Before celebrating their first birthday with VALERIE & HER WEEK OF WONDERS at The Castle Cinema (17 APR), Zodiac Film Club calm their nerves with a little list of the most Zodiac AKA terrifying birthdays in cinema.

Sarah Kathryn Cleaver & Jordan Storm Louise

Facebook @ZodiacFilmClub | Instagram @zodiacfilmclub

We’ve been doing Zodiac for a year, and our birthday anxieties are the same as everybody else’s. What if nobody comes? What if the playlist is uncool? What if our cinema friends don’t get on with our friends from school? What if that Mugwort tea that Jordan got off the internet is actually something else entirely, and everyone trips balls all night long and forgets to Instagram Story the whole thing? (@zodiacfilmclub please).

To calm our nerves we’ve made a little list of the most Zodiac AKA terrifying birthdays in cinema.

A LITTLE PRINCESS (1995)

The lead character shares a name with one half of Zodiac (did you know Sarah means Princess?) and it’s directed by this year’s Oscars big shot Alfonso Cuarón. There’s a bit where the mean staff at the posh boarding school throw a birthday party with the least child-friendly decorating scheme ever, dark green and black balloons… it’s quite chic actually. Then there’s some terrible news, visually aided by the sombre decor. It’s an image that’s stuck with us since childhood.

ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968)

Yes, it’s more of a birth day than a birthday. Yes, Roman Polanski hates women. But we love Rosemary, the active, resourceful mother-of-the-antichrist-to-be. This film is a good example of the way we approach problematic cinema; even if it’s delivered to us by a bad man… it’s ours now, and we’ll make a feminist out of it.

JAWBREAKER (1999)

A high-school clique accidentally murder their best friend in a birthday prank gone horribly wrong. We screened this last year at The Institute of Light and it was one of our great triumphs. What it makes up for in sense and taste it makes up for in sick pastel aesthetics, peak Rose McGowan and cameos from Pam Grier and Marilyn Manson.

BIRTHDAY GIRL (2001)

Nicole Kidman plays a Russian bride with an inexplicable wardrobe (seriously, we want everything in it but whose sex-crazed Grandmother knitted it?) who descends upon a lonely, English dork and wins him over with bondage and a language barrier. Then mid-way through her birthday celebrations her ‘cousins’ turn up and all hell breaks loose. Like everything we like it’s flawed but fabulous.

THE OMEN (1976)

Little Damien gets everything he wants for his birthday, appearances from political figures, a merry-go-round, a violent hanging. We’ll be happy with a negroni though.

VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS d. Jaromil Jireš, 1970 + INTRO by Tree Carr screens at The Castle Cinema (17 APR 21:00).

Beginning with a shared love of horror, pulp, thrills and mystery, Sarah Kathryn Cleaver and Jordan Storm Louise set up Zodiac Film Club. You can expect carefully chosen screenings every month, a film for each sign. We select good looking films, complex female characters and our favourites in rarely screened classics, cult and contemporary cinema to share with you, and invite you to talk about it with us afterwards.

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