Hey, freaks! That special time of the year is upon us again. It’s the season of the pumpkin, and the end of the harvest. It’s time to reap the darkness that has been sewn over another year, and let it roam free across the dying autumn leaves as the wind gets colder, and the nighttime grows longer. The shadows begin to deepen, and the veil between the planes of existence becomes thinner. It is during All Hallow’s Eve when the dead are free to cross over, and walk among us for one night only.
Why not throw them a party?
It is the ultimate horror marathon, dear readers! We are kicking out the monster jams all month long to celebrate the old, and strongest emotion of mankind. We’re talking about everyone’s favorite four-letter word that begins with an “f”, and that word is “fear”, folks! 31 nights, and 62 of the best horror flicks from my collection. Cock your boomsticks, and grab some holy water. Because this October, we’re Bounding Into Halloween.
Night 1
We begin the month in bloody style with a double shot from the immortal (and forever reigning) zombie king, George A. Romero, and they are the first two movies in his legendary Living Dead series. They were also supposed to be the final segment of last month’s “September of the Living Dead”, but it didn’t feel right to exclude them from the most wonderful time of the year. There are other excuses as well that I could bore you to death with, but it’s best to just let sleeping corpses lie…
Night of the Living Dead (Continental Distribution)
The zombie genre was forever redefined in this magical month fifty-six years ago when director George Romero released his groundbreaking apocalyptic classic, Night of the Living Dead. Armed with a $114,000 budget, and experience in guerilla filmmaking, he would not only create one most one of the most important movies in the entire horror genre, but also one of the most successful independent films ever made. A film that shocked audiences to the core during more innocent times, it took the zombie from the Haitian voodoo graveyards, and catapulted it into the rotting depths of pop culture for all time with countless spin-offs and imitators, but it all started with this great film.
A widespread investigation of reports from funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead are coming back to life, and seeking human victims. They are committing acts of wholesale murder, and eating the flesh of the victims they kill. Anyone who is bitten by one of these ghouls will die shortly after, and re-animate as a ghoul only a few minutes later. Gunshot wounds will slow them down, but one between the eyes will stop them for good. The bodies must be incinerated- soaked with gasoline, and burned! People will have to forego the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. The dead are rising!
This nightmare is what sets the stage for our tale about seven souls trapped inside of a country house in rural Pennsylvania. Random people came upon the abandoned domicile to escape the madness of the brave new world outside. They board up the windows, stay glued to the television for updates, and draw irrelevant lines in the sand with each other while an ever-growing mass of ghouls (never called “zombies” in Romero’s films) converge on the house. They are trying to get inside, they’re very hungry, and they’re coming to get you, Barbara…
In an age where they could probably get away with playing this film uncut on Cartoon Network, it’s almost comical to imagine that Night of the Living Dead was so controversial during its first theatrical run. This was during a time when folks were used to taking their kids to a fun little creature feature full of terrible acting, cheesy set designs, and happy endings while completely forgetting what horror is supposed to be about.
This gritty, bleak tale of death (and undeath) left a bad taste in the sensitive mouths of many film critics when it was released, but some did recognize its quality (even if it left them a little traumatized). One of them being legendary castigator of cinema (and harshest critic of horror), the late/great Roger Ebert, and this quote from his 1969 review that says it all:
“I don’t think the younger kids really knew what hit them. They were used to going to movies, sure, and they’d seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating people up – and you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, even the hero got killed. I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon. I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.”
Night of the Living Dead is available on TUBI.
Dawn of the Dead (United Film Distribution Company/Titanus)
Ten years after the previous film, George Romero made a triumphant return to his apocalypse with a follow-up that many fans (myself included) consider to be the quintessential zombie film of all time. Featuring a historic collaboration with horror maestro Dario Argento, the band Goblin, and the horror world is introduced to a talented young effects artist by the name of Tom Savini. A crowning achievement that still shines on after the forty-six years since its release. The Night of the Living Dead has passed, and now…Dawn of the Dead begins.
The story goes from an isolated abode in Bufu, Egypt to a shopping mall outside of Pittsburgh where four survivors have barricaded themselves after fleeing Philadelphia after it was overrun by flocks of flesh-eating “ghouls” that continue to grow in numbers. Only it’s not just them that they have to worry about. As society crumbles, the herd instinct of morality fades and humanity’s savage default settings come back into play. A huge group scavenging bikers come across the mall, and want to claim it as their own. That’s when the fight for survival truly begins.
Larger in scale, story, and budget (but not by too much) than its predecessor, Dawn of the Dead brings a unique blend of horror, sly humor, and social commentary that’s perfectly crafted. Whether it be from shock, or just warm nostalgia there are images in the film that will stick with a person long after viewing. Critics were more accepting of this one, and our old friend Ebert gave it “Thumbs Up”, along with some very true words in his review from 1979:
“Dawn of the Dead” is one of the best horror films ever made – and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also (excuse me for a second while I find my other list) brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society. Nobody ever said art had to be in good taste.”
Taste is subjective, Mr. Ebert. Yours most certainly come into question with that garbage take you had on John Carpenter’s The Thing back in 1982, but you weren’t wrong here, and that’s all that matters. There are three cuts of the film: The theatrical cut (2hrs 7min), the European “Argento” cut (1hr 59min), and the “complete” cut (2hrs 34mins). The first one can be streamed on Prime, the Argento cut can be bought on Amazon, and the complete cut can be found right here.