Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art will host a rare public screening of two lost independent horror films by Gulf Coast filmmaker Kip Hanks on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. at 40 Arts Circle Drive. The event unites the 1986 16 mm horror-comedy The Dust with the first public screening of a new digital preservation of Hanks’ 1991 feature Cold Hands, which was recovered earlier this year after decades of presumed loss.
The Discovery of Lost Master Tapes on eBay
Kip Hanks spent years working far outside the studio system as a Florida Panhandle filmmaker before passing away in 2008 with his most significant work unseen. In 2025, Block Cinema ordered a pair of purportedly blank U-matic tapes on eBay for testing purposes and received the master copy of Cold Hands. That discovery coincided with the finding of a 16 mm print of The Dust in the collection of Chicago Filmmakers.
Metzger will introduce the program, which will be followed by a post-film discussion with independent filmmaker and Northwestern professor Spencer Parsons.
Inside the Horror Films of Kip Hanks
In 1986, a 22-year-old Hanks announced his arrival in the pages of Fangoria with a classified ad declaring, “Make room Brian DePalma and John Carpenter, you’re the greatest, but I’m coming up.” That same year, he debuted The Dust, a 24-minute horror-comedy made with a grant from the American Film Institute that featured memorable creature effects and locations.
His follow-up, Cold Hands, took a darker and more personal approach. The 60-minute film tells the story of a woman named Marianne Walters whose husband dies in a traffic accident. She soon encounters a mysterious stranger, played by Hanks himself, who claims to be her husband in another body. Unlike typical shot-on-video horror projects of the era, the film is played straight, balancing romance against supernatural suspense. Following a single 15-minute digest broadcast on a local Pensacola, Florida, station, the project vanished from public view.
Screening Details and Series Context
The screening is part of “Repossessed: Reviving Supernatural Cinema from Beyond the Grave,” a three-film series exploring possession, resurrection, and the fragile nature of film preservation. Admission is free, and attendees can RSVP through Eventbrite.
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