It's a balmy late October night and guests are filing into Evansville First Presbyterian Church — the perfect setting for the dramatic, classic horror and powerful music to come.
Every year Renowned local organist Rob Nicholls improvises a musical score for a spooky silent movie during the Halloween season. This year it was the 1922 vampire film ‘Nosferatu.’
He said these events, especially this film — is a big draw, and a boost for their fundraiser.
“We use it also as a fundraiser for the choir school and the music programs to help get young people to some special summer music camps," he said. "And it's a really great fundraiser. Kicks off our year, and lots of people come and have a great time.”
Thousands of dollars were raised from the fundraiser, which included a dinner and a movie special and donations at the door.
Nicholls is actually on the road performing to the same film in Sioux Falls South Dakota and Muscatine Iowa.
At the screening he improvised the entire 90-plus minute film. How does he do it?
“It's a somewhat complicated process," he said. "But I basically start by learning a movie. So I watched the movie a whole bunch of times with no sound on, and I learned the cues, I learned the scenes, I learned the characters, and then, having seen what happens to them during the course of the movie, I pick either a melody a tune, sometimes it's even just a texture or a certain sound on the pipe organ, which which is then associated with that person.
And then as the movie goes on and as their story progresses, things change and morph and grow. So it's kind of creating, yeah, a movie soundtrack in the moment, in response to the emotional content of the movie itself.”
He did perform some parts he hadn't practiced and said it went well.
He hopes the audience simply forget he's there and enjoy the overall experience.
He describes "Nosferatu" as "iconic," having influenced many subsequent films.
This film is full gothic imagery and sets, and plenty of creepy shadow play, and special effects.
“(The vampire) kind of appears as a ghostly apparition, and they would have had to do some really intense working of the cinematographers," Nicholls said. "And you see those same images of clawed hands coming out of boxes, people lifting the lids dramatically on a coffin and finding the vampire asleep in there during the day."
He said a few people commented on Facebook, asking why a vampire film is being shown at a church.
"My response on Facebook was in the comments, was, 'that's where the instrument is, that's where the organ is, that's where the space is, that's where we can put a screen up.'
And churches through the millennia are not solely reserved for for religious services — they're community gathering spaces. They're places where meetings take place. We have neighborhood meetings. We have AA meetings take place in the church. At First Pres, we consider ourselves to be open, welcoming and affirming, and we love having people in the building."
There were about 350 attending — people were standing in the back, lying on the floor in the front, underneath the screen, watching it.
The crescendo of the film brought the full power of the pipe organ, and the crowd to its feet for a standing ovation in the end.
"And every single person who walked out said that was an amazing experience," Nicholls said. "So it was, it was thrilling to perform, and from the cinemagoers' perspective, seems to be thrilling to attend."
It's likely the audio of tis story is the only existing from the performance. Nicholls doesn't record it, and it's not streamed online.
"When I do the movie again in, you know, five or 6-10, years, I don't want people to say, 'Oh, well, I don't have to go because I've I can just go and watch it,' you know. I really want people to come and and have the real experience of hearing the real instrument playing the real music."
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