Sci-fi movie series, First Friday activities to end at Raleigh museum this week

It leaves a legacy of goofy movie screenings and fantastic press releases. The museum also will end its monthly First Friday festivities this Friday.

Posted 12:41 a.m. May 3, 2016 — Updated 12:41 a.m. May 3, 2016

Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

For the last decade or more, I've had the pleasure of receiving some masterfully written press releases about sci-fi/horror/monster/goofy films featured in the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences' First Friday movie series.

This Friday will be the final Friday that the museum offers extended First Friday hours, including the movie series (though there are plans to bring it back in another form this fall).

Full credit to Jonathan Pishney, the museum's director of communications, for all of these monthly laughs (which I have received in this job and my previous job).

Some examples pulled randomly from my overstuffed inbox:

March 2016: "There’s nothing more frightening than a little boy’s nightmare ... until that nightmare ends up inspiring one of the worst movies of all time. Don’t miss the cinematic disaster known as 'Troll 2' ... Be afraid ... be TWICE as afraid!"

May 2015: "A Victorian-era scientist and his young American assistant take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic lizard-bird and full of cavemen, cavewomen, and prehistoric monsters. Yup. They’re in it deep now! You can be too, when the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows 'At the Earth’s Core.'"

November 2014: "This is the time. The very beginning. When the moon wrenched a place for itself in the heavens. When men lived in fear of unimaginable dangers – danger from above, danger from below, danger from every living thing on this primitive world. This is 'When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.'"

The movie series, organized by A/V Geeks, started 15 years ago. It will end this Friday with a look back at some of the favorite clips, First Friday trivia, silly costumes and more. This also will be the final time the museum stays open until 9 p.m. on the first Friday of the month.

Pishney tells me that a new and improved movie night is in the works for fall 2016. I can only hope it inspires the expertly crafted press releases that I've been enjoying monthly for years. Hat tip to you, Jon!

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