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DEADLY FUNNY

Just about this time of year, ImprovBoston’s spontaneous sketch-comedy shtick takes a turn toward maniacal musical bloodletting. The group’s latest Halloween offering, GoreFest III: The Gruesome Tale of Penny Dreadful, skewers Dickens with a side of Universal horror, producing the tale of "a Victorian hooker with a heart of gold and the one-armed ex-orphan she loves," which also includes "mad scientists, Frankenstein monsters, and a musical score full of catchy show tunes" | ImprovBoston, 1253 Cambridge St, Cambridge | October 27–31 | $15 | 617.576.1253.

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center celebrates the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead with crafts, altars to the ancestors, and lotsa morbid fun for the whole family. The folks from Nomad are on hand to help you paint your own sugar skulls, and there are eats by JP’s Tacos el Charro, music by Mariachi Mexamerica, and traditional dance by Xuchipilli Danza y Cultura | CMAC, 41 Second St, Cambridge | November 2 | $8, $4 for kids | 617.577.1400, x 10.

THE SOUNDS OF SILENTS

The rarely screened 1929 Russian silent film Chemi Bebia/My Grandmother, Kote Mikaberidze’s "irreverent satire of the then still-young Soviet system," gets a showing with a new score by San Francisco composer Beth Custer, who’ll perform live with an all-star session-musician ensemble including Sleepytime Gorilla Museum/Faun Fables member Nyls Frykdahl at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline | November 14 @ 8 pm | $15 | 617.734.2500.