Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Director: Tom Savini

Cast: Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles, McKee Anderson

Have I Seen it Before: Never. What with my well-known apathy towards the zed-word, it’s entirely possible I wasn’t even aware a remake of the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) existed, until it was put on the schedule of season-premiere for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods.

Did I Like It: While I felt like the last act of the film descended into the kind of zombie-sameness that works better than a horse tranquilizer* that keeps me from being a complete convert, the first half works far more effectively. Savini wastes no time just starting the action apace. This no-nonsense approach to the genre very nearly lulls me into a false sense of security that this will be a breathless chase against the forces of Judgment Day. If things had kept up with this pace, the characters might not have had any time to slow things down and slowly realize that the non-dead are just as much monsters as the undead.

But it was not meant to be. Had things stayed with just Todd and Tallman, we could have had an almost perfect minimalist entry in the genre. But there just had to be more people in the cellar…

And a group of rednecks who are just itching to domesticate the ghouls.

And a news broadcast that tells us about the unravelling of human society that can only be ebbed by destroying the reanimated’s brain.

And a beloved character who is turned before the end credits, followed immediately thereafter by another beloved character who is prepared to re-enter the world, unbitten but no less dehumanized.

*It’s probably unfair to judge it too harshly for these sins. The Walking Dead may have completely killed in me the thing that allows people to like depictions of zombies, but Walking Dead was just aping Romero’s work in beating that undead horse.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)*

Director: John McNaughton

Cast: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold, David Katz

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I remember being unnerved and nauseated by it even back then. Before my fellow Polterguides on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods ask, yes. I was the one who put it on the schedule for this year. I did know what we were getting into, and I did put up fair warnings.

Did I Like It: And that’s pretty much held up until today. Is it possible to truly “like” something so willfully repugnant? Probably not, and this thing continues to seemingly delight in nauseating. This is all before it—and by “it,” I do mean both the film Henry and the character Henry (Rooker)—really pulls the rug out from under you and confidently declared that monsters are not charming, nor do they secretly have a heart of gold, but are instead malevolent forces walking among us.

And yet, the film should be watched and is made with more skill than many of the horror movies of the era. Unflinching as it is, it is impossible to quietly root for Henry as we do for several of the other horror baddies who dominated the 80s. Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers, Chucky, and Pinhead all became cult heroes despite their depravity. Just as we might think that Henry is depraved but has at least a little bit more heroism to him than his buddy Otis (Towles) could ever dream of…

But he doesn’t.

As Roger Ebert** often noted, Jean-Luc Godard said the best way to criticise a film was to make your own film, and McNaughton is offering an indictment of unthinking horror-fandom here, to the point where the viewer can’t—or at least I can’t—look at other horror films and ignore that somewhere in all the quips and mystery lies something with which we may not be collectively prepared to effectively deal.

*Some confusion about just what year spawned the film. Produced in ’86, it appears to have wound its way through the festival circuit before getting any kind of wide distribution in early ’91.

**Eagle-eared listeners of Beyond will note the recent addition of the Roger Ebert rule, but I say this one doesn’t apply, as I had both seen and had a reaction to the film before ever knowing what Ebert or Siskel thought about it.