Wyrd War Is Reviving Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Loveless” at the Hollywood Theatre

Willem Dafoe, in his first credited role, stars as an outlaw biker.

The Loveless (Talk Film Society)
By Bennett Campbell Ferguson

The Hollywood Theatre’s Wyrd War Presents! series has long lived up to its name, unleashing gruesome and provocative imagery across the big screen. It was no understatement when programmer Dennis Dread declared that the films he shows are a war against “the gentrification of the soul.”

There will be no danger of soul gentrification at the series’ next screening: the rarely seen 1981 film The Loveless, which plays Monday, Nov. 27, and is the daring, arty feature debut of none other than star Willem Dafoe and Oscar-winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker).

“The Loveless is propelled by a fantastic rockabilly soundtrack that will sound incredible in the Hollywood Theatre,” Wyrd War said in a statement. “There will be birthday cake for those who arrive early. And if you ride your motorcycle to this event, Wyrd War will buy your popcorn. Seriously.”

Co-directed by Monty Montgomery, The Loveless chronicles the doomed romance between a young Southern girl and a wayward biker (Dafoe). Often overlooked in Bigelow’s oeuvre, it precedes the more sophisticated schlock of her breakout vampire flick Near Dark (1987) and action-packed triumphs like Point Break (1991).

The Loveless is a “tense character study that simultaneously deconstructs juvenile delinquent and biker film tropes while laying the fertile foundation for themes that Bigelow would explore for the next 40 years of her Oscar-winning career,” Wyrd War notes.

Curated by Dread and his partner Meadow, Wyrd War grew out of the Portland-based record label and gallery of the same name. After The Loveless, the couple will gear up for their next presentation at the Hollywood, the Spanish-Portuguese horror film Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972).

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