Every Picture Tells a Story: 8/12/09

The sign from the first video store I ever went to when I got my VCR back in the late '80s. My first three rentals: George Romero's Day of the Dead, the least of the famed director's zombie films (you can read my review of it here); The Hidden, a much better action/horror film; and Sex Star, a porno starring Kimberly Carson, an actress who started out in low-budget teen sex comedies and subsequently moved on to, um, bigger things.

The store had been closed and vacant for years, but the sign was still there--until about a week after I took this picture, when it was finally removed. An Italian specialty food store now occupies the space.

Movie Review: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

You know, we haven't had nearly enough zombie comedies.

Think about it. The undead have been lurching through our cinematic nightmares at least since 1932's White Zombie, but how many outright comedies have been generated by this popular subgenre? Zombies on Broadway? Return of the Living Dead and its immediate sequel? A few scattered direct-to-video efforts?

Now we have Shaun of the Dead, which has plenty of fun with past flesh-eating films--the title is a riff on George Romero's classic, Dawn of the Dead, and there are references aplenty to Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series and even contemporary horror movies like 28 Days Later....

But if Shaun were just a spoof of classic splatter, we could get a few good laughs and forget about it. But it also aspires to be a romantic comedy and a social satire as well--and succeeds at both admirably.

Shaun (Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the script with director Eric Wright) has a dead-end job as an assistant manager at an electronics store in the greater London area. His relationship with his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), might be at a dead end, too: She's tired of spending her evenings hanging out at the local pub, the Winchester, with Shaun and his best friend/flatmate, the rude, crude, obnoxious and occasionally amusing Ed (Nick Frost). She wants to know where their relationship is going. When Shaun screws up dinner reservations the next night and suggests that they instead go to the Winchester, she dumps him. Shaun and Ed then go out and get good and drunk, not aware that, for whatever reason, the dead are rising and putting the bite on the living. (This is consistent with Romero's approach, where the plague of zombies is explained in, at best, vague terms.)

This leads to what has rapidly become one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever: Hung over and depressed about his breakup with Liz, Shaun pops out to the neighborhood convenience store, so wrapped up in his own misery that he's entirely oblivious to the walking dead all around him. It's funny and thought-provoking at the same time: How much of what goes on around us--immediately before us and in the world at large--do we miss when we're so self-involved?

Shaun and Ed find out about the situation soon enough, though, and come up with a plan: Pick up Shaun's mom (Penelope Wilton) and stepdad (Bill Nighy) and Liz, along with her flatmates, bubbly actress Dianne (Lucy Davis) and cynical, dour David (Dylan Moran), and head for the safest place they can think of: You guessed it, The Winchester.

The script is extremely tight and well thought out, with hardly a line thrown out that isn't referenced again later in the movie, while references to other zombie movies aren't so overt that they alienate those unfamiliar with the genre. (Musical cues are lifted from Romero's Dawn of the Dead, while character names and dialogue from Night of the Living Dead are called out, with Ed shouting, "We're coming to get you, Barbara!" to Shaun's mom through the phone.) And the horror and comedy aspects are balanced well, with Shaun's efforts to win back Liz while fighting off the living dead (Shaun swings a mean cricket bat).

The zombies themselves are the butt of some jokes, but are for the most part treated as real threats to life and limb. Because of this, the conclusion does have some downright serious, emotional moments, but this by no means negates what has come before. It only underscores how thin the line between comedy and drama--or life and death--really is, and how one can straddle the line deftly to produce a comedy/loving tribute also capable of causing scares and effective parody at the same time.

Shaun of the Dead is not only one of the best horror comedies ever made, but it so impressed Romero that he gave Wright and Pegg cameos in his own most recent undead epic, Land of the Dead. You can't get a much better endorsement for a zombie movie than that.

Review: Flesh Eater (1988)

Since 1968, when George Romero's Night of the Living Dead first hit theaters, there have been a lot of sequels, remakes spinoffs and ripoffs featuring undead flesh-eaters. But few of them have been nearly as blatant in mining Romero's classic for material than Bill Hinzman's Flesh Eater (which has bopped around on video for years under various names, including the even-less-subtle Revenge of the Living Zombies).

Does the writer/director's name sound slightly familiar? It should. Hinzman was the very first Romero zombie to appear onscreen in Night of the Living Dead, stumbling through the graveyard while Barbara and Johnny visit their father's grave, provoking Johnny's immortal line, "They're coming to get you, Barbara." (He was right: the Hinzman zombie kills Johnny and chases Barbara all the way to an abandoned farmhouse, where the rest of the movie takes place.)

In Flesh Eater, a bunch of horny college students (is there any other kind?) go fo a hayride in the woods on Halloween, drinking beer and making out. Meanwhile, a nearby farmer tries to drag a stump off of his property, only to unearth a grave with a satanic marker on it and a coffin with a wax seal with writing on it: "This evil which will take flesh and blood from thee and turn all ye unto evil."

For most people, this would be a sign to call the authorities or, at the very least, to leave the coffin alone and cover it back up. But since this is a low-budget horror film, the farmer is doomed to be a moron, break the seal and open the coffin. And guess who's inside? Yep, it's Bill Hinzman, dressed pretty much the same way he was in Night of the Living Dead. He's not exactly the same zombie, though--Flesh Eater is super-strong, throwing the farmer through the air (with the help of a very visible wire harness) after taking a bite of the poor guy's neck. He also jams his hand into a coed's chest and yanks out her heart and rams his arm through the midriff of another, topless coed.

And that's about all there is to the plot. Hinzman wanders the countryside, putting the bite on any humans he runs across; they turn into zombies; the new zombies wander the countryside, masticating anyone they meet. Wash; rinse; repeat.

One family including a little girl dressed as an angel and a very naked housekeeper (she'd just gotten out of the shower) gets chewed up by Hinzman, then attacks the father when he comes home from work. (A family dinner?) A group of kids having a Halloween party in a barn gets attacked as well, with a kid dressed as Dracula getting his nose bitten off and a girl gets a hook through her leg before she becomes zombie chow. There's a "shock" ending, followed by a setup for a sequel which, thank whichever God you pray to, never followed.

So, is there any reason to see Flesh Eater? Well, the makeup effects by Gerry Gergley are disgusting (i.e., very good), even if they're wasted on an amateur cast that can't act past the level of a sixth-grade assembly, including Hinzman, who does nothing but stumble around, growl and chew meat (and doesn't even do those things all that well). And there is gratuitous nudity, which is always fun.

Beyond that? Not much. Unless you enjoy dull, lifeless (no pun intended) and mostly unfunny Night of the Living Dead ripoffs. In which case, Flesh Eater is perfect for you. Dig in.

Review: Martin (1977)

Writer/director George Romero is best known for his Living Dead movies, including Night of the Living Dead (remade in 1990), Dawn of the Dead (remade last year), Day of the Dead (not remade yet, but you just know it's coming) and, most recently, Land of the Dead. And that's as it should be--Romero's zombie flicks have been amongst the most influential and popular films in cinema history.

Unfortunately, the very popularity of those films throws a very long, very deep shadow on all of his other work, including Martin, which may well be his most intimate, personal and--dare I say it?--best horror film of all.

Martin (John Amplas, who looks at times like a young Johnny Depp) is a young man who believes that he's a vampire. This idea doesn't sit well with his parents, who send the weird, introverted kid from Indianapolis to live with his elderly cousin, Tada Cuda (Lincoln Maazel), in Pittsburgh. But even before Martin gets off the train, he fights, drugs, drains and has sex with (yes, in that order) a woman he stalks on the trip.

Once Martin arrives in Pittsburgh, the cousin continually calls him a "nosferatu" and tries to subdue him with garlic, crosses and an attempted exorcism. Martin is a thoroughly modern vampire, though: he goes about his business during the day, looks at his reflection in the mirror and even becomes a regular on a late-night talk show, where the host refers to Martin as "The Count." Cuda's granddaughter, Christina (Christine Forrest, who later became Mrs. Romero), thinks both Cuda and Martin are crazy, especially when she finds out that both of them believe that Martin is 84. Still, Cuda hires Martin to work in his deli as a delivery boy--an opportunity Martin uses to strike up a friendship with a lonely divorcee (Elyane Nadeau) while scoping out victims for future bloodletting.

Martin carries out his attacks with a combination of meticulous planning and an amazing ability (honed by decades of experience?) to improvise when the planning goes awry, his first-person perspective often shifting from color (the here-and-now) to Universal horror films-style black and white, which is either how Martin sees the world through the distortion of his dementia or a series of flashbacks (or what Martin thinks are flashbacks) to his encounters with willing victims and angry, torch-bearing villagers.

In an age that has seen similar depravities in real life--most notably the case of Jeffrey Dahmer--Martin has actually taken on greater resonance in the years since its initial, limited release. Even more remarkably, while Romero's script and Amplas's performance don't make the lead character sympathetic--we can't (or, more accurately, don't want to) relate to his actions--they don't make Martin a one-dimensional monster, but a significantly flawed, mentally ill human being who nonetheless has thoughts and emotions that better-adjusted human beings have as well. His loneliness and emotional isolation ring true, even as he commits acts of depravity. (Martin's victims are often naked, and he clearly gets off on slitting their wrists and drinking their blood.) Even the ending, which in retrospect seems entirely predictable, still comes as a shock because the scene before it is one of quiet, almost gentle humor and because the ending itself is so abrupt.

Martin comes across like a project that Romero took great care with and invested with much emotion. Consequently, our reactions to it are stronger, and it takes on a timelessness that allows it to become more meaningful as the years go on. Romero and Amplas humanize a character that, in other, less talented and involved hands, would have been just another inhuman slasher--Martin predicts the more modern trend of turning serial killers into media darlings. And making him more human and more understandable makes the whole thing all the more unnerving.

Review: Land of the Dead (2005)

The past few years have been pretty kind to fans of flesh-eating zombies, with a steady stream of ghouls stumbling across cineplex screen in movies like Resident Evil, 28 Days Later..., a "re-envisioned" Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead.

This streak of undead success has even had a happy side benefit: they allowed writer/director George A. Romero to return to the genre he created nearly 40 years ago with Night of the Living Dead, to revisit his apocalyptic vision--this time with a modest budget (reportedly $15 million, more than the budgets for his previous three zombie epics combined) and actors you've actually heard of.

Years have passed since the dead began to rise and feast on the living. Humanity now exists in scattered outposts such as Fiddler's Green, a luxury skyscraper ruled by Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) and occupied by the wealthy. The poor huddle in the streets surrounding Fiddler's Green, while zombies mill about outside the guarded, electrified perimeter. (Land of the Dead is set in Pittsburgh, but was shot in Toronto.) Kaufman sends out a team of scavengers headed up by Riley (Simon Baker) and Cholo (John Leguizamo), who venture out into nearby towns in an armored assault vehicle called Dead Reckoning (the original title of this movie), which looks like the Mammoth Car from Speed Racer with a whole lot more firepower.

While out on a run, Riley notices that some of the undead--referred to by the living as "walkers" or, more desparigingly, "stenches"--are acting kind of peculiar, especially Big Daddy (Eugene Clark), who doesn't merely wander around, but seems be trying to communicate with his fellow flesh-eaters and manages to grab a gun from one of the Dead Reckoning crew. (Don't you just know he's going to use it later?)

Things get complicated, though, when Cholo wants to join the residents of Fiddler's Green. Kaufman coldly rejects this notion, claiming that there's a "long waiting list." (Who is on this list, since damn near everybody is dead or poor or dead poor?) Cholo doesn't take this very well: He drives off with Dead Reckoning and threatens to blow up Fiddler's Green if he doesn't get five million dollars by midnight. Kaufman, in turn, hires Riley to retake Dead Reckoning--mostly because he wants to use it as a getaway vehicle should anything go wrong. (And it will.) So Riley goes out to get Dead Reckoning--with the idea of driving it to Canada himself--while the undead, lead by Big Daddy, slowly converge on Fiddler's Green, munching on more than a few soldiers and unlucky souls along the way.

Riley is a pretty dull hero; he's basically a nice guy in a not-so-nice situation. But the hero is usually less interesting than the supporting characters surrounding him or her--Dorothy was pretty bland compared to the Tin Man, Scarecrow or Cowardly Lion; and Luke Skywalker wasn't nearly as much fun to hang out with as Han Solo or Chewbacca. Fortunately, Romero surrounds Riley with colorful characters like Charlie (Robert Joy) a burn victim who's a deadshot with a rifle; Slack (Asia Argento), a tough, take-no-shit ex-hooker with the obligitory heart of gold; and Pillsbury (Pedro Miguel Arce), an enormous SWAT guy who gets some of the best lines in the movie.

Romero pacing is tighter than usual (at 90 minutes, Land of the Dead is the shortest of his undead movies to date), but as in the past, he uses the situation to comment on society and its ills--sometimes to great effect, sometimes less so.

For instance, Romero touches on consumerism (both literal and figuritive), but the economic state put forth in Land of the Dead are pretty murky. How is money still worth anything after the apocalypse? Where exactly are you going to spend it even if you still have any? And didn't Romero already touch on this all the way back in the original Dawn of the Dead, when two characters loot a shopping mall bank and hold bundles of cash up to a security camera? Or is he implying that humanity will cling to consumerism even after the world ends, because money and possessions are all we humans care about? It's not clear what point Romero is trying to make, if any. The intellectual grow of the zombies is hardly fresh, either--remember Bub, the undead soldier from Romero's previous ghoul grind, Day of the Dead? He was more charming than Big Daddy, too.

The metaphorical use of Fiddler's Green, though, is more than flexible enough to accommodate multiple levels of interpretation. Haves vs. Have-nots. Conservatives vs. liberals. Even America vs. the rest of the world. (Romero nods overtly in this direction when Cholo threatens to unleash a "jihad" on Kaufman.)

The presence of social commentary doesn't mean Romero skimps on the gut-munching. Oh no. There is more than enough flesh-scarfing, head-'sploding action to please even the most discriminating saucehead, with some visually beautiful moments, like when the army of undead rises out of the water, or long shots of ghouls roaming free on the streets of the city that had only moments before been quiet, if not peaceful.

Romero and the actors make the characters interesting enough (even the dead ones) that we care about what eventually happens to them. The notable exception is Hopper, whose performance is so atypically restrained and whose part is so underwritten (it's never explained how Kaufman amassed so much power or why somebody doesn't just drag him out of his tower and throw him to the zombies) that he's not an especially compelling villain, though he does get some good lines ("Zombies, man...they creep me out"). Leguizamo, on the other hand, is a more compelling bad guy with a more understandable set of motives: He's worked hard, paid his dues and wants what he feels he deserves. Who can't relate to that?

Though the ending of Land of the Dead leaves open the possibility of further sequels, this may well be Romero's last zombie flick. If that's the case, he goes out with considerable style and some admirable scares. If you're a fan of the films of George A. Romero, you'll adore this movie. And if you're not a fan? What are you doing here, anyway?

Review: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Sequels are tricky, remakes even more so. But a remake of a sequel? That's just begging for trouble. And when you consider that this is Zack Snyder's first effort as a feature film director (he previously worked in commercials) and that James Gunn is responsible for writing the abysmal live-action Scooby-Doo and its needless sequel, the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead should be an outright disaster. But it's not. In fact, on its own terms, this new Dawn is scary, nasty and wickedly funny.

I'm just not sure it's really a remake.

It's true that Gunn and Snyder use the same basic scenario as George Romero's revered original Dawn of the Dead, a loose sequel to his zero-budget cult classic, Night of the Living Dead: The recently dead have risen to feast on the living, and a determined group of survivors holes up in a shopping mall while the undead mill about outside, clammoring to get inside and pick them clean. And there are certainly specific, respectful nods to the cast of the Romero's Dawn: there's a shop in the mall called Gaylen Ross (who played the female lead in the original); Scott Reiniger turns up as a general; Tom Savini plays a county sheriff; and Ken Foree is a televangelist who gets to say the tagline, just like he did in the original--"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

Only the dead in the new Dawn don't "walk the earth." They run. Fast.

In that sense, Dawn of the Dead owes a lot more to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later..., in which humans infected with a biological weapon that turns them into mindless, bloodthirsty savages, than to any of Romero's zombie epics (or, much more recently, Resident Evil), in which the dead move so slowly you can practically dance past them. (That made sense, in a way. If the radiation or virus or whatever--a reason is hinted at in Night of the Living Dead, but no explanation is offered in either version of Dawn--that reanimates the body only activates certain parts of the brain, then a lack of coordination is to be expected.) Try that with these jacked-up zombies, and you'll be lunch before you make it half a block.

This different approach to the material is evident from the opening frames. Ana (Sarah Polley) works in a hospital in Milwaukee, where a patient with a bite wound has been brought. She thinks little of it, drives to her suburban home, has a brief conversation with a cute little blonde girl (cue ominous music) and has sex with her husband in the shower, thus missing the news bulletins blaring out of her TV. In the morning, she and hubby are awakened by the little blonde girl--now looking not nearly as cute with blood running from her mouth--who promptly rips hubby's throat out. He dies quickly--and just as quickly is back up again, wild-eyed and trying to put the bite on Ana, who wisely jumps out the bathroom window and makes a run for it. To where? Anywhere that's safe. But that's the problem: nowhere is safe. Not anymore.

In an opening credits sequence as effective as any I've ever seen, images of befuddled reporters and officials are intermingled with flashes of zombie mayhem, all to the tune of Johnny Cash's apocalyptic "The Man Comes Around."

Ana hooks up with other survivors, like Kenneth (Ving Rhames), a tight-lipped, take-no-shit Milwaukee cop; Michael (Jake Weber), your average nice guy; and Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant girlfriend, Luda (Inna Korobkina). They take refuge in the local mall, only to find three security guards (Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers and Michael Barry) who don't take kindly to others invading their hiding place.

More survivors arrive later, and the rest of the movie becomes an ongoing battle between the entrenched living and the dashing dead, who wander around outside the mall until they spot fresh flesh and rush for supper, infecting the survivor with their bite. And the survivors, to their credit, are all amazing shots, able to hit zombies in the head (the only way to stop them for good, you know) as they barrel forward. And trust me: a lot of heads get blown off in Dawn, which somehow only got an R rather than an NC-17; guess it didn't have enough sex for the MPAA to give it the more adult rating. (That seems to send a dangerous message: Sex and any discussion of it is to be discouraged, while violence is not acceptable, but preferable.)

With all the fighting and flying, there isn't much room for character development (even with some characters starting off looking bad or good and ending up the polar opposite), though the action does slow down long enough for moments of quiet observation: a game of chess between Kenneth and Andy (Bruce Bohne), the gunshop owner across the street from the mall, played with binoculers and dry-erase boards; Andre and Luda playfully debating whether to give their child an African or Russian name; an infected survivor waiting to die and revive as another survivor stands vigil, awaiting the moment when the trigger must be pulled.

Even though Romero's 1978 screenplay is credited as the basis for this latest Dawn, much of it has been tossed in favor of speed and brevity. That's not necessarily a bad thing; one of the legitimate criticisms of Romero's original is that it runs too long (over two hours, and even longer in the "director's cut") and it's pacing is too languid. While that certainly allows more room for character development and social satire (zombies = typical mall shoppers), it also allows for less attentive viewers to nod off before the gut-muching conclusion. No chance of that happening in the new Dawn: the zombies just keep on coming in menacing swarms well photographed by veteran cinematographer Matthew Leonetti (who shot Poltergeist, among many others), and slow patches are few and far between.

The lack of fidelity to Romero's original also means that the pointed but unsubtle social commentary is almost entirely absent here. That's not a criticism of Snyder or Gunn. The two movies have entirely different goals. Romero wanted to poke fun at the consumer mentality; snyder and Gunn are much more interested in action/adventure and snarky dialogue.

Still, there are hints of commentary here and there in the Snyder/Gunn Dawn: An overhead view of the suburb Ana lives in seems to imply that a zombielike state of conformity already exists, lacking only the zombies themselves; a brief debate about what to do with an infected survivor echoes past arguments over the treatment of AIDS patients, and the zombies themselves could represent how quickly everything, including the human race, becomes obsolete. Society's house of cards folds in record time--what took an undetermined time in Romero's Dawn (weeks, perhaps) and days in 28 Days Later... takes mere hours here.

Without Romero's interest in overt commentary, though, the shopping mall location ceases to make sense. Romero chose the mall for its satirical possibilities, not because it would be the best place to go when the dead rise, especially given their proclivity for massing there. Maybe Snyder and Gunn would have been better off setting their zombie holocost in a hospital, a warehouse, a high school--anywhere but a shopping mall--and calling their movie something other than Dawn of the Dead. That way, they'd have been spared the comparisons and their work could have stood--or, more appropriately, stumbled and rumbled--on its own.

Unavoidable comparisons aside, though, this new Dawn is good-humored, dark, gross fun well done. It may not be a classic like the original, but it's energetic and entertaining--and that's all it needs to be.

Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

At the end of George Romero's low-budget horror classic, Night of the Living Dead, it appeared that humanity had a firm grip on the whole flesh-eating zombie thing, chasing down and shooting the undead creatures and consigning their corpses to enormous bonfires.

But appearances, as they say, can be deceiving.

By the time Romero's Dawn of the Dead kicks in, it's all-out war between the living and the dead-and the dead are winning, by sheer force of numbers. (As a priest in the film puts it, "When the dead walk, senors, we must stop the killing or lose the war.") Four survivors--two TV station employees (Gaylen Ross and David Emge) and two National Guardsmen (Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger)--decide to make a run for it in a traffic copter and wind up in a suburban shopping mall, where the dead stumble through the department stores and the food court like...well, your average shoppers.

Romero takes a somewhat different approach for this sequel, going for intentional laughs and satire--aren't the zombies the ultimate consumers?--and presenting the ultra-violent proceedings in full color (as opposed to the stark black and white photography of the original). So full of blood and (literal) guts was Dawn, with heads exploding, arms being chopped off and bodies being ripped limb from juicy limb (all performed with stomach-churning conviction by special-effects wizard Tom Savini, who also has a small part in the film as a member of an evil biker gang), that it would have become the first movie ever to receive an "X" rating strictly on the basis of violence, unlike most movies receiving the "X"--or its modern equivalent, an "NC-17"--applied almost strictly for sexual content; Romero chose to release Dawn without a rating. (Just remember, kids: it's okay to show someone getting shot to death, but never okay to see a nipple--not even Janet Jackson's.)

But what saves this from being an unrelenting splatterfest is Romero's literate script, where the actions of the characters raise moral and ethical questions about rampant consumerism and what exactly constitutes "survival." At one point, bikers pin down a zombie and strip her of her jewelry (don't worry--they pay for it in the end), while others loot stores and trash the joint simply because they can. (How is this behavior that different from what we saw years later in the Los Angeles riots or the swarming of fans after sports championships? Not much.)

And Romero develops the characters well enough this time around that we care about their eventual fates and can't necessarily predict who lives and who dies (only to live again, if you call that living). It also doesn't hurt that the performances are uniformly more professional that in Night of the Living Dead, especially Foree, who projects cool and clam even when surrounded by scores of grasping hands and snapping jaws.

Even so many years later, when so many other films have equaled or exceeded the level of carnage exhibited in Dawn of the Dead, it still stands out as the rare sequel that, in its own way, equals the original, with enough frights and food for thought to make it a lasting success on the midnight movie circuit (where I caught it in 1982).

Dawn's only major flaws are its length (well over two hours and even longer on the "director's cut," which features some extended scenes, most of which don't add much) and its musical soundtrack, which goes from creepy (provided by co-producer Dario Argento's favorite group, Goblin) to annoying and insipid (canned music reportedly inserted by Romero himself, including one passage in that "director's cut" that was previously used in the opening credits for Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

Too bad Romero went on to make a third zombie film, Day of the Dead, which is as bad as the first two are good. Rumors have persisted for years of a fourth film in the series, but financing for a project sure to rate an "NC-17" is hard to come by. In the meantime, there are plenty of knockoffs, ripoffs and remakes--including Dawn of the Dead, opening soon at a theater near you. Expect a review here when the zombies are turned loose again....

Review: Creepshow (1982)

Director George Romero and novelist Stephen King obviously have affection for (and were heavily influenced in their career choices by) the horror comics of the 1950s, most particularly those produced by EC Comics. These stories featured gruesome, graphic artwork and well-written, scary stories that often had "twist" endings.

Creepshow is their tribute to those comics, and Romero gets the look of the movie just about right, with tilted camera angles and bright primary colors. He even employs comic strip borders in many scenes and brought on EC veteran Jack Kamen to draw the comic book seen between stories.

It's too bad the stories themselves can't match the dead-on tone of the visuals. King's first attempt at writing directly for the screen falls short in the same way that many of EC's imitators did: he can mimic the style, but not the substance. Most anthology horror films are uneven, with some stories holding up better than others, but few swing so wildly in quality than Creepshow does.

The framing story features a little boy who gets slapped around by his beer-swilling dad (Tom Adkins) because the kid likes horror comics. Dad throws away his son's copy of the first issue of Creepshow ; the pages turn, and we get to see five stories.

FATHER'S DAY. A daughter whacks her elderly, mean-spirited father (literally, with a marble ashtray) on the title occasion, denying him his cake. She then visits his grave every year, swilling Jim Beam straight out of the bottle while cursing dear old dad ("You called me a bitch!"). Seven years after his murder, Dad crawls out of his grave and returns the favor, then sets about knocking off other members of his family, including a grandson-in-law he's never even met (Ed Harris).

The story lacks any particular logic-a failing of many stories attempting to duplicate EC's success--and makes for a really weak start to the movie. I mean, why does Dad wait seven years to go zombie on the family? Once he's killed his killer, why does he go on killing? Why does he kill Harris, when he's never met the boy? And why DOESN'T he kill the snotty rich kids? This story just annoyed me. But it could have been worse...

THE LONELY DEATH OF JORDY VERRIL. As bad as that first story was, it's fucking Shakespeare compared to the second one, which stars King himself as a rube who finds a meteor, has visions about making a fortune on it, cracks it open accidentally, gets the green glowing stuff inside ("Meteor shit!") on his fingers and starts turning into a plant. Most of this is played for broad comedy, with King's performance consisting entirely of wide-eyed mugging, but it ends on a serious note striving for pity for this dumbass. Sorry. Not buying it. This is an ego-stroke for King and nothing more. But even an ego-stroke can be at least a little fun for the audience--can't it?

SOMETHING TO TIDE YOU OVER. Easily the best story of the bunch, maybe because it comes the closest to the style of the EC stories, which often featured James M. Cain-style lovers' triangles. Leslie Nielsen gives a surprisingly nasty performance as a husband who gets revenge on his cheating wife (Gaylen Ross, from Romero's zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead) and her boyfriend (Ted Dansen) by burying them in the sand up to their necks at his private beach and watches the tide come in. Of course, they don't stay dead for long, returning to haunt Nielsen as seaweed-draped walking corpses. (Their faces are all wrinkled and distorted, but their hands seem to have no makeup at all; what, did makeup artist Tom Savini run out of Latex?)

THE CRATE. The goriest story. A janitor at a college tells one of the professors (Fritz Weaver) about this crate he's found under the stairs. (Note to everyone in horror films: if you find anything under the stairs, no matter how interesting it looks, LEAVE THE SHIT ALONE!) It's from an Arctic expedition in 1834, but there seems to be something moving around inside...something with very sharp teeth and bright yellow eyes. The prof tells another prof (Hal Holbrook), who would dearly love to ditch his shrewish, boozy floozy of a wife (Adrienne Barbeau). So he takes her down to see the thing under the stairs, and....

This story still works, despite the thunderous lack of logic--just how does this creature stay alive for 148 years--because of the performances of all involved, especially Holbrook, whose chilly, opportunistic approach to the horrible find (he calmly mops up the blood spilled by previous victims so his wife won't suspect a thing as he leads her to slaughter) oddly makes him hissable and sympathetic at the same time. And the only way that works is if we feel sorry for him because he's married to Barbeau, who makes her character pretty loathsome.

THEY'RE CREEPING UP ON YOU. A one-man show, essentially, with E.G. Marshall as a truly repugnant millionaire who delights in his business triumphs--even when they end in suicide for those he conquers--but has a fear of germs in general and bugs in particular. So, of course, his spotless apartment gets overrun with millions of cockroaches, leading to a (literally) explosive conclusion.

Marshall is perfect as a man we instantly hate, and the situation carries the irony that EC relished so. But the special effects fail in the end, with roaches erupting from an obvious dummy head. Still, a strong end story to wash away the bile of the first two.

Oh. And the kid who got smacked by Dad to start the movie gets his revenge in a most pointed way--via a voodoo doll.

There's more than a bit of fun to be had with some of the stories in Creepshow. And with DVD technology and a nimble finger, you can skip the first two stories and get right to the good stuff.

(NOTE: There never was a Creepshow comic book, although there was an official movie adaptation featuring lovely...er, scary artwork by horror comics legend Berni Wrightson.)

Review: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

I was about eight or nine years old when I first saw George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. I may or may not have been a reasonably bright kid, but I must confess that I didn't get it. Not at all. I couldn't understand: what was so scary about people being chased by...other, really slow, really pale people? I watched the whole movie, shrugged and went back to my Marvel comics and my GI Joes.

A year or so later, I saw Night of the Living Dead again. It was playing on a local UHF station, flickering out at me from a black & white portable TV my brother and I shared in a small room just off the kitchen. It's been said everything can change in the blink of an eye, so just imagine what a year can do for the mind of a young child. More intelligence. More experience. More awareness of the world. But there are prices to be paid for awareness: I now understood perfectly what Night of the Living Dead was about and, before it had even run its full length, I turned the TV off and left the room. Shaking.

That night I dreamed of them, the ghouls with disheveled clothing, shuffling step and moist, wide, starving eyes. And many nights since as well. Sometimes they even caught me, tearing me limb from struggling limb. Some say you can't die in your dreams, while others maintain that the "ability" to die in your dreams is indicative of a highly creative mind--not something you think about much when you're watching your arms and legs being carried off in various directions, food for the stumbling, undead masses.

Many years passed before it was possible for me to stay in my seat and watch, without covering my eyes or averting my gaze, every last frame of Night of the Living Dead. In fact, it took watching it with a friend who, to her credit, found a great deal worth laughing at in Night before I felt even moderately comfortable sitting all the way through the movie.

And to be honest, there's plenty to mock in Night: Most of the acting is amateurish (maybe because most of the actors were amateurs); the music is lifted from other movies, most noticeably Teenagers from Outer Space and The Hideous Sun Demon; there are a few outstanding continuity errors (day becomes night awfully fast--like in the space of one edit--and one zombie who has long hair at the start of the movie has clearly gotten a haircut by the conclusion); and the special effects aren't terribly special.

This movie doesn't even have a particularly original concept. Similar scenes of zombie frolic had been used in Invisible Invaders and in The Last Man on Earth, a mediocre Vincent Price movie based on Richard Matheson's legendary vampire novella, I Am Legend (which was later adapted again as the awful Omega Man with Charlton Heston).

The story of Night is pretty familiar now: Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner, who was also one of the film's producers) go out to the country to visit their father's grave. While there, they're attacked by the first of many, many zombies, who kills Johnny and chases Barbara to a deserted house where she meets up with Ben (Duane Jones, easily the best actor in the film), a truck driver who's fought his way through the undead hordes. Other survivors pop out of the basement (including Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman as a bickering husband and wife), realistic radio and TV reports try to make sense out of the mayhem (at one point, it's proposed that radiation from a probe to Venus is somehow responsible, but this is dropped quickly and never referred to again), and the zombies attack in graceless waves.

What lifts Night of the Living Dead above its flaws and meager budget is the style, conviction and realism Romero and crew bring to the whole thing. The stark black & white cinematography is more suggestive of documentary than of fiction; the escalating tensions among the survivors--especially between Jones and Hardman--ratchets up the strain on the audience; and the lack of a happy ending hearkens back to the EC Comics Romero enjoyed so much as a child (and would later pay more direct tribute to in Creepshow).

Then there are the living dead themselves: ever-present, shuffling, decomposing, hungry for the flesh of the living. They never tire, never wander off, never give up. The pressure never ceases. And when they do actually snag some skin to munch on, the movie gets downright grisly--although, after so many years of sequels, remakes, spinoffs and ripoffs that were far more graphic and gruesome, Night can now play on broadcast TV with no edits whatsoever.

Night of the Living Dead remains the stuff that nightmares and still, after all this time, packs one hell of a punch. Watch it with friends--and leave the lights on afterwards.

(NOTE: Because Night of the Living Dead has been in the public domain for so long, many truly nasty-looking prints can be found on both VHS and DVD. The only print worth owning-or even viewing--is the beautifully restored, digitally remastered print available through Elite Entertainment. They released it on video in 1995 through Anchor Bay and more recently put the same package out on DVD. Forget the rest--this is the best.)