Naked Lunch will be preceded by a Mini Burroughs Film Fest starting at 6:30 pm, composed of interview clips and short films featuring St. Louis’s most controversial literary son. Festival and film together will run about 3 hours, ending at 9:30 pm.

Exterminate all rational thought!

In a career dedicated to seeing the unseeable and filming the unfilmable, perhaps only David Cronenberg could really do justice to William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Naked Lunch. Weaving together elements of the St. Louis-born author’s own remarkable biography with the content of the book, Cronenberg’s film steps inside the body and mind of an author to depict the dangerous act of imagination itself from the inside out.

Former junkie William Lee (Peter Weller, Robocop) makes ends meet as an exterminator. But when he and his wife Joan (Judy Davis, Barton Fink) discover the hallucinatory properties of the powder he uses to kill bugs, they become hooked, and their world is changed forever. Insects speak, typewriters mutate and talk, interdimensional beings reveal themselves, identities fracture and blur; nothing and no one is quite what it seems. When Bill, under the influence of drugs, or the bugs that have begun talking to him, shoots his wife, he flees to Interzone, at once a place and a state of mind, where things only get stranger.

Winner of Best Picture, Best Direction, and Best Screenplay at the 1992 Genie Awards and featuring an astonishing score by Howard Shore (Videodrome), Naked Lunch is provocative, transgressive, and surreal – a feast for the senses, where nothing is true and everything is permitted.

“Cronenberg’s masterpiece breaks every rule in the book but justifies every transgression with its artistry and sheer audacity.” -Jonathan Rosenbaum

“It’s impossible to make a movie out of ‘Naked Lunch.’ A literal translation just wouldn’t work. It would cost $400 million to make and would be banned in every country of the world.” –David Cronenberg

“I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.” -Nelson Muntz

THEATER POLICIES

All seats are first-come, first-served.

The theater opens 30 minutes prior to showtime, except for “Happy Hour” events and pre-shows when the theater opens at the listed start time.

All ages are welcome at Arkadin except for Drinkolas Cage events, which are restricted to 21+. We follow the MPAA rating guidelines for all other films.

Tickets can be purchased using the BUY TICKETS link above. Upon ordering, you will receive a confirmation email from Square. Tickets may also be purchased on the day of the show at the concession counter.

If you’ve purchased advance tickets, when you arrive, please give your name at the concession counter to check in.

Tickets are returnable by sending a request through the contact form located on our About Us page prior to showtime.

When an event is sold out, we reserve the right to release open seats to customers on the waitlist. If you have a pre-purchased ticket and arrive late and there is no seat for you, your ticket will be refunded.

All screenings are held in our indoor theater unless indicated otherwise in the event description above.

Please respect your fellow movie-goers by remaining quiet and refraining from using your cell phone throughout the screening.