Every October, the Music Box Theatre in Chicago hosts a 24-hour horror movie marathon. Titled the ‘Music Box of Horrors’, it typically features 13 to 15 horror movies screened on the historic theatre’s main screen. The Music Box Theatre also screens horror movies daily throughout October, all under the ‘Music Box of Horrors’ moniker.

It’s a beloved staple of the horror-loving community in Chicago. The marathon regularly sells out and screenings are always heavily attended. If you love horror movies, this is the place to be in the month of October. I’ve been attending the marathon ever since 2021 and can attest to the unique variety of films shown as well as the vibrancy and vitality of those who regularly attend.

Recently, I was fortunate to sit down with Will Morris, Print Traffic Coordinator and Programming Manager at the Music Box Theatre and one of the primary programmers of Music Box of Horrors to discuss the marathon, horror movie programming, and some of the highlights of Music Box of Horrors history. Our Q&A below is edited for length and clarity.

Travis: Will, thanks for meeting with me today. So, I think we’ll kick this off with a straightforward question. What is Music Box of Horrors?

Will Morris: The marathon has been going for over 20 years at this point. It used to be called Music Box Massacre. And then the people who used to do it left. Ryan Oestreich, the GM of the Music Box, hit me up in 2015 and said ‘Would you have any interest in programming and hosting a 24 hour horror marathon with me?’ So we rebranded it just “Music Box of Horrors”.

And we did that for a couple of years, and things kept getting bigger and bigger to the point where it was selling out. And then it really kind of solidified itself into what it’s become, I would say, during [the Covid-19] Pandemic. Ryan called me one night, he said “I have a crazy idea…there’s a drive-in in Pilsen that reached out to us, do you want to do 31 full days out there in October? Since we can’t do the marathon, since people can’t do anything, you wanna do 31 days?” And I of course said yes. And we did it and it was huge! It went very well, so we did it again the next year, and then once those two years happened, we were like “well people clearly want this, so let’s now do it in the theatre” so then we started doing the full 31 days in October.

T: How long does it take to program?

W: Well for the Marathon, we start during the previous marathon. So – throughout [the Marathon], while the movies are playing, me and Ryan go upstairs and start talking about next year. And then usually – typically, it changes a bit from year to year – but we both then compile our lists. It’s usually around 200 or 250 movies that we start with that we then whittle down into the [final] 13 or so.

Monthly, sometimes it can be very last minute. I’m trying to get much further ahead. We like to show a lot of rare prints of things, and a lot of those live at archives you must request at least four months in advance to even get a possibility of even being able to show it.

Because there’s a lot of weird pieces, too, you know? For instance – Peter Jackson’s early movies, right? They’ve been out of release for nine years now, you cannot show them in theaters because he pulled them to restore them himself, but just hasn’t done it. [So] every single year, after the marathon ends, the next week we then email his assistant again and we’re like “any news?” so we can then see, because of course, there’s no better what we call a barn-burner for a marathon than Dead Alive.

T: When it comes to programming the specific marathon, are you trying to fill specific slots for movies? Are you fitting a general theme?

W: The only things that for sure have to happen, I guess? – a Silent always has to happen. A tentpole in the middle, you know? Whether it’s like Candyman in the middle.

T: Jaws, Poltergeist.

W: And then of course always, always, always trying to do as much international as we can. The most exciting, often is when we can – I love when we get to show a movie from somewhere we’ve never shown a movie from. There’s one we did a couple years ago called Zibahkhana. That’s a Pakistani one. And [we had never] gotten to show a film from Pakistan in the marathon, so that’s always exciting.

I would say we never sit down and talk about a theme for the year. It sounds a little hippy dippy, but I treat film programming often the same was I do editing. I’m very much of the mind that you’ve got to let it talk to you. There are many years that we lock in the lineup, and then I look at it, [and] that’s the first time I’m like “oh shit, there is an overarching theme that clearly is on our mind that’s weaving through this”. We try to never ever shoot for it.

It’s more fun for us, of course, but the more we’ve leaned into that, the more fun it has been for the audience. They like looking at a schedule and going “What the fuck is this? This is chaos” and then after experiencing [it say] “Okay, I see, it did come together.”

T: What kind of horror movies excite you the most? What ones are you always most excited to share?

W: My absolute favorite thing and the most exciting thing for the marathon always is to find something that you know at most maybe one person in the room will have seen, even better, if, for sure no one has [seen it]. I don’t know if you were there the year that we did The Granny, [but] that’s a movie that still to this day is trapped on VHS. Never got a DVD, no Blu-ray, no 4K, nothing.

[So] I knew about this movie, and I watched it. I was floored. I was like, “this is gonna slay with an audience”. I ended up getting close with the producers and the director, and we found out that there was never a 35-millimeter print made, that didn’t even make [one] for the cast and crew screening. They thought that they knew where the negatives were, but it’s one of those perfectly Hollywood moments where they’re like, the storage is this weird rich guy, who’s literally always on permanent vacation, and he’s the only person who has keys. We got to the point where if the negative exists, no one can get it.

But we [said] “this movie fucking rules”. And our commitment is we will show the movies that we show in the best possible format that exists. I called the director, and I was like “Hey, I have one of the old VHS copies. How would you feel if we just showed this? Straight up, popped it in a VCR.” And he was like, “If you’re cool with it, yeah, do it.”

And so we did it, and it was like a concert. It was insane. The vibe I tried to set up was truly just when you’re a kid and whichever one of your friends is the one who shows you fucked up stuff when you get to their house on Friday night, and they’re like, “Wait till everybody gets here”, and then they just hold up a tape, and they’re like “This is what we’re gonna do, right?” And that kind of energy and anticipation and build…that’s what we tried to create, and it worked. And it was amazing. There’s nothing, nothing more exciting than 700 people pouring out of a room just losing their fucking minds. Especially because they all experience it for the 1st time together.

T: The energy of the marathons has always been ecstatic. It’s like hanging out with a bunch of your friends who you don’t know, and you’re like, “hey, good to see you. Let’s go watch this movie.”  How strong of a community sense do you get from the marathon?

W: Incredibly strong. It feels like a family. That was part of when Ryan first brought me in in 2015. Basically, he shared with me some feedback from audience members of the last couple years of that marathon. And people were saying “[it was] starting to feel like a weird boy’s club. It doesn’t feel very welcoming. The energy is, like, kind of hostile.” And so from day one, we were very aggressive about fostering an environment that was the opposite of that. That was probably our biggest stated goal to ourselves from day one was to give it what it should be, and what it deserves, and that it does feel exactly like what you said, that crazy feeling where you look around and you recognize someone from the year before, you don’t actually know each other, but you can just wave, “good to see you!” Once a year, we get to have this beautiful party together.

T: What are some of your favorite screenings you’ve done?

W: One of our favorite things to do as well is to give folks who’ve never been celebrated and had really hard, very difficult careers. Give them that room and give them that experience of how loving that crowd is. And [one] year we brought out William Crain, who made Blacula and Dr. Black Mr. Hyde. And that’s pretty much it. Technically worked on some other stuff, some TV, but as in the ’70s, right?

We were showing Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, and found his contact. I hit him up and said “Would you wanna come out for this?” At this point, he’s in his 70s, an older gentleman, and he [said], “I mean, I’ll come if you want, but no one gives a shit. Like, why are you… Why? I feel bad wasting your money.”

And I said “You could be surprised. Like, people really care about those movies that you did, especially now.”

“Okay, if you want to waste your money, whatever. If you won’t be embarrassed, I’ll try not to be.” And bless him, because he was like, “I don’t fly, but if I can take the train from L.A. to Chicago, I’ll do it.”

And so he’d trained up. We’re talking, and he asks “Is anybody here?”

“Yeah, we’re sold out.”

“Oh? You guys have a small room, right? Is that where we’re going?”

“No, no, no, it’s in the big one.” And I told him it was 700 people.

“700 people are watching Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde…That’s probably the most people who’ve ever watched it.”

The movie ends, and we brought him out from the back, and he was just peeking through the curtain and he’s almost in tears just watching people watch it. And we bring him out and the crowd went insane, [giving a] standing ovation for so long. And he was just overwhelmed. And yeah, when he came off the stage, he was just in tears. Like, he couldn’t believe that people cared about these little movies that he made back in the day. And those are the, you know, those are “the reason we do it” kind of shows.

T: Thanks for meeting today. Appreciate it. I look forward to Marathon 2026 coming up.

W: Yeah, cool. Thank you.

Note: This post was updated & edited to correct Will Morris’s title at the Music Box Theatre.