Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Night of the Living Dead (1990)

          I mentioned last time the original went into the public domain due to a mishap regarding the title card and the copyright notice. Sadly, this, and a lengthy legal battle with the distributor, meant Romero himself did not profit much off the original. He feared, given this, that a remake would be made without his involvement (indeed, a spiritual successor was made in 1985, Return of the Living Dead, with the involvement of screenwriter John Russo, and several unofficial sequels were made). So, when Menachem Golan (formerly of Cannon Films, and now the head of "21 Century Film Corporation") had interest in remaking the film, Romero, Russo, and original producer Russell Steiner signed on.  Tom Savini, who I've mentioned numerous times, was chosen to direct. Romero had hoped he could do the effects for the original, but he had been drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. After years of working together, Romero encouraged Savini to direct the remake. Romero was still heavily involved, rewriting the original screenplay he wrote in the 60's, and even ghostdirecting some scenes. When he was off-set, however, Savini would clash with the producers on a regular basis. This led to an unpleasant experience for him, especially since his ideas were vetoed. Like the original, the film was shot in and around Pittsburgh, though, obviously, with the prestige now attached to this project, extras from as far away as Kentucky were recruited. In the lead roles of Ben and Barbara were Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman(the latter was Savini's college acquaintance). With a much higher budget of $4.2 million, it managed to make a profit, but was savaged by critics, with Siskel and Ebert putting it on their worst of the year list. However, it would eventually see renewed interest on home video, and today stands at a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes.

      The plot remains unchanged. Barbara (Patricia Tallman) and Johnny (Bill Moseley. Yes, that Bill Moseley) are visiting their father's grave, when Barbara is attacked by a mysterious assailant with pale skin. She escapes while Johnny fights him off, but finds more figures with severe scars and pale skin following her. She eventually finds a farmhouse, which is also infested by these creatures. However, Ben (Tony Todd) comes in, and they fight them off together. As they contemplate their situation, they met other survivors Harry and Helen Cooper (Tom Towles and McKee Anderson) with child Sarah (Heather Mazur), and Tom (William Butler) and Judy (Katie Finneran). They find that these "ghouls" have infested the place, and they struggle to survive the night.

     The impression I had from reading this was that it was mostly a straight remake of the original, with the original script. That is not true. It has some distinct differences, which work in its favor as a remake. It modernizes the film, it explains some aspects, it fleshes out some of the characters. This makes the film distinct enough from the original to be considered its own product, along with implementing the themes of the later Dead films, which show humans as just inherently flawed as the unthinking zombies. At the same time, despite being in color, Savini manages to emulate the way the original used shadows and spacing as the main focus, and was able to create an experience similar to watching the original. While the ending doesn't have as much shock as the original, it is still satisfying, with the full extent of the events weighing on the characters.

     The main problem I have with the film is largely that its leads feel too .... Action movie. The original mostly kept the characters as competent, but realistically, and were largely powerless when the situation went south for them. However, here, they regularly beat zombies in such a manner that stretches imagination. It ruins the emersion for me. Like I said, the ending didn't have as much impact now, since the lead survives and joins the vigilantes. Also, one of the characters (who was unambiguously hostiles) is killed in what seems to be a moralistic choice.

      I liked this. Obviously, it wasn't as good as the original, but it managed to capture what worked about the original, whilst doing its own thing. So, I'd recommend it to those who like the original, or those who like zombie movies.

       Next time, we go to another classic, this time of monster movies with The Beast from 20000 Fathoms.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Night of the Living Dead

       Well, it's October, so it's time for another Masterpiece of Horror Theatre, and it's a special one. This is the 5th anniversary since I decided to rip-off Linkara and make a series of horror film reviews to do while I was in fall break on my Facebook. I decided to honor this anniversary by starting this year with a film that I reviewed back then, and a film that has its own 50th Anniversary this year: Night of the Living Dead.

     After graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 1960, George Romero started out his film career in the local Pittsburgh area.  He mostly specialized in industrial films and TV commercials (To tie in to the recent resurgence of Mr. Rogers in culture in the wake of the new documentary and his own 50th anniversary for his show, one of Romero's earliest films was actually a segment on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood while it was a local Pittsburgh show). Eventually, he and friends John Russo and Russell Steiner formed Image Ten and for its first film, decided to make a horror movie, since that was still in vogue. Image Ten got support from Pittsburgh based industrial firm Hardware Associates, which raised $114,000 (around $825,000 in 2018 dollars) for the film. The name was not pinned down despite this. Romero and Russo's original script was called Monster Flick, and played more of a horror comedy, focusing on teenage aliens meeting human ones. The second draft brought in the idea of the aliens being flesh eaters, and eventually, the final draft (heavily influenced by Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, itself adapted into film several times before and after) had the villains as the resurrected dead (whom the script calls "ghouls"). The leading role of Ben was given to local theatre actor Duane Jones. The casting of an African American in the lead proved controversial in the late 60's, especially in the more niche, mostly white horror genre. In another Mr. Rogers connection, Romero originally wanted Betty Aberlin (aka Lady Aberlin) in the lead female role of Barbara, but Fred Rogers refused to allow it. The role was instead given to Judith O'Dea.  Much of the film was shot in remote locations around rural Evan City, Pennsylvania, with its cemetery being the opening scene due to it being isolated from any onlookers or police, and the house setting from a house scheduled for demolition. Because of the low budget of the film, the actors were largely local actors or even the producers and investors in the film, and the effects was cheap (chocolate syrup was used for the blood, as was common practice at the time, and meat and clay, among others, were used to simulate body parts.) Even while filming, the name largely changed, first to Night of Anubis and then to Night of the Flesh Eaters.  The first zombie to appear was S. William Hinzman, one of the investors in the film, who based his now iconic walk on a Boris Karloff performance. After the shocking content caused both Columbia and American International Pictures to decline distribution, finally, the New York based Walter Reade Organization agreed to distribute, though with addition edits (ten minutes by some accounts), and having to change the name to Night of the Living Dead (since The Flesh Eaters had been made in 1964). The film premiered at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh on October 1st, 1968, and would go on to make $30 million at the box office, a massive success for a low budget independent film, and would garner critical acclaim, with even Pauline Kael praising the film. The film would come to define and influence the "New Horror" period of the late 60's, 70's, and 80's. However, the biggest impact of the film came when the Walter Reade Organization, while changing the title card of the film, forgot to put the copyright notice on it (which was on the title card when the film was called Night of the Flesh Eaters), meaning the film immediately fell into the public domain. This mistake would allow others to use the creatures and elements used in the film, leading to the zombie genre we know of today.

     The film begins with Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Steiner) driving to a cemetery to visit their father's grave. Johnny lightly teases her, especially when a strange man (S. William Hinzman) comes around. However, the man immediately attacks Barbara, and Johnny promptly comes to her defense, allowing to flee, while the man chases her. She comes to a farmhouse, where she finds a corpse. Soon, other strange people pop out, and slowly move towards her, prompting her to flee further. She eventually reaches a home, which she safely enters away from the creatures. There, she meets Ben (Duane Jones), who barricades the house. Ben had come to the house after finding more of the creatures at the door. They soon find Harry (Karl Hardman) and Helen Cooper (Marilyn Eastman), in the cellar of the house, where they fled after the creatures overturned their car and bit their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon), who has a strange illness. Teenagers Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith.... Ridley) also come after hearing on the radio that more of these creatures are popping up all over the East Coast, causing mass murder all over. These seven people are beseiged by these mysterious ghouls, who wander outside the house, and only increase in number. Even the talking heads in radio and TV are baffled, with only a vague hint of an irradiated NASA probe (likely a remnant of the earlier script). As tensions rise between the occupants, it seems they are living on borrowed time.

      I decided to see this on my TV, since the last time I saw this years ago, it was on a small screen Youtube video. On a larger screen, I can finally appreciate the lighting of the film. Romero manages to effectively use shadows in both subtle and explicit ways, emphasizing the claustrophobic situation for the characters, and the creeping terror outside. It also increases the horror, as the lighting shows the full extent of the brutality on screen (the shadows make it look like real blood.) This is very effective in black-and-white, since it fully displays this contrast. For how low budget the film is, the effects and settings are very unsettling. The main innovation often cited of the film was setting a classic gothic living dead scenario in what was then contemporary America. (Even Targets from a year earlier, despite being similarly set in the then modern day, had elements of a gothic film in the form of the in-universe film) Thus, the setting (including a cemetery and an abandoned house) signal a more modern feel for the film, especially since they gain info from radio and television broadcasts. The zombies, in their make-up and tattered clothes, look very unsettling, but unlike modern zombies, they still look relatively normal, which makes them even more terrifying when they begin the killings. The actors do great, with Duane Jones and Karl Hardman (the latter another investor who was in the film) particular highlights. The sheer claustrophobia of the film increases as the zombies come in, and the characters are killed off one by one. The ending was especially chilling, when Ben, having managed to survive, is killed by a group of vigilantes hunting zombies. If there were a more explicit message in that, I can't find it any.

    I remember I didn't like that much of the film was focused on the people in the house. Obviously, I've turned around on it, but I think I had a particular problem around the hour-ish mark, where it did kind of slow down, and feels like a repetition of previous scenes. I also feel the film could've been slightly longer, like that ten minutes that was cut (which has been lost due to a flood), or maybe more focus on the large scenario through the TV or the radio.

    When I first saw this film years ago, I didn't much like it. It took years for me to turn around on it, and you can consider this a reevaluation of the film with hindsight behind it. While I prefer Dawn of the Dead, this is an excellent feature, and I highly recommend it for horror and zombie fans, or people who like black-and-white films for their look.

    Which brings me to tomorrow, where I will look at this film's color remake from 1990.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Day of the Dead

       Romero intended this to be the Gone with the Wind of zombie films. However, he had to scrap his original script when the budget was cut from 7 million down to 3.5 million. Even then, it went through three more revisions before the eventual shooting script was produced. The film was shot in Florida and Pennsylvania, with the former providing all above-ground shots, and latter all underground scenes. Because of budget, the cast and crew slept in the Pennsylvania mine it was shot in to avoid the cost of travel. Zombie extras were recruited from Pittsburgh natives, who got a copy of a newspaper from the film, $1, and a hat saying "I was a Zombie in Day of the Dead". Despite the production troubles, Romero stated this was his favorite of the Dead series. Despite relatively positive reviews, and good box office, this was the last time Romero worked with producer Richard Rubinstein as a director, and he later tried his hand at a studio picture with Monkey Shines, which I covered last time.

       The film is set (as Dawn of the Dead was) in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and a military/research base is attempting to find how to stop the pandemic, by capturing zombies and researching them. Dr. Sarah Bowman (Lori Cardille) is part of a group of researchers at the base . Her associates include radio operator Bill McDermott (Jarlath Convoy), helicopter pilot John (Terry Anderson), fellow researchers Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), and Dr. Ted (John Amplas, whose appearance here kind of makes this retrospective go full circle). They are guarded by a small contingency of soldiers, led by Major Cooper, and including Pvt. Steel(Gary Howard Klar) and  Pvt. Miguel Salazar (Anthony Dileo, Jr.), whom Lori has a relationship with . Major Cooper is killed off-screen (hence, no actor plays him in the film), and replaced by Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato). Rhodes is very hostile to the scientists, whom he feels aren't worth protecting as the zombie threat rises, and their research shows little. Dr. Logan, in turn, shows them a zombie he has been training named Bud (Sherman Howard), who is showing slow sentience. However, during one corraling of the zombie, Miguel is injured, and as Lori and Bill try to find morphine, they find that Dr. Logan has been doing shady things to get his results, which will only increase the tension between the soldiers and scientists.

     This isn't really a message film, in the way Night and Dawn were. It's not really satirizing or commenting on any phenomenon. (in a way, Dawn was a commentary on 80's consumerism, despite it being made in 1978). This is just a romp with zombies, and on that ground, it succeeds. This goes back to the traditional Dead formula of "characters trapped in location dealing with zombie hordes", which has proven effective in exploring tension. In this case, we see the characters, how they interact, and how those interactions pay off. Each character is identifiable, and there is moral grayness. While the military men are rough and war-like, the lead researcher Dr. Logan is doing underhanded things as well. The Savini effects, as with the other films, are very gory, very graphic, and incredibly good, and this film is possibly the best of those I've seen this month. I did like the little sub-plot with Bud, and the remnants of his intelligence. The climax is the best part, with a lot of action, and a lot of payoff.

    There are two dream sequences, which I've grown to loathe. It's only the two, so it's not like all the scares are those, but it is distracting. I  also feel the movie should've been longer. It feels short at only 100 minutes, and I feel more could've been done. The synopsis I provide is actually the first hour and 10 minutes of this film. It feels like there was meant to be more, but it was lost in the revisions. What is left isn't bad, but more needed to be there.

   Dawn was the better film, but this was still a solid entry, especially with its more action oriented approach. It also has enough zombies to satisfy. This would be fun romp to watch in a zombie marathon or if you want a good zombie film. It is also a great example of a Dead film, though I would watch Night and Dawn before this.

  (Note: realized I forgot to put this when first published)
    So ends our retrospective on the career of George A. Romero. He was a giant in the genre, and one of its most influential creators. He effectively created the modern zombie and he was able to use the creatures to explore various issues. However, as shown with these films, even without the zombies, he was still an effective horror director, knowing how to use characters to build the horror, and explore the dark issues that lies within all of us. He knew that horror was the best tool of social self-examination. His presence will be sorely missed. RIP.

We end this year's Masterpiece with an entry from John Carpenter, In the Mouth of Madness.