Happy Thursday, everyone! This might be an abbreviated one as I try to get everything done before the long weekend (and while Richmond isn't facing the scary stuff that the Midwest is, freezing rain is nothing to sneeze at). So let's see what I've got for you!
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No idea why I for some reason didn't pounce on this Criterion release when it came out but I was very happy to find it this week; Night of the Living Dead is obviously a stone-cold classic on it's own and also so important in the history of American independent cinema and horror. I rewatched it this week (and it's one of those things that makes me think I'm going to upgrade to 4K in the new year, because even on just blu-ray this is an amazing restoration and highlights just how well-shot this is for a barebones production; full credit to director and cinematographer George Romero); we should talk more about that fantastic lead performance by Duane Jones. Often credited as the first black lead in a horror film, he's just really good as a guy trying to keep this ragtag band holed up in a house alive and dealing with a raft of interpersonal issues (and this movie is filled with good character actors from the Philadelphia area).
It's honestly just a little amazing that this movie kind of created the modern zombie movie/book/comics genre. Before this, there were some excellent ones, like I Walked With A Zombie in 1943, but this is the one that ended up being the keystone of an entire genre. This small production outside of Pittsburgh really caught on with people and became one of the most profitable independent films of the time. (It apparently cost about $100,000 in 1968, went on to gross 12 million, which works about about 100 million in 2022 dollars.) And it ended up resulting in one of my favorite thank-yous of all time, in Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War, where Brooks thanks Studs Terkel (the master of the oral history, General Sir John Hackett (a British officer whose excellent writings about his career and his alternate history work Brooks cited as inspiration) and, of course, George Romero.
Night of the Living Dead is streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max and a bevy of other services (probably due to its weird copyright status, which would be an entire entry on its own).
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A follow up from last week, my Black Christmas print showed up! Totally taking this to the frame store soon for my office wall.
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This week's recommendation is 2022's Smile, a very unsettling horror movie that uses something I don't feel gets used enough: fixed smiles are completely unsettling. It's not a perfect movie but it's worth your time if you're into seeing new horror directors. I'll be very curious to see what director/writer Parker Finn is up to next.
Smile is streaming on Paramount+. Fair warning, this movie does contain a disturbing animal death.
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