What’s more fun than watching a “bad movie”? Watching a bad movie with friends and donating all the money to charity That’s what Charisma’s new owner Matt Odland is going to be doing every two weeks on a Monday.
He had his first show of Night of the living Dead,” Feb. 18, and will be showing it again, Feb. 25. The next movie day will be March 11 and March 25.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I finally got everything hooked up. I just wanted to see how it would work,” he said adding a former employee put the idea in his head which convinced him to expand the type of merchandise he Charisma sells from rock and roll, punk and metal T-shirts and merch into B, C and D movies, which will also be added to the store.
Odland will be showing B, C, and D horror, adventures and action movies like “Basket Case 3,” “Brain Damage,” Dolph Lundgren’s “ Red scorpion” and “Christmas Evil.”
He didn’t do much advertising for the first event, but got 14 people out for the premiere.
“We’ll be showing a lot of really bad B, C and D grade movies. The type of movies that you probably couldn’t sit through on your own, because you should be doing something else like washing the dishes. But movies that are a lot of fun to watch in a group,” he continued.
The money from the $10 admission was donating to, fittingly, the Zombies of Lethbridge Organization, who put on the zombie walk in Galt Gardens every September.
“I want to support Lethbridge charities who don’t have big budgets for promotions expenses,” Odland continued.
For the screenings, he moves shelves of merchandise aside, sets up chairs and pulls down a movie screen from the ceiling, then breaks out the popcorn and gets ready for everyone to enjoy a fun filled, informal night of the movies.
For the first charity , he chose to support Zombies of Lethbridge not only because they fit right in with the film, but because they spend a lot of their own money to put on the zombie walk.
πIm know a couple of the guys who do the zombie walk and they spend a lot of their own money out of pocket, he continued.
“ I just like to support that kind of stuff. It really does need support,” he continued.
“Every movie night will be for a different charity,” Odland added.
“It worked awesome,” he said.
“There is popcorn and bottles with slush in them and we give out the copy of the movie being show at the end of the night,” he said.
The shows will always be on Monday nights. The doors open at 7:30 p.m., with the show beginning at 8 p.m. Admission is $10.
A version of this story appears in the March 6, 2013 edition of the Lethbridge Sun Times.
