Legendary “metaphysical splatter film” BEGOTTEN (1990) — new 4K restoration w/ industrial music videos pre-show @ 6:30 pm
October 7 : 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
“The experimental ‘metaphysical splatter film’ you absolutely have to see.” – Collider
A hypnotic Rorschach test that scars the psyche as much as the eye, E. Elias Merhige’s directorial debut—memorably described as a “metaphysical splatter film” by critic J. Hoberman—stripped a century’s worth of filmmaking technique back to its primordial form. Here we have a genuine nightmare captured on degraded celluloid, in which disfigured creatures flail in agony amid a barren landscape. Setting a forbidding new standard in avant-garde, Begotten drew a line in the sand that has yet to be crossed. Be forwarned: This film is disturbing in a way few films can match. Picture Eraserhead on a Skinamarink budget, as fed through a broken photocopier and burned to a crisp. Then take that, drag it through the mud, bury it in sand, and screen it at night on the side of a barn while fluorsecents flicker overhead. Preferably during a cult initation. It’s the soul-searing experience you never knew you needed. (Michael Morlaine)
The film will be preceded by a pre-show of industrial music videos, including a few directed by BEGOTTEN helmer E. Elias Merhige!
Begotten has no characters in the ordinary sense. Its final credits name three principal figures:
God Killing Himself.
Mother Earth.
Son of Earth — Flesh on Bone
The entire film is what those names do to each other and to the earth.
God Killing Himself tears open his body and dies. Mother Earth rises from what remains and takes his seed into herself. She gives birth to Son of Earth — Flesh on Bone. He is cast into a barren world, seized by the Nomads, tortured, killed, and briefly returned to life by his mother. The Nomads destroy her too. The Robed Figures gather what remains of mother and son, grind their bodies down, and return them to the soil. The ground flowers.
Begotten was shot in black and white on 16mm reversal film, then rephotographed frame by frame through neutral-density filters. The process took four years and roughly ten hours of work for every finished minute. The image was worked by hand through repeated exposure and filtration until the grain itself began to move like an atmospheric condition, thickening the dark and tearing open the light.
When the film first began circulating, no one agreed on where it belonged. Drama.Horror. Foreign. In one San Francisco video store, briefly, pornography. Susan Sontag encountered the film through the festival circuit, became one of its earliest and most important advocates, and began showing it to people in her living room.
For more than thirty-five years, Begotten circulated in versions that carried its force but not its complete photographic body. Now, for the first time, the sketch has become the painting. Nothing has been cleaned up or modernized. The image has simply arrived at the form it was always meant to possess: blacks with weight, whites with force, and grain breathing as atmosphere.
Nobody has settled on what to call Begotten since it first appeared.
That was never the problem.
It is the reason to see it now.
-E. Elias Merhige, July 2026
Arkadin does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. However, we encourage researching titles to determine if a screening may contain content that could be upsetting to you. Please feel free to contact us for guidance on specific films. Information about content can also be found on Common Sense Media, IMDB and DoesTheDogDie.com, as well as through general internet searches.
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.
- When a screening is sold out, we open a waitlist 30 minutes before showtime. You must physically come to the lobby to get your name on the waitlist. Seats are released as they become available. All remaining seats are released at showtime.
- 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.
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- 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.
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