last slain Tall Vampire. With this relic, they can create a super-race of Shaq-sized Dracula's out of any tall human. Now, the half vampire / half human, Drexel, is the town's – and the world's – only hope to stop the countryside invasion of the mini-demons. There are no short fixes to this tall problem.”

A troubled fashion designer wastes the day away as she, and her young female lover, confront the memories of relationships past. A seismic film in the gay canon, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT explores love and obsession in a way that only Rainer Werner Fassbinder can!

Alfred Hitchcock transforms a chance meeting into a perfect engine of suspense in “Strangers on a Train.” When two men casually discuss “swapping murders,” one takes the idea deadly seriously. Featuring some of Hitchcock’s most notable set pieces - including the legendary carousel climax - the film is a chilling study of doubles, guilt, and the terrifying ease with which violence can be set in motion.

A program of unsettling Soviet animations for unsettling times. Amusing and gross, don't bring your kids!

Animation Club presents a program of unsettling Soviet animations for unsettling times. With a Ren and Stimpy sensibility, these shorts will both amuse and gross you out. Don’t bring your kids! July 15, 2026 at 7pm. Hosted by Drea (@dicarlotomboy).

'ANIMATION CLUB' is an ongoing series that celebrates new and classic animated films from around the world! From studio titans to hidden indie gems; traditional 2D to stop-motion, 3D animation, experimental, and everything in-between!

Joel & Ethan Coen's neo-noir crime thriller- "Blood Simple" presented by Death Gods Film!

The owner of a seedy Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies, and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered. BLOOD SIMPLE is a crackerjack crime thriller exploring the depths of American violence.

Six rural American communities are marked as candidates for an unthinkable fate: their land, a burial ground for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. Against the impassive logic of government analysis and archives, a people’s history of resistance and stewardship emerges through a visceral journey across the landscapes, ecologies, and personal histories of the candidate sites. Presented by No Nukes KC Coalition and followed by an in-person Q&A with the filmmaker, Casey Carter!

Constructed in five distinct acts, Her Smell follows self-destructive Becky (Elizabeth Moss), the front woman of a fictional 90s Riot Grrl band called Something She, as she struggles with an addiction causing irreversible damage, a difficult sobriety, and attempts to recapture the creative inspiration that lead her band to success. With original music written by Alicia Bognanno from the rock band Bully sung by Elizabeth Moss herself!

Peter Weirs 1975 landmark film of Australian New Wave film- "Picnic at Hanging Rock" presented by Death Gods Film!

During a rural summer picnic, a few students and a teacher from an Australian girls' school vanish without a trace. Their absence frustrates and haunts the people left behind. A landmark film in the Australian new wave, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is a masterpiece of dreamscape atmosphere!

Other Trash Films & Janice.Click return to Kansas City with a low-budget double-feature of unhinged Midwest madness: Zebra Hooves & I Was A Teenage Gargoyle!

Dylan, a 21-year-old construction worker in rural New Mexico, has his life changed when he is hired for temporary work at the “House of Splendor” ranch, a community of queer rodeo performers who take Dylan under their wing and show them a new version of the American dream. A dreamy coming-of-age movie about self-acceptance, chosen families, and queer love!

One of the most luminously beautiful and richly detailed stop-motion features in recent memory. Adapted from the writings of famed Gothic fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffman, the film weaves together the plots of three of his stories with the real-life drudgery of the writer's own life as a government clerk. Filled with operatic dreams, clockwork automatons, fire salamanders, witchcraft, love, magic, and the legendary city of Atlantis; Hoffmaniada is the first feature film in decades from legendary Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm.

Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style of directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN tells a tender, poignant and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection.

Set in 1980s post-punk London, REBEL DYKES reveals the explosion that happened when punk met feminism. A heady mash-up of animation, archive footage and interviews tells the story of a radical scene: squatters, BDSM nightclubs, anti-Thatcher rallies, protests demanding action around AIDS and the fierce ties of chosen families.

It's Kaijune, and to celebrate, the Horror Pod Class is continuing our Year of Monsters by exploring the biggest monsters around: kaiju! What movie are we showing? That's a surprise, but we'll give you a few hints: It has an environmental message; it's almost literally the director's only film (though not for lack of trying); and both skeletons and go-go dancing are involved.

What is it? The only way to know for sure is to come join us for a FREE screening at the Stray Cat Film Center on February 26, then stick around after the show as Orrin and Tyler host a live podcast discussing all things lycanthropic, complete with hair-raising giveaways!

Join us for a FREE screening of this seldom-seen film, and then stick around afterward as Orrin and Tyler discuss the history of J-horror, what makes a found footage movie work, and ectoplasmic worms!

THE HORROR POD CLASS is a monthly free screening hosted by Orrin Grey and Tyler Unsell where they seek out horror films that could be useful in a school setting. Screenings start at 7pm with a live podcast recording taking place after.

To relocate her family - including an ailing son - and save them from a farmer's plow, a widowed field mouse seeks the aid of a crow, and a myserious colony of rats, with whom she has a deeper link than she ever expected. Don Bluth's miraculous debut film is both a visually stunning gem of tradional American animation, and a delightfully grim blend of fantasy and science fiction.

KC Zine Collective and Andrew's Video Void are teaming up for ZINESOMMAR! Join us at Stray Cat Film Center on Saturday, June 20th for a double-feature presentation of A VERY PAGAN SOLSTICE (a new age mixtape loaded with robes, candles, ceremonial daggers, satanic Santas, martial arts experts, and peak pagan cringe) and 1973's folk horror classic THE WICKER MAN.

Few Hollywood films seethe with such queer intensity as “Gilda.” Beneath its surface glamour lies a noir of displaced desire, obsession, and rivalry, where eroticism flows less through romance than through looks, power struggles, and unspoken bonds between men. Rita Hayworth’s Gilda is not simply an object of desire, but a figure of camp excess whose iconic musical numbers turn heterosexual spectacle into provocation and masquerade. Set in a shadowy Buenos Aires of secrets and surveillance, Gilda encodes longing in what cannot be said, making it not just a noir classic, but a foundational text of queer cinema.

From daytime talk show audiences and local news to self-produced public access spots, lesbians were represented on-screen throughout the late 80s and early 90s. The Finding Aid’s “Lesbians on TV, TV on Lesbians” presents a variety of representation both by and of lesbians of that era. June 17th, 2026, 7pm at Stray Cat Film Center. Free! 

“Jack Magnus, once a successful businessman, is now so badly addicted to drugs, he can barely function. Drugs have forced him into a paranoid psychosis so deep he believes his dead buddy Mike is his only friend. Jack also believes that the D.E.A. and other supernatural authorities are out to kill him. The only way to save himself is to get them before they get him... in an all-out, blood-splattering killing spree.”

A woman travels around town trying to raise money for medicine as her sickly daughter, while a deserting soldier accompanies a musician to play the forced marriage of a sullen bride. A spellbinding duology, THE STONE WEDDING is a bleak, but beautiful masterpiece of Romanian cinema! Projected on 16MM FILM!

For our last day of Bleak Week, our programming team have put together a collection of bleak shorts. Ranging from animation, art house and even educational films that express in small doses the breadth of despair, intense experiences, and raw emotions.

Taste of Cherry follows Mr. Badii, a middle‑aged man in Tehran who has decided to end his life and is searching for someone willing to bury him afterward. As he drives through the city, he meets people from different walks of life, each encounter revealing something new about life. Abbas Kiarostami’s film is patient and deeply human.

After counseling a pregnant parishioner and her depressed, environmental activist husband, a pastor of a small congregation in upstate New York starts to spiral out of his control as he undergoes a spiritual and psychological crisis.

When Ludvík, a Communist party official, and his wife Anna return home from a party one evening, they discover that their house has been broken into and bugged—and that the state may be listening in on their every word. A number of Ludvík’s colleagues have already been terminated in an ongoing purge: could he be next? Unfolding like THE CONVERSATION by way of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, THE EAR evokes the ever-present sense of dread that defines life under authoritarianism.