Weekend Event Planner

Untapped Festival and TEDxSMU top best weekend events in Dallas

Halloween weekend in Dallas-Fort Worth is full of great spooky events, but there are plenty of other things to do if you're not in a costume mood. Among the fun events are not one but two music festivals, a gathering of innovative minds and a tour of some of the best homes in Dallas.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, October 30

2014 AIA Dallas Tour of Homes
Even if you could never afford to live in one of them, it's always fun to see some of the most architecturally significant homes in Dallas. This year's tour features nine homes, including the debut of PV14, a house overlooking White Rock Lake that was made out of 14 shipping containers. The preview party takes place on Thursday, with the actual tour going on Friday and Saturday.

An Evening with Garrison Keillor
A Prairie Home Companion is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, but this appearance by the show's host, Garrison Keillor, is a rare solo performance. Keillor regales the crowd at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth with anecdotes about growing up in the American Midwest, the people of Lake Wobegon and "late-life fatherhood."

Nick Swardson in concert
The biggest reason you probably know the name Nick Swardson is because Adam Sandler has made him one of his regulars in Sandler's inexplicably successful movie career. But Swardson has been on the stand-up circuit for 20 years, paying his dues along with the best of them. He breaks out the jokes at the Majestic Theatre.

Friday, October 31

Slipknot in concert with Korn and King 810
There is no more appropriate night for heavy metal band Slipknot, which famously wears masks while performing, to play than Halloween. They close out the Gexa Energy Pavilion season with a head-bangin' concert also featuring Korn and King 810. And if your kids are into metal, you can get a great deal, as all kids under 12 get in free with a paid adult ticket. You can partake in trick-or-treating in the plaza before the concert.

Larry G(ee) Halloween Party with Quaker City Nighthawks and Taddy Porter
You can expect a lot of fun and unique things when Dallas' own Larry G(ee) headlines a Halloween concert at the Granada Theater. The soul/funk band is the life of the party even when it isn't a holiday, so you can only imagine what they'll do on a night like this. They are joined by the Quaker City Nighthawks and Taddy Porter.

Saturday, November 1

TEDxSMU 2014
The annual TEDxSMU, once again taking place at Dallas City Performance Hall, is an opportunity to hear lectures from a variety of innovative minds from all across the country. This year's lineup, centered around the theme of "Strangely Familiar," includes a rock 'n' roll insider, superbug scientist and flamenco dancer, among others.

2014 Chive Fest
Unless you're in your 20s and male, the website The Chive probably has gone under your radar. But thanks to an obsession with boobs and inane Internet minutiae, it has earned a loyal following, a group it's counting on for this music festival at Southfork Ranch. In addition to the bands, which include Jake Owen and Julian Casablancas + The Voidz, you can count on tomfoolery that includes a life-size game of Operation and a costume contest.

2014 Untapped Music and Beer Festival Dallas
Beer and music naturally go together, but Untapped takes it to another level with more than 70 breweries doling out samples of more than 200 craft beers. Oh, and the music won't be half bad either, with headliners Cake, who are joined at Gilley's by Shovels & Rope, Deltron 3030 and Polyphonic Spree, among others.

Sunday, November 2

Dallas Opera presents Salome
The Dallas Opera kicked off its season last weekend with The Marriage of Figaro, but it has wasted no time staging its second production, with Richard Strauss' Salome now alternating with Figaro. The Biblical tale of lust and betrayal in the court of King Herod runs at Winspear Opera House through November 8.

Bleachers in concert with Wild Cub
Anyone who's enjoyed the band Fun over the past few years will want to check out Bleachers, which is a side project for guitarist Jack Antonoff. Though missing the distinctive vocals of Nate Ruess, the pop sound of Bleachers is as infective as anything else out there these days. They play at the House of Blues Dallas, with Wild Cub as opening act.

Cake is the headliner at the latest Untapped Music and Beer Festival, taking place at Gilley's Dallas on November 1.

Photo courtesy of Cake

Cake is the headliner at the latest Untapped Music and Beer Festival, taking place at Gilley's Dallas on November 1.

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Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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