Night/Door

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION-1999=The original NOTLD is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Even today I think it stands up pretty well against most “modern horror”.

Anyway, the story of how the movie finally got made is amazing too. The 10 principle investors (including director George Romero & screenwriter John Russo) never made much money from it despite it bringing in a gazillion dollars over the years! This “new edition” was put together by Russo and two of the original cast members (also investors) Russell Streiner (Johnny) and Bill Hinzman (the first zombie who kills Johnny in the cemetery). It adds new music and sound effects and worse of all newly shot scenes designed to “enhance” the original!

So colorizing it years ago wasn’t enough! Remaking it wasn’t enough! No, they had to add new scenes!

It’s crazy too! Some of the scenes feature zombies and some gore but the main new scenes consist of a weird priest (he kind of looks like Anton LeFay) ranting and the revelation that that first zombie was actually a child killer. The disc also features the original version but it also has a new musical score.

There’s a “making of” feature too, a trailer for the new version and a scene from Hinzman’s FLESH EATER (but for some reason it’s in black & white; I could swear it was in color when I saw it years ago…).

Some NOTLD fans went nuts for this when it was released a few years back but I’ll take the dark grainy original that scared the hell out of me back in 1968!



SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR-1971-Weird psychological drama features Anthony Perkins as a brain sturgeon who takes an amnesia victim (Charles Bronson) into his home and tries to piece together his past. However Perkins has his own agenda that involves taking care of his unfaithful wife (Jill Ireland) and her lover. While Perkins is his usual cool calculating self, Bronson is out of character acting confused, befuddled and/or frustrated. It’s talky but short enough not to be too boring but the ending is a real letdown.

The print I saw was very worn and jumped in spots but several companies have released it on video. Bronson made THE VALACHI PAPERS the next year. It was made in France (but takes place in England) by Hungarian born director Nicolas Gessner who also made the original version of THE 12 CHAIRS, THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE and TENNESSEE NIGHTS.


"Spring makes everything young again except man"-Jean Paul Richter

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