Here’s a list of Canadian zombie movies with both gore and Braaaaains. I’ll tell you about a kid friendly zombie flick, heavy metal flesh eaters and a Civil War era zombie story that Variety says merits appreciation for really trying something different.
Listewn to the whole thing HERE!
1. Romero’s zombies don’t eat brains. “I’ve never had a zombie eat a brain! I don’t know where that comes from,” he told Vanity Fair. “Who says zombies eat brains?”
2. Romero didn’t even call his undead characters zombies in his first movie. “When I did Night of the Living Dead,” he told About.com, “I called them ghouls, flesh-eaters. I didn’t think they were. Back then zombies were still those boys in the Caribbean doing the wet work for Lugosi. So I never thought of them as zombies. I thought they were just back from the dead.”
3. Romero doesn’t watch The Walking Dead. “I love the books,” he said to io9.com. “I haven’t seen any of the episodes.”
4. Romero has had it with people asking him about zombies. When asked by eatsleeplkivefilm.com if he is tired of zombie queries he said, “Yes. But you know what are you going to do?”
5. Romero wears his famous thick-rimmed black glasses mostly for show these days. “I don’t need them anymore. I mean I don’t need them to read, I mean these are bifocals. I used to need them for reading and for middle-distance. Now I’m a little fuzzy on the long-distance, but I guess that all turned around with old age, so I don’t need for these reading but I’m thinking of just taking the lenses out, because I’ve got to wear them for photographs; everybody says, ‘Where’s your glasses?’“
6. Romero wears Goliath brand glasses. From barimavox.blogspot.ca: “The Goliath is favoured by famed horror filmmaker and Grandfather of the Zombie, George A. Romero and worn by Elliot Gould in the Ocean’s 11 trilogy and Robert De Niro in Casino, as well as by the late flamboyant actor and game show host Charles Nelson Reilly.”
7. Quentin Tarantino says the “A” in George A. Romero stands for “A fucking genius,” when actually it stands for Andrew.
8. Romero calls the 1951 Michael Powell film The Tales of Hoffman, “the movie that made me want to make movies. I was dragged kicking and screaming by an aunt and uncle. I wanted to go see the new Tarzan; the new Lex Barker movie to see how he stacked up against Weissmuller and they said, ‘No! We’re going to see this,’ and I fell in love with it. It’s just beautiful. Completley captivating. It’s all sung. It’s all opera. It’s not like The Red Shoes where there is a story running through it and then Léonide Massine does a ballet at the end. I just fell in love with it from the pop.”
9. Romero is of Cuban and Lithuanian descent. His father was Cuban-born of Castilian Spanish parentage, his mother Lithuanian-American.
10. At age 19 he worked as a gofer on the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest but was unimpressed with the director’s mechanical and passionless directorial style. He was there for the train station scene shot in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Also among the onlookers was future It’s Alive director Larry Cohen.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Movies like World War Z, Zombie Women of Satan and this weekend’s comedy-horror Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse — the story of three Scouts who must bond to save their town from a zombie outbreak — owe a debt of gratitude to Night of the Living Dead. 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 almost five 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. 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 flesh-eating idea?’ And he agreed. “So that’s how the modern flesh-eating zombies were born!”
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 hit television shows like The Walking Dead.
“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.”
Read about the documentary series “Reelside” at Dork Shelf!
“I think that the series is really beautiful, if you look at them all together, which you’ll be able to do once they’ve all had their first run on TMN, you’ll see as you go though VOD and see them all together just how beautifully they fit together.” says Crouse, “I like to think of them like Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, they all look a little different, they all have a slightly different point of view, but they feel like a series. That was the important thing to all of us.”
Read the whole thing HERE!
From “Fangoria” editor Chris Alexander: “Now screening on Canadian pay television is REELSIDE , a new 6-part series executive produced by veteran Toronto film critic and journalist Richard Crouse in which key Canadian performers and artists explore the creative mechanisms of their similarly Northern based colleagues. In the first beautifully shot installment, David Cronenberg favorite Sarah Gadon joined forces with Cronenberg’s photographer daughter Caitlin on an art project, and future episodes will see the likes of Seth Rogen and Bruce McDonald also discussing their own processes and struggles to make their voices heard.
“But for FANGORIA readers, it’s the second installment that stands as the most interesting…” Read the whole thing HERE!
New Six-Part Original Documentary Series Exploring Canadian Filmmakers and Mentors Premieres June 4
– Each episode of REELSIDE offers an insider view of the creative process –
– Featuring Sarah Gadon, Caitlin Cronenberg, George A. Romero, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, Don McKellar, Bruce McDonald, Stephen Amell, Michael Hogan, and more –
May 21, 2015
TORONTO (May 21, 2015) – The Movie Network goes behind the scenes of the creative process with REELSIDE, a new six-part, half-hour original documentary series that celebrates the stories of prominent Canadians both in front of and behind the camera. Debuting Thursday, June 4 at 9 p.m. ET on The Movie Network, each episode follows filmmakers on a unique journey, such as Sarah Gadon who partners with Caitlin Cronenberg on a photography project, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who share experiences about being Canadian boys in Hollywood, and Matthew Hannam who sets off with mentors Don McKellar and Bruce McDonald on a classically Canadian road trip.
Following the premiere episode of REELSIDE, featuring Sarah Gadon and Caitlin Cronenberg, is a special presentation of the Canadian feature film, Enemy, starring Gadon and Jake Gyllenhaal.
“From exploring road movies in an RV in Northern Ontario to the streets of Toronto with horror icon George A. Romero, REELSIDE captures honest, behind-the-scenes moments with some of this country’s biggest names in entertainment,” said Tracey Pearce, Senior Vice-President, Specialty and Pay, Bell Media. “Visually and creatively, this is Canadiana at its finest and a must-see for fans of great storytelling.”
REELSIDE is a production from Fifth Ground Entertainment in association with The Movie Network and Movie Central. Executive Producers are Richard Crouse, Raj Panikkar, and Christopher Szarka. Producers are Szarka and Panikkar. Directors are Sarah Gadon, Philip Riccio, Taylor Clarke, Matthew Hannam, Matthew Lochner, and Raj Panikkar. For Bell Media, Lisa Gotlieb and Tina Apostolopoulos. Corrie Coe is Senior Vice-President, Independent Production, Bell Media. Tracey Pearce is Senior Vice-President, Specialty and Pay, Bell Media. Phil King is President – CTV, Sports and Entertainment Programming.
EPISODE SYNOPSES
Ep 101 – Caitlin Cronenberg with Sarah Gadon
Premieres Thursday, June 4 at 9 p.m. ET
Commissioned by an Italian fashion magazine for a photography project, celebrated photographer Caitlin Cronenberg and actor Sarah Gadon (Maps to the Stars) travel to Bruce Peninsula National Park. This episode explores how the pair connected amidst the Hollywood and Fashion machine, and issues of image-making, film, and fashion. Sarah Gadon’s directorial debut.
Ep 102 – Philip Riccio with George A. Romero
Premieres Thursday, June 11 at 9 p.m. ET
Actor Philip Riccio (REPUBLIC OF DOYLE) goes behind the camera to explore filmmaking in the pre-digital era with his mentor, horror film icon George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow). Together, they remake one of Romero’s lost films. Romero guides Phil through 16mm filmmaking, reminiscing about his long career along the way.
Ep 103 –Evan Goldberg with Seth Rogen and Matthew Bass
Premieres Thursday, June 18 at 9 p.m. ET
This episode catches Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen in LA on the set of big budget comedy Neighbors and at the premiere of their more personal project, This is the End. On the crux of the next big step forward in their careers, they share their journey from Canadian boys to making it big in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the pair guide rising talent Matt Bass through an endless string of rejections.
Ep 104 – Science Fiction
Premieres Thursday, June 25 at 9 p.m. ET
Vincenzo Natali (Cube) takes audiences through a demonstration of world building, from conceptualizing a project from scratch to a fully realized creation. Graeme Manson (ORPHAN BLACK), Michael Hogan (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), Astronaut and Space-X Engineer Garrett Reisman, and film critic Jesse Wente all weigh in on the genre and the critical point at which science meets fiction.
Ep 105 – Don McKellar and Bruce McDonald
Premieres Thursday, July 2 at 9 p.m. ET
Accomplished editor Matthew Hannam (SENSITIVE SKIN) sets off to Northern Ontario with his mentors, Don McKellar (SENSITIVE SKIN) and Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo), to create a documentary about their careers. Along the way, the two legends explore the iconic power of the Canadian road movie.
Ep 106 – Superheroes
Premieres Thursday, July 9 at 9 p.m. ET
Emerging filmmaker Matthew Lochner is on a journey to create his own superhero concept, complete with a trailer. Along the way, Matthew enlists the help of Stephen Amell (ARROW), David Hayter (X-Men), and Lloyd Kaufman (The Troma Empire) to understand what it means to be a superhero, what’s behind the genre, and what it means to fans while uncovering glimpses of what drives them in their careers.
I’ll save some of you from having to read this whole review. If the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger and zombies turns your crank, read on. If not click through to the next review.
It’s a bit disingenuous to call “Maggie” a zombie movie. The word is never used in the film—instead they’re called necroambulists and “the infected”—and the body count is low. In fact, “The Walking Dead” usually features more carnage before the opening credits than in the whole of “Maggie,” but at its diseased heart it is a zombie movie, but one that takes a different tact than most others.
Here director Henry Hobson, who designed the title credit sequence for “The Walking Dead,” concentrates on one Midwestern family dealing with the stark reality that their daughter Magie (Abigail Breslin) is infected and soon some difficult choices will have to be made. The family’s doctor (Jodie Moore) presents father Wade (Schwarzenegger) with three viable options: send her to quarantine to die, administer a painful cocktail of drugs or… make it quick. Wade, who rescued his daughter from a medical facility, doesn’t want her to be taken to quarantine but can’t bring himself to do what must be done.
“Maggie” shatters several preconceptions. First it reconsiders what a zombie film can be. The gore happens off screen leaving time to concentrate on the psychological aspects of seeing friends and family change into something beyond their control. It’s a metaphor for disease or perhaps a comment on assisted suicide, or both. What it isn’t, exactly, is a horror film.
Those expecting Schwarzenegger to make “Total Recall with Zombies” are also in for a surprise. Here the larger than life actor tones it down, embracing the character actor phase of his career with an understated performance that relies more on his expressive face than his physicality to get the point across.
Breslin is also interesting as a young woman whose body is changing into something she can’t control. Stoic and sullen, occasionally she allows a hint of the pre-infected teenager she was show through and those moments are heartbreaking.
For all its angels, however, glacial pacing and Hobson’s love of intense close-ups bedevil the movie. This is an intimate story, so to a point the up-close-and-personal photography makes sense, but the director never met a close-up he didn’t love and over uses them throughout.
“Maggie” is a dark and gloomy piece of work with revelatory performances but plodding pacing that make Romero’s zombies look like speed demons.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
The best horror films are never only about the Double Gs—guts and gore. Sure, part of the appeal of scary movies is that they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and that frequently requires a spray of blood or a nightmarish vision of terror in the form of Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees, but great horror films are always about something other than the thrills and chills.
To be truly effective scary pictures must tap into a collective anxiety; societal hot buttons that elevate the frights to a new level. For instance, Frankenstein plays on people’s fear of science while Godzilla is an obvious cultural metaphor for nuclear weapons in reaction to the devastation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see Dracula as the metaphorical embodiment of everything from drug addiction and old age to alternative lifestyles and capitalism.
Perhaps the most socially self-aware horror film of all is Night of the Living Dead. It’s got zombies galore but director George A. Romero had the braaaiiins to include a subtext that echoed the contemporary state America’s of race relations, the horrors of Vietnam and cynicism with government. It’s the best of both worlds—a thought-provoking movie that gushes with gore.
Film historian Linda Badley suggests Night of the Living Dead horrifies because the zombies weren’t bizarre creatures from outer space or from Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, but because, “They’re us.”
This weekend a new film, Unfriended, turns the camera, or in this case the Skype screen, on us in an eerie story about bullying. On the surface Unfriended may look like a cheapo teen horror flick with a cast of unknowns—which it is, but so was Night of the Living Dead—but by basing the plot in the world of social media and the bad behaviour that comes along with anonymous avatars, it becomes a ripped-from-the-headlines comment on a very touchy societal subject.
The movie begins a year after Laura, a popular high school student, was cyber shamed into killing herself. A teenage girl is on a group Skype session when she begins to receive cryptic and threatening messages from Laura’s old account. As the movie unfolds secrets are revealed and the danger is amped up.
The mysterious killer is a hoary old horror convention, but here it’s told in the contemporary language of Millennials. Unsurprisingly, the movie has already sparked the interest of the Y Generation—the trailer garnered almost 300,000 Twitter comments on its first day—who relate to the setting—by-and-large it takes place on a computer screen—and who are all too familiar with the everyday brutality of Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Instagram and Spotify. They understand what a minefield the web can be and the filmmakers realized the narrative possibilities of creating cinema’s first deadly internet troll. Freddy Kruger is your father’s baddie; the new horror comes in bits and bytes.
Similar to Psycho’s Norman Bates or the undead of 28 Days Later, the kids of Unfriended tell a very specific story—the sad tale of a teen suicide—that becomes a universal horror tale by making the characters and setting ordinary and relatable. Like the best of classic fright films, it breathes new life into a form we’ve seen before by recontextualizing it for a new generation.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
If the Paranormal Activity movies curdle your blood and The Conjuring kept you up at night, perhaps A Haunted House 2 will be more your style. A humorous hybrid of horror hits, it stars Marlon Wayans and Jaime Pressly in a sequel to the popular (but critically lambasted) 2013 comedy.
According to IMDB in the new film Wayans has “exorcised the demons of his ex” and is trying to start his life anew with his girlfriend. Unfortunately his new house turns out to be haunted and, even worse, his back-from-the-dead ex has moved in across the street.
It’s all played for laughs and will likely not give audiences nightmares but it would be interesting to know how the makers of movies like Sinister, The Possession, and Insidious feel about having their movies made fun of.
Some filmmakers are flattered.
Night of the Living Dead icon George A. Romero enjoyed the zombie takeoff Shaun of the Dead so much he asked star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright to appear in Land of the Dead. The duo can be seen chained up in a 12-second cameo under a sign that reads Take Your Picture with a Zombie during the film’s carnival sequence.
But not everyone gets the joke.
Years ago Boris Karloff made it known he wasn’t very happy about a horror comedy. He was approached to play the Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein but declined because he felt the duo’s brand of slapstick would be an insult to horror movies. Nonetheless he did some promo for the film—there are publicity pictures of him buying tickets at the box office—and later appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff and Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Another horror legend said yes to Meet Frankenstein but no to the comedy. The movie was the only other time Bela Lugosi played Dracula on the big screen and he played it straight.
“There is no burlesque for me,” he said. “All I have to do is frighten the boys, a perfectly appropriate activity. My trademark will be unblemished.”
Finally, the movie Young Frankenstein gave overdue credit to an old time movie studio technician. When Mel Brooks was prepping the film he discovered that Ken Strickfaden, the designer of the “mad scientist” electrical machinery in the Universal Frankenstein films, had all the equipment from the original movies stored in his garage. Strickfaden agreed to rent Mel the props and received a screen credit, which he hadn’t been given on the original films.
