Without Night of the Living Dead movies like 28 Days Later, Shawn of the Dead or even Zombie Strippers wouldn’t exist. In 1968 the story of story of people trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse trying to survive an attack by reanimated ghouls dragged a bloody new horror genre into the marketplace. For better (see Re-Animator) and for worse (see Zombie Nightmare) the movie Rex Reed called “a classic” has spawned four decades of brain eating and head explosions, but according to the film’s co-author John Russo the origin of the idea was anything but sinister.
“Sometime in the winter of 1966 George Romero and I were having lunch with Richard Ricci,” says Russo, then a co-partner with Romero and Russell Streiner (who has the film’s most famous line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”) in The Latent Image, a commercial television production house. “George and I were complaining about the fickleness of our commercial clients who, when they had not too much money to spend, would come to us for a good, creative job on their spots and sales films, and would promise to come back to us next time, when they would have more money to spend. But when they got more money they’d run away to the supposed glitz and glamour of New York or Hollywood. Richard said, ‘So why don’t you do something about it?’ I thought about it and said, ‘We oughtta be able to make something better than the crap we see on Chiller Theater.’
“George right away got excited, slammed the table with his big hand, sending bottles and glasses flying, and yelled, ‘We’re gonna make a movie!’”
The two batted around several ideas. One, titled Monster Flick, was a horror comedy about teenage aliens, while another focused on flesh eating aliens. “But we quickly discovered that we could not afford all the necessary special effects,” he says, so the writing continued.
“We’d go to work late at night in separate offices, at separate typewriters,” says Russo. “I said right away that our story should start in a cemetery because folks found cemeteries spooky. I was working on a script that started in a cemetery and involved aliens coming to earth in search of human flesh. But George took a break at Christmas time and came back with half of a story that started in a cemetery, and was in essence what became the first half of Night of the Living Dead. There were all the proper twists and turns and a lot of excitement, but George never said who the attackers were or why they were attacking.
“I said, ‘I like this, George, but who are these attackers? You never say.’ And he said he didn’t know. So I said, ‘It seems to me they could be dead people. But why are they attacking? What are they after?’ Again, he said he didn’t know. So I said, ‘Why don’t we use my flesheating idea?’ And he agreed.
“So that’s how the modern flesheating zombies were born!”
The film, titled Night of the Flesheaters, was shot on a shoe string budget—Bosco Chocolate Syrup and pig’s intestines subbed for real blood and guts—in rural Pennsylvania between June and December 1967. Once finished, Russo and Romero had a hard time selling the movie because of its unflinching violence and gory special effects. The pair stuck to their guns, however, denying distributor after distributor who demanded cuts or a happy ending. Finally they found a company who would show the film uncensored but there was still a problem.
“There was already a movie called Flesheaters, and their attorney threatened us, so we had to come up with a different title,” says Russo. “George Romero decided on Night of Anubis, after the Egyptian god of the dead. This was a weak title, and when Continental Pictures got ready to distribute we changed it to Night of the Living Dead.”
The movie premiered on October 1, 1968 earning a rave from Roger Ebert and that other mark of success for a horror film, condemnation from fundamentalist Christian groups.
These days it doesn’t take a lot of braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains to see the legacy of Night of the Living Dead. The ghoulish story is considered a classic, has spawned comedies like the box office hit Zombieland and serious television shows like The Walking Dead and was even selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as a film deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”
“We were absolutely dedicated toward making a movie that was true to its premise and the motivations of its characters, from start to finish,” says Russo, adding, “[the movie] struck a primal chord in everybody, perhaps because of the atavistic memory of our species as easy prey for wild beasts, which we were for most of human history. We all carry the deep-seated fear of being devoured.”
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the Cate Blanchett drama “Tár,” the dramedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Jessica Chastian in “The Good Nurse.”
I join NewsTalk 1010 host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the Cate Blanchett drama “Tár,” the dramedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Jessica Chastian in “The Good Nurse.”
Watch Richard Crouse review three movies in less time than it takes to tie a bow tie! Have a look as he races against the clock to tell you about the Cate Blanchett drama “Tár,” the dramedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Jessica Chastian in “The Good Nurse.”
I’ll be hosting a Q&A with “Drinkwater” star Eric McCormack at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto at 7:20 pm, on Friday October 28.
Some info on the film: Awkward Canadian teen Mike Drinkwater has trouble fitting in, but his father, Hank, is dealing with his own difficulties. When a girl from the United States comes to town, her courage inspires them to overcome their challenges.
Two far flung events inspired director Tobe Hooper to write The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the down-and-dirty 1974 indie film that spawned sequels, prequels and last year’s splashy 3D remake–the imaginatively titled Texas Chainsaw 3D.
In November 1957 police raided the home of Plainfield, Wisconsin farmer Ed Gein, uncovering some gruesome evidence that would lead to charges of murder and body snatching. After two trials he spent the rest of his life in a mental facility, but his story would go on to inspire three memorable movie characters–Norman Bates from Psycho, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs and one other that would serve as the basis for six films.
Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in Texas Chain Saw Massacre, says Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel based the character of the hooded chainsaw killer on Gein.
“When they set out to write this movie,” he said, “they decided to have a family of killers who had some of the characteristics of Gein: the skin masks, the furniture made from bones, the possibility of cannibalism.”
Hooper adds the story was also partially inspired by “the massacres and atrocities in the Vietnam War” and a display of chainsaws in the hardware section of a crowded Montgomery Ward’s department store.
“The idea popped,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Ooh, I know how I could get out of this place fast — if I just start one of these things up and make that sound.’”
That nerve jangling noise–the revving of a chainsaw–has been the soundtrack of terror ever since. The original is an atmospheric gem, a white-knuckle movie that made Leatherface the first icon of modern horror.
The apron-wearing cannibal has appeared in five more films–most of which don’t veer too far from the original plot line of unsuspecting kids falling prey to a family of demented, cannibalistic inbreds. There’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2, directed by Tobe Hooper and starring Dennis Hopper, Leatherface: TCM III, TCM: The Next Generation (starring the then unknown Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, TCM: The Beginning and the new 3D version.
Leatherface’s scares don’t always happen on screen, however. At the Kingsway Theatre in Toronto the flick inspired audience participation when someone dressed in a butcher’s outfit ran down the aisle brandishing a real, revving chainsaw.
Fifteen years ago, director Martin McDonagh brought actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson together as inept hitmen in hiding in the Belgium-set film “In Bruges.”
Sparks flew.
The terrific trio reunite in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a new movie, now playing in theatres, that locates the setting to a tiny Irish island, but maintains the chemistry that made “In Bruges” an audience and critical favorite.
Set in 1923 on a windswept island off the west coast of Ireland, the story begins as the Irish Civil War rages on the mainland. With the sounds of gunfire and exploding bombs in the distance, village nice-guy Pádraic (Farrell) goes about his daily routine, stopping by his life-long friend Colm’s (Gleeson) house to collect him on the way to the pub. When his knock at the door goes unanswered, Pádraic peers through the window to see his old friend, sitting and smoking, ignoring the rapping at the door.
Later at the pub, the gormless Pádraic learns why he was snubbed by Colm. “I just don’t like you no more.”
Hurt and confused, Pádraic attempts to patch things up, but Colm is steadfast. He wants to spend his remaining time, no matter many years he has left, doing something meaningful; not making small talk over a pint. Pádraic is dull, Colm says, his conversation a waste of time.
Despite the threat of dire consequences, Pádraic cannot accept that the friendship is over, and what began as a cold shoulder escalates into violence born of humiliation and anger.
The darkly hilarious “The Banshees of Inisherin” uses Colm’s brushoff of his former friend as the engine to drive a universal story of loneliness, what happens when civility fades and the importance of support systems.
McDonagh creates a vivid backdrop for the action. Life on the small island is presented as simultaneously idyllic and stultifying. The rolling hills, greenery and winding country roads are straight out of a tourist brochure. But it’s the soft underbelly, the stuff that lies beneath the quaint façade, that is of interest. Gossip is currency, every house has a secret and the local cop (Gary Lydon) misuses his power on the streets and at home. The movie takes its time in the shift from charming to sinister, from the lighthearted tone of the first hour to the darkness of the last forty minutes.
It is a pleasure to see Farrell and Gleeson together again. There’s an undefinable chemistry between them, one that suggests they have a deep bond, which makes the break in their on-screen friendship so effective.
Gleeson, as a man thinking of his legacy, fighting off the despair of realizing, late in life, that he hasn’t actually felt anything authentic in years, is a towering presence. He has woken up from his isolated, mundane existence and takes extremes to change his life, leaving Pádraic in the dust.
As rock solid as Gleeson is, it is Farrell’s shift in tone from heartbroken to desperate to steely that steals the show. As someone who prided himself in being a “nice” person, watching the darkness grow in him is fascinating. It’s subtle, delivered with sly changes of expression, but compelling as he goes through the stages of grief for his lost friendship.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” would be worth the price of admission only for the inventive use of colloquial Irish swearing. Come for the cussing, but stay for the performances and the palpable sense of devastation that comes when a friendship ends, and there is no one to share a pint with at the local pub.
“The Good Nurse,” a new Netflix psychological thriller starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, is both a condemnation of the American health care system and a pulpy warning that looks can be deceiving.
At home Amy (Chastain) is an attentive single mother of two. At work she is a kind and compassionate New Jersey night shift nurse, the kind of health worker who goes above and beyond for her patients. New to the job, she is still on probation, working toward full time status and, most importantly, health insurance. Amy suffers from Cardiomyopathy, a cardiovascular disease characterized by blood blisters on her heart. She should take time off from work, but can’t because she has no insurance. “We need to keep your heart going long enough to get you on the transplant list,” says her doctor.
Enter new night nurse Charlie Cullen (Redmayne). As a co-worker, he is compassionate and knowledgeable. As a friend he steps up to help her through the health crisis and look after her two daughters. He’s almost too good to be tue.
“I can help you,” he says to her as he feeds her pills pilfered from the hospital’s store room. “You’re going to be OK.”
But when people start mysteriously dying at the ICU, was it all just a deadly coincidence or could he be responsible? Is this friendly, helpful nurse an angel of compassion or an angel of death? Police officers Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich) lean to the latter and want Amy to help prove their case. “He’s been at nine hospitals and no one will talk to us,” says Baldwin of Charlie’s checkered professional past.
The based-on-a-true-story of one of the most prolific serial killers ever, “The Good Nurse” is a thriller without many thrills. It’s no surprise who the killer is.
What is surprising, and effectively portrayed, is the other stuff, the way the hospital attempts to control the investigation, the stonewalling and outright cover-up. As on the recent “Doctor Death” series, it reveals the extraordinary lengths hospitals will go to limit their liability in wrongful death cases. That’s where the shocks are; that’s the stuff that leaves a mark.
The rest of the story is carried by the leads, Chastain and Redmayne, who both hand in minor chord, restrained performances that ooze compassion, until they don’t. The change in Redmayne is chilling as he lets his true colors show.
“The Good Nurse” isn’t edge of your seat stuff, but it does something most true crime dramas don.t. It emphasized the characters and the procedural over the sensational details of the Cullen’s crime spree.
Cate Blanchett gives a bravura performance in “Tár,” a new 158-minute cancel culture melodrama, disguised as art house fare.
Blanchett is Lydia Tár, the superstar maestro of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. As she prepares for a landmark recording of Mahler’s Fifth, she is exacting and demanding, on-stage and off. In other words, she is a bully, used to folks kowtowing to her genius.
She quietly belittles her assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant), and unleashes a withering takedown of a Julliard student (Zethphan D. Smith-Gneist) whose crime was suggesting that Johann Sebastian Bach’s ribald personal life makes the composer unworthy of study.
In Berlin, when she isn’t putting the orchestra through their paces, she lives with partner Sharon (Nina Hoss), who happens to play violin in the orchestra, and stepdaughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic). At work she plays favorites with Olga (Sophie Kauer), a virtuoso cellist who rises through the ranks a little too quickly for the comfort of some of the other musicians.
Just as she is on the verge of major career milestones, a new memoir and the completion of her Mahler cycle of recordings, a crudely edited video of her Julliard lecture surfaces, alongside accusations of professional improprieties with a former colleague.
“Tár” places the emphasis on the wrong end of the story.
We can all imagine the high-flying part of Tár’s life. Images of limousines and private jets, of harried personal assistants and the hushed kind of respect that greeted her in the hallways of power, are all evidence of that.
What is far more compelling, but not as familiar, is the fall from grace. What happens when all you have worked for is taken away, gradually, then suddenly? That’s the real story and it’s the tale “Tár” doesn’t tell. Unfortunately, it spends two-plus hours on the other stuff, and gives a short shrift to the comeuppance in a way that is very unsatisfying.
Despite the imbalance in the story, “Tár” contains some breathtaking scenes, like the aforementioned Julliard sequence. Shot in one take, the scene is a show stopper for both Blanchett and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. That the beautiful one-shot take is later snipped into shards and reassembled, like pieces of a video puzzle, is a clever in-joke, and very effective.
The best part of “Tár” is an Oscar-bound Blanchett. In her hands Tár is an intimidator, whether it’s in her job, or at the playground as she browbeats her stepdaughter’s bully. She uses her power like a weapon to get what she wants and in Blanchett’s hands she is a character study of monster, a person cut loose from polite society. She says artists must “sublimate and obliterate” themselves for the art, and yet she is too much of a narcissist to take her own advice.
“Tár” has rewards for viewers patient enough to navigate the film’s poorly paced first hour. The revelation that power can breed monstrous behaviour isn’t new, but it is brilliantly brought to life by Blanchett.
Without Night of the Living Dead movies like 28 Days Later, Shawn of the Dead or even Zombie Strippers wouldn’t exist. In 1968 the story of story of people trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse trying to survive an attack by reanimated ghouls dragged a bloody new horror genre into the marketplace. For better (see Re-Animator) and for worse (see Zombie Nightmare) the movie Rex Reed called “a classic” has spawned four decades of brain eating and head explosions, but according to the film’s co-author John Russo the origin of the idea was anything but sinister.
