Post by TomFury{QAW} on Oct 7, 2010 12:56:19 GMT -5
My favorite "monsters" are zombies. I've loved zombie movies ever since I first saw George Romero's Dawn of the Dead while sleeping over at my friend Mike's house back in 1984. It remains the pinnacle of cinematic zombiedom for me, but I am always on the lookout for worthy additions to the genre. During the last ten years there has been a huge resurgence in the popularity of zombies. While overall this is a good thing, it has also produced some absolutely dreadful rubbish.
While zombie movies date back to 1932's White Zombie (starring Bela Lugosi), these earlier works generally operated under the "Haitian" or "Voodoo" zombie concept. This notion has been all but abandoned since the emergence of the modern zombie in George Romero's groundbreaking 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Even though appearing many years after the movie-going public were first introduced to the idea of zombies, Romero's creature creation is what people are referring to when they talk about the "classic" zombie.
Because of this, I've chosen that film for the inaugural post.
Ah George. I love you. You introduced the world to a wonderful thing and the world didn't know what hit it. I think this bit from Roger Ebert's original review (oddly dated 1967 on his website even though the movie didn't premiere until October of 1968) sums it up nicely:
Flesh is ripped. Flesh is consumed. Hope is lost. Even the hero dies. What an utterly disturbing piece of film this still remains even today. With this one little black-and-white independent feature (which he even forgot to copyright), George Romero blew the horror genre apart and forever changed what "zombie" meant to the world. While perhaps not as seminal as some of the early German works such as Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, I would certainly place it among the ranks of the iconic Universal Studios releases of the '30s and '40s like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man in terms of importance.
While almost ludicrously tame by today's standards, the images are burned into your brain.
If you have never seen this film, you need to rectify that as soon as possible. Don't expect the visceral monotony of what passes today as "horror". Torture and cruelty and interminable anatomization isn't scary. Shocking, gross, nauseating. Yes. Scary? Nope.
Watch it at night with the lights out. For the truly brave, unlock your doors too.
They're coming to get you Barbara!
10/10
While zombie movies date back to 1932's White Zombie (starring Bela Lugosi), these earlier works generally operated under the "Haitian" or "Voodoo" zombie concept. This notion has been all but abandoned since the emergence of the modern zombie in George Romero's groundbreaking 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Even though appearing many years after the movie-going public were first introduced to the idea of zombies, Romero's creature creation is what people are referring to when they talk about the "classic" zombie.
Because of this, I've chosen that film for the inaugural post.
Ah George. I love you. You introduced the world to a wonderful thing and the world didn't know what hit it. I think this bit from Roger Ebert's original review (oddly dated 1967 on his website even though the movie didn't premiere until October of 1968) sums it up nicely:
"There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying."
Flesh is ripped. Flesh is consumed. Hope is lost. Even the hero dies. What an utterly disturbing piece of film this still remains even today. With this one little black-and-white independent feature (which he even forgot to copyright), George Romero blew the horror genre apart and forever changed what "zombie" meant to the world. While perhaps not as seminal as some of the early German works such as Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, I would certainly place it among the ranks of the iconic Universal Studios releases of the '30s and '40s like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man in terms of importance.
While almost ludicrously tame by today's standards, the images are burned into your brain.
If you have never seen this film, you need to rectify that as soon as possible. Don't expect the visceral monotony of what passes today as "horror". Torture and cruelty and interminable anatomization isn't scary. Shocking, gross, nauseating. Yes. Scary? Nope.
Watch it at night with the lights out. For the truly brave, unlock your doors too.
They're coming to get you Barbara!
10/10