Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition (1998)

... aka: Night of the Living Dead: Final Version

Directed by:
John A. Russo

Instead of leaving well enough alone or releasing a new remastered version of Romero's masterpiece NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), John A. Russo and many other Night alum got together and decided to film brand new scenes. Blasphemy you say? You would be correct for the most part. This footage (about 17 minutes in total) was then wedged into a shortened cut of the '68 version wherever it would fit for the film's 30th Anniversary release. This new stuff was shot in black-and-white (by original Night cemetery ghoul S. William Hinzman) in an ill-fated attempt to match it to the original. A new music score was the other major change. Hinzman also helped produce and edit while Russo directed, wrote and edited, plus helped finance the project through his company Market Square Productions. Seeing how Market Square was making things like Swimsuit Sensations (1992), SANTA CLAWS (1996) and Scream Queens Naked Christmas (1996) at around the same time, who'd have ever guessed the resulting footage would end up so shitty?

Other Night vets who got involved include Russell Streiner (an editor), Karl Hardman (still photographer and make-up) and Marilyn Eastman (who handled some of the zombie extra make-up). Perhaps the biggest sin of all was that they actually cut about 20 minutes from the original just to make room for the new stuff. For the record, Romero wanted nothing at all to do with this project. He didn't work on it, didn't endorse it and didn't even want his name associated with it, so I'm not going to list him as the co-director out of respect despite the fact he's credited as such on the print. I'm also not going to recap the events of the original as most people already know what goes on there.

The new footage begins at a prison as grave diggers Dan (Grant Kramer) and Mike (Adam Knox), escorted by guard Charlie (Scott Kerschbaumer), carry a coffin to their pick-up truck and load it into the back. Inside the box is the body of a notorious child molester / murderer who's just been fried in the electric chair. In order to skirt any potential controversy, the warden has ordered the men to quietly, secretly deliver the corpse to the local cemetery and bury it without any commotion. Meeting them there are Arthur (George Drennen) and Hilda Krantz (Julie Wallace), the parents of one of the young victims who want some closure, as well as bald Reverend John Hicks (Scott Vladimir Licina). Arthur demands they open the casket so he can spit on the corpse then he and his wife storm off. After reciting a prayer, the reverend then walks away. And once the corpse (played by Hinzman to connect it to the original) rises from the grave, the two movers jump in their truck and also take off. (This was used as a prologue before Johnny and Barbara arrived at the cemetery.)

Next up we visit a car crash site where a family of four lie dead. The mother and two daughters return as zombies and exit the car while more zombies - including a waitress with her arm ripped off (Heidi Hinzman) and a mangled garage mechanic (Dan Abraham) - start feasting on the father's body. We then get a parade of zombies across the screen from multiple angles. (These shots were blended in with shots of the zombies gathering outside the farmhouse after the truck explosion in the original.)

Adding to the "next day" scenes, reporter Darlene Davies (Debbie Rochon) is interviewing the Reverend about the burial of the killer at the cemetery while, hilariously, an armed posse just shoots zombies all around them. The Hinzman zombie then reappears. The Reverend is bitten on the face while trying to give him a sermon before Hinzman is finally put out of his misery with a shot to the head.

The final new bit is set "one year later" at the Ormsby Medical Center. Darlene arrives to interview the now-even-crazier Reverend, who has somehow not been transformed into a zombie despite being bitten. He claims it was God's intervention and his wounds being cleansed with holy water that protected him. However, he's being held at the center against his will so doctors can study his immune system in hopes of coming up with an antidote. He rails about evil atheists and agnostics, theorizes that the dead are "creatures of Satan" and claims that walking corpses have been possessed by demons. Darlene gets spooked and then rushes out of the room. The end.

While these newly added scenes are probably not all that much worse than what you'd find in most other low budget zombie films from the 90s and 2000s, they stick out like a sore thumb when spliced into Romero's film. Not helping matters any is the acting, which is downright awful for the most part. Licina, who looks like Anton LaVey and also did the new music score, cannot act a lick so of course they give him five times more dialogue than anyone else. Despite being shot in black-and-white, the image is too clean to ever match up to the original. Santa Claws, which was shot in color on 16mm film stock (also by Hinzman), is far grainier and grittier looking than this so perhaps they should have gone that route instead. Or perhaps they shouldn't have gone any route and not tried to enhance something that's perfect the way it is.

★

Santa Claws (1996)

... aka: 'Tis the Season

Directed by:
John A. Russo

John Russo will forever be best known as the co-writer of the masterpiece NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and for that reason alone he will be immortalized in our beloved genre regardless of whatever else he does. However, unlike NOTLD's director / writer George A. Romero, who went on to prove his talents numerous times over with various other excellent films, Night is thus far the lone major highlight in Mr. Russo's career... and one he'd go on to milk for all it's worth. In the early 80s, Russo wrote a zombie novel called "Return of the Living Dead" and an accompanying script, which he then put together as a possible 3D film project by producer Tom Fox. The two wanted Tobe Hooper to direct, but Dan O'Bannon ended up getting the job instead. O'Bannon then drastically re-wrote Russo's screenplay to the point where it had next to nothing to do with what Russo had written. Despite that, Russo retained a story credit for the ensuing film; the 80s favorite THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). Afterward, he continued to exploit the "Living Dead" with numerous novels, comic books, documentaries and films. He wrote "The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook" in 1989, produced Tom Savini's mediocre Night remake in 1990, put together a 25th Anniversary Night documentary (later titled ZOMBIE JAMBOREE) in 1993, and committed a nearly unforgivable sin by re-cutting and inserting cheap new scenes into the original film and releasing it as Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition in 1999. Not content with all that, he went on to blab about Night is numerous documentaries and TV specials, executive produced the atrocious Children of the Living Dead (2001) and has announced he's going to make Night sequels numerous times over the years. One he kept going on about was "Escape of the Living Dead," which was going to be based on Russo's 2005 comic of the same name. The film has yet to happen.

Aside from Night and all the offshoots, Russo was also heavily involved in the whole 80s / 90s Scream Queen phenomenon, which basically revolved around attractive actresses of varying degrees of talent who usually took their clothes off in low-budget films. Starting in 1993, Russo was the editor of the magazine "Scream Queens Illustrated" which featured interviews with, and accompanying nude layouts of, female B movie stars like Linnea Quigley (the magazine's very first cover girl). To supplement that, Russo's company Latent Image Inc. also hawked Scream Queen books, trading cards, autographed posters, cheesecake videos like Scream Queens Swimsuit Sensations and and Scream Queens Knockout Workout (1992) and other such merchandise. Santa Claws falls firmly into this category of T&A fluff, though unlike earlier SQ videos, which are often just women parading around in the nude or in swimsuits or lingerie, it's a genuine attempt to make an actual horror film with a plot. Debbie Rochon, then an up-and-coming Scream Queen on the rise who has since become an indy horror queen with hundreds of credits to her name, was drafted for the lead role. Not only nice to look at, Rochon is also one of the better actresses in her category, so it's no surprise that Russo kept her around for several of his later projects like his Night re-do and the yet-to-be released Saloonatics (2002). She was also the announced star of Russo's yet-to-be-filmed "Escape of the Living Dead."

Claws centers around actress Raven Quinn (Rochon), who has a master's degree in zoology but instead opts to make a living as a nude model and B-movie Scream Queen (in a role clearly patterned after real-life Scream Queen Brinke Stevens, who has a master's degree in marine biology). Right after Raven secures the lead role in "Scream Queen Christmas" her life begins to fall apart, starting with her wayward Joey Buttafuoco-lookalike husband Eric (John Mowod), a glamour photographer who's just run off to Akron with slutty model Debbie (Susan Ellen White) and is considering filing for a divorce. To make matters even worse, Raven has attracted the attention of an obsessed, long-haired weirdo stalker named Wayne (Grant Kramer). As a child, Wayne gunned down his obese uncle and silicone-chested mother after catching them in bed together. Now as an adult, he has photos of Raven plastered all over his walls, a candle-lit shrine dedicated especially to her and even mail orders a bust of Raven, which he talks to and kisses, and fantasizes about coming to life. Wayne, who conveniently lives right next door to Raven, then begins babysitting her young daughters Angela (Dawn Michelucci) and Savannah (Savannah Calhoun) to integrate himself into her life. Not content with just that, he also begins donning disguises and taking a garden claw to the cast and crew of "Scream Queen Christmas."

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Clearly designed primarily as a vehicle for slasher T&A, this very cheap-looking direct-to-video trash fails miserably as a horror film with its laughably choreographed and ineptly staged attack scenes, one of the lamest murder weapons on record and a completely silly and non-threatening psycho (played in a laughably over-the-top manner by Kramer). There's no gore and barely even any blood, which will further piss off the target audience, as will the fact this was promoted as a killer Santa movie and Wayne doesn't even put on the costume until the film is nearing the 1 hour mark. This does a little better at the T&A, with five actresses getting naked, but gruelingly long sequences of women stripping out of glittery costumes on extremely cheap looking sets will have even the most desperately horny Lothario quickly seeking his fast-forward button. Rochon is several cuts above the others in the looks department and, like all good things, her topless-under-the-Christmas-tree-boogie is saved for the very end. For what it's worth, the supporting cast is littered with NOTLD alumni. Marilyn Eastman plays Raven's bitchy mother-in-law, Karl Hardman plays a sleazy producer, Bill Hinzman is a cameraman and Russo himself appears as a detective. Christine Cavalier and Terri Lewandowski, who were then trying to market themselves as mother-and-daughter Scream Queens, as well as Lisa Delien (also in the terrible Demon Lust [1997]) provide nudity. Russo filmed the tie-in tape Scream Queen Naked Christmas (1996) at the same time and on the same sets. It also featured Rochon, Kramer, Cavalier, White and Delien.

Much of Santa Claws actually seems like a defense for the whole Scream Queen movement. Raven has to defend herself against a feminist reporter who tries to degrade her career choice, her hypocritical in-laws, who are just fine with her husband shooting nude layouts but not OK with her appearing in them, and Wayne himself, who disapproves of her line of work and wonders what men do while watching her videos. Posters for nearly every film Russo ever worked on are seen on the walls and there are many direct plugs for "Scream Queens Illustrated." At one point, Hardman's character says the magazine is "...a tasteful presentation of horror movies, horror movie makers and horror movie starlets. The girls have beautiful bodies and normal, healthy guys enjoy looking at them." This whole angle is curiously destroyed not only by psycho Wayne but also Raven herself as she discusses one of her lame fans in detail, suggesting that men who like stuff like Santa Claws are pathetic, maladjusted perverts!

★1/2

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

... aka: Monster Flick
... aka: Night of the Flesh Eaters

Directed by:
George A. Romero

In celebration of George A. Romero's 73rd birthday, I wanted to finally get a long overdo write-up of his landmark, hugely influential film up on this blog. So much has already been written about Night over the years that I've decided to begin things a little differently: with a personal story. As horror fans, I think we all have that one movie we saw at a young, impressionable age that had such an overwhelming emotional impact on us that we now credit with it with turning us into the genre-loving adults we are today. Mine happens to be Night of the Living Dead and I'll share my story about how this film scared the ever-living hell out of an innocent, oblivious little boy back in the mid 80s. I grew up on a farm way out in the sticks and was raised by a single mother who had the burden of supporting three kids on a nursing assistant's income. Because she always had to work, and often had to pick up third shift hours to supplement things, my siblings and I spent a lot of time being shuffled between various friends and relatives homes. Sometimes schedules conflicted and we even founds ourselves home alone at certain times. I'm not sure where my brother and sister were at the time, but one evening I found my seven-year-old self in that very position...

Alone with free reign over the TV set, a rare thing in our home, and with no one to tell me when to go to bed, I found myself up late into the early morning hours, Night was one of the featured movies and the rest is history. As adults with our cynicism and our real world experiences, it's sometimes hard to remember back to a time when something as simple as a movie could truly, truly terrify us. Night did just that to me. Living one state over from where it was filmed, I was all too familiar with the film's rural settings. I knew these lonely, old, infrequently-visited country cemeteries, these long stretches of empty fields, these deep pockets of forests and these isolated white farmhouses with paint chipping off of the sides. Where I lived, no other houses were visible from anywhere on our property. Our nearest neighbor lived a half-mile away and all one could see from anywhere on the property was trees. And beyond that, darkness.

As the movie unfolded, I was completely horrified by what I was watching yet unable to look away from the TV screen until it was all over. I remember breathing a sigh of relief at the end when I thought one of the characters was safe and daylight came, then being knocked for a complete loop by this film's grim, hopeless ending. After it was all over, I peered nervously out of the windows at the night, just waiting for a zombie's face to appear. I ran to my room, locked the door, closed the curtains and just lied there in silence listening intently for any kind of noise. My mind raced with ideas. What would I do if zombies decided to pay me a visit? I eventually came to the conclusion I'd just go into the attic and wait for my mom to come get me.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink that night and didn't until the rest of my family came back the next day. Afterward, I was scared I'd be left all alone and, for months, did everything in my power to ensure that wouldn't happen again. Looking back, it's almost as funny as my brother and I taking turns posting guard outside the bathroom door during shower time so we wouldn't get slashed to death after viewing Psycho, but I'm sure I'm not alone in the deep emotional impact certain films had on me in my youth. There's a reason we continue to love this stuff into adulthood and a reason I and so many others have a lifelong attachment to this genre.

Night is in a select company of films so well-known, so frequently viewed and so often discussed that the premise doesn't really even require much discussion. After her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) is suddenly and abruptly killed by a undead ghoul in a cemetery, Barbra (Judith O'Dea) flees to a secluded farmhouse, finds a half-eaten corpse and retreats inside herself from the shock of it all. A small group of surviving humans turn up and help to board up the house while zombies, driven by their hunger for human flesh, slowly start to accumulate outside. Duane Jones (often cited as the first black actor cast in a lead role in one of these things regardless of his race) is Ben, a resourceful type, whose ideas about what the group should do are constantly at odds with those of Henry Cooper (Karl Hardman); an arrogant, short-fused bully. Marilyn Eastman is Henry's wife Helen, who's sick of her husband's shit and trying to tend to their injured daughter Karen (Kyra Schon), who was bitten by one of the zombies. Young couple Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley) round out the group. They get bits and pieces inconclusive information from a TV broadcast, try to stave off various zombie attacks and, ultimately, discover they have something more to fear than the hungry ghouls outside...

Starkly and cheaply shot in black-and-white on an extremely low-budget, this has a supremely creepy look and feel to it that we're not likely to ever see again. The events that unfold are bleak, dark, desperate, completely devoid of humor (though not irony) and scary, the classic power struggle between Ben and Harry is well-played and intelligently handled, and the amount of hopelessness and tension Romero is able to steadily build throughout keeps the suspense quotient high.

Romero's willingness to break the rules and take chances in a safer, more sanitized age is a major reason for this film's success and something I think a lot of people now take for granted. For starters, he pushed the envelope when it came to 'acceptable' depictions of on-screen violence, which quickly gave this the reputation as a true shocker; an "I Dare You To See It..." type of film in its day. Word of mouth spread and the movie became a huge hit in theaters and drive-ins, playing for years, but Romero himself didn't see much of the money and had to work with extremely limited funds over the course of most of the rest of his career. Much more than just a shocker and influential genre film, Night is also one of the most important independent film productions of all time; proving one doesn't have to be a slave to Hollywood to craft a much-loved and financially successful film on one's own terms. There's a good reason this is one of the only horror titles deemed important enough to have been inducted into the National Film Registry.

Much analysis has gone into the content and social commentary aspects of this film over the years, some of which Romero claims was not intended, so I'll take his lead and not comment upon any of that. The film is a thoroughly effective piece of horror cinema regardless. The fact people see there's more to this than meets the eye is simply a testament to how well-made it is.

Romero would return to the genre he created and that made him famous with the brilliant follow-up DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), which was both critically and financially successful (one hopes Romero got to see more of the fruits of his labors with that one). That was followed by DAY OF THE DEAD (1985), which got blasted by critics and "fans" alike upon release but has since picked up a large following. Land of the Dead (2005; the largest-budgeted of all these films), Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009) eventually followed and have managed to do the impossible by polarizing audience opinion even more so than the initial 'Living Dead Trilogy.'

Several other Night alumni would capitalize on their association with this classic film. Co-writer John A. Russo and actor / photographer S. William Hinzman (the cemetery zombie) have both toiled away in low-budget horror ever since. Russo added brand new footage to the original film and released it as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION in 1998 and Hinzman made and starred in the bad (but fun) zombie cheapie REVENGE OF THE LIVING ZOMBIES (aka Flesh Eater) in 1988. Theater-trained actress O'Dea would make a belated return to acting in the early 2000s and has proven to be a damn good character actress in such films as October Moon (2004). Other have taken on small roles in other genre films. Russo's SANTA CLAWS (1996), for instance, included Hardman, Eastman, Hinzman and Russo himself in its cast.

Night of the Living Dead posters from around the globe...

A public domain title, Night has been tinkered around with on numerous occasions; a trend that continues to this day. There's a colorized version floating around for those with an aversion to black-and-white. A 1991 release (the name is too long to list here, but it starts with Night of the Day of the Dawn...) has new dubbed over comic voices, as does the recent Another Night of the Living Dead (2012). The film was also spoofed, including in the 1990 short Night of the Living Bread. In addition, numerous documentaries have been made covering this film's production. For the 25th Anniversary in 1993, the film was reissued with new cast and crew interviews. An entire Pittsburgh-based convention was also held in 1993 for just this one film; which has been documented in the Russo-assembled DVD release ZOMBIE JAMBOREE (1993).

Production stills and lobby cards...

In addition to all of the supplemental tie-ins and DVDs, Night has been the subject of numerous "official" remakes. Fx man Tom Savini directed the first, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990), which was produced by Russo and executive produced and scripted by Romero. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D (2006) followed and there are no less than three (!) others slated for released in the next few years, including an animated version. The reputation and importance of Night seems to only grow stronger as the years go by.

In closing, I'd simply like to thank Mr. Romero for not only instilling in me the love of horror films but for film in general. For introducing one little farm boy to the true power of cinema over twenty years ago; a love he's maintained to this very day and one that's truly enriched his life.

★★★★