Englewood Cinema Reopens

The Englewood Cinema Reopens After 4.5 Years of Being Closed

The Englewood Cinema on opening night.

The Englewood Cinema on opening night.

Katherine Conner, Staff Writer

The Englewood Cinema re-opened on Friday, October 25, after being closed for 4.5 years. According to the Dayton Daily News, the business originally closed on June 5, 2015, and has been left abandoned ever since. When George Rand and Luke Sowers looked at the theater in July, the pair decided to renovate it, which ended up costing around 15,000 dollars.

“We always knew we wanted to start a business,” Sowers said. “We’re both really into movies, so when we first found it (the theater), we knew that it needed to be saved. We knew that there was life left in it, that the community once loved it.”

According to Sowers, the theater was in rough shape. There was no carpet, cobwebs hung all around the place, and it smelled like it had been closed for way more than four years. It took two months of cleaning, which resulted in new carpets, new paint on the entire interior, new equipment, electrical work, plumbing updates, and HVAC fixes.

“We know a few people around town who have lived here for a long time and who have had events here,” Rand said. “The nostalgia they had for it. It was almost like you could see the excitement in their eyes, us even talking about the idea of potentially buying it.”

The opening of the theater has a lineup of classic movies, such as Back to the Future and Indiana Jones, along with second-run movies that show after their first appearances in other theaters.

According to Dayton.Com , the theater also had a horror movie marathon, called Horrorama. The event took place on Saturday, October 19.  Some of the movies included in the lineup were The Invisible Man, Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man, and King Kong. Admission to this child friendly portion of the event was $5. The more scary part of the marathon included movies such as Dawn of the Dead, King Kong v.s Godzilla, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Admission to this was $10. Business partners Sowers and Rand claim that the marathon will continue every year.

Closed on Monday and Tuesday, hours will include 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Thursday, noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. All tickets in the first two weeks will be $1. After that, tickets will be $4 with a $2 ‘discount’ day on Wednesdays.