Saturday matinee double feature: classic horror

Above : Lon Chaney Jr. and Evelyn Ankers star in the 1941 horror film “The Wolf Man.” (Photo/Getty Images)

Fans of classic horror are in for a pre-Halloween treat. A double-feature-matinee treat , no less.

At 1 p.m. on Saturday, the 1933 version of “The Invisible Man” and the 1941 version of “The Wolf Man” will screen at two area movie theaters, Regal Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.

Directed by James Whale , “The Invisible Man” features Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin, a scientist who discovers the means by which to make himself invisible – but who then goes mad in the process.

San Francisco Chronicle critic Bob Graham wrote, “The many special effects – some retouched on film by hand – are quaint by today’s digital standards, but that only makes them all the more fun.”

Released just a week following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, “The Wolf Man” is a reworking of an old folk tale about a man (played by Lon Chaney Jr. ) who, bitten by a wolf, becomes a wolf-man bydrid every full moon. ( Note : This special presentation could be called a Claud Rains double feature as Rains stars as the Wolf Man’s father.)

AV Club critic Keith Phipps wrote that the “film uses werewolf legends as an excuse to put modern minds comfortable living with moral ambiguity into conflict with undeniable evil. It finds modern sophistication and cultured intellects unprepared to deal with a threat that’s already at hand, maybe even under our own skin.”

Besides the fun of watching both movies, the other good thing is that you’ll still have plenty of time to go out and buy treats for the next night’s trick-of-treaters.

Kat Kat bars, anyone?