Dead of Night (Deathdream) - review

1972 (Canada/UK)

Nucleus Films DVD R(0) Double Feature with Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Contains spoilers.

Wow, what a bit more time and money can do. Six months after Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things was completed director Bob Clark and many of the returning cast began production on an altogether more technically and artistically ambitious zombie title and the extra time, money and experience is clear from the opening scenes. Children Shouldn't Play was charming and funny and I liked it a lot, but it was undeniably amateurish and resembled more the work of a film studies student than a seasoned director. Dead of Night is an altogether different proposition; with a mature thought provoking and coherent story, confident direction and production and minimalistic, in style, dialogue delivered convincingly.

Andy Brooks (Richard Backus), a war weary young Vietnam soldier has returned home to his doting mum Christine (Lynn Carlin), father Charles (John Marley) and sister Cathy (the returning Anya Ormsby). Numb, hollow and angry at the world Alan finds it hard to reintegrate with a family that expected the same loving son that left to return, as they struggle with how they should respond and react to someone who is obviously scarred from the experience. It's powerful stuff with complex fully realised characters and all the unspoken complicated interpersonal relationship hangups you'd expect.

Alan spends his time rocking back and forth alone in silence on the chair in his bedroom and all attempts to cajole him back to life by his increasingly desperate father and sister all fall flat. He won't eat, refuses to see his old girl friend Joanne (Jane Daly) and begins to behave in increasingly antisocial ways that scare his family who become polarised in how they should respond.

On the surface what we have is a personal drama of the war weary veteran struggling to reassimilate with family, friends and society; it's the allegory of the damage the horrors of war does to those that survive it. But it's more. You see Alan is not only metaphorically dead, but is actually dead. Whether it's the passion from a mother who refuses to accept he won't return or the power to have vengeance on a society that sent him to die, either way after being shot in the line of duty here he is reanimated and returned home.

Andy is an altogether different kind of zombie. I've reviewed films in which infected people behave like mindless zombies, like 28 Days Later and The Crazies, but this plays out more the other way round. He's definitely dead, with no pulse, no heartbeat and decaying flesh but he can talk, he can drive a car and seems to have self awareness and both the instinct and appetite for self preservation. As a returning emotionally drained war veteran it's a brilliant duality, a brilliant metaphor and perfectly realised. In many ways he reminded me of the undead from The Last Man on Earth; he knows what he is and he knows who he was, he's the same but different.

Let's not forget that this is still a horror film though. Alan requires blood to maintain the illusion and his self preservation instinct drives him to kill for it. Without blood which he seems both happy to get direct from the source, so to speak, by tearing into people or from extracting and injecting it, he soon deteriorates, his flesh falls off and begins to resemble the ghoul that he is. Like The Last Man on Earth Alan isn't quite the zombie in the traditional sense, yet he's also not a vampire or revenant; it's unique and complex.

Dead of Night is a very good film. Each scene is powerful yet simple with the quality of the script and acting allowed to be front and centre and dictate the pace. Clark also demonstrates extreme confidence in his directing, filling the film with long meaningful gaps and silences and letting a very deliberate pace dictate the tension as much as the narrative does. The film works on many levels, a provocative anti-war film, a dark subdued horror and a complex family drama; there's a lot going on and everything works together beautifully. Powerful, mature and expertly delivered; recommended, 8/10.

Steven@WTD

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things - review

1972 (USA)

Nucleus Films DVD R(0) Double Feature with Dead of Night

Contains mild spoilers.

Make no bones about it, Bob Clark's directorial horror début is on the surface really quite the amateurish affair; shot over 14 days with a budget of just $70,000 and with a cast made up of friends and first-timers there's just no hiding it. The few sets that there are, are basic, the acting is hammy, the action when it finally makes an appearance, a good hour or so in, is full of things it would be easy to poke fun of it and would be easy to dismiss the film as just another bad 80s b-movie, and perhaps a year a go I would have. In the end though none of it really matters, somehow not only despite of, but even maybe because of the issues, Bob Clark and his team have managed to produce a fun, quirky and effective film that exudes charm with genuine earnestness. It shouldn't all work but it really does.

Alan (Alan Ormsby) is the petty despot owner and self-proclaimed king of a two-bit acting troupe he refers to as his children. For shits and giggles he has proclaimed that they should head out on his boat to Coconut Grove, an ex-resort island which he tells them is now used by Florida to bury the counties various degenerates and reprobates, to exhume a recent corpse and use it as part of a satanic ritual to raise the dead as his slaves.

The ragtag assortment of desperate actors while hesitant and even hostile towards Alan throw their protests to the side at the first threat of unemployment empowering him to increasingly wicked and extreme behaviour. After yet again being mocked mercilessly after his attempt to raise his undead army of servants seemingly fails, he turns his attention to ridiculing and demeaning the recently deceased Orville Dunworth (Seth Sklarey) who he has carried back to the undertakers cottage. 

Despite the fact it takes over an hour before the zombies rise and start causing trouble it doesn't drag. The characters are interesting, the situation and story are ludicrous and original and the dialogue is always fun and delivered with surprising sincerity. In many ways this whole hour plays out like a dark character drama; each personality has it's role to play and each is sufficiently different and damaged. It's b-movie territory so obviously the acting and dialogue is a bit hammy but here because it's hammy actors playing hammy actors the lines all rather blurred and it actually kind of works. It's a neat trick if you think about it.

When the zombies do decide to finally make their appearance and I'll admit I was expecting a bit of a farce but it's all surprisingly effective. Hands strike out from the soil and corpses pull themselves out their graves; it's evocative, competent and dare I say even quite stylish. It's all very Night of the Living Dead as they shuffle and stagger around slowly, attacking anyone who gets too close but they're definitely a bit  grubbier than Romero's more unspoilt, soil free creations. It's never quite explained whether Alan actually did succeed in his botched ritual or it was the disrespect given Orville that caused them to rise, but the fact the troupe once bitten don't rise to join the ranks and even get feasted upon when given the chance all points to evil, magic and Satan rather than virus or bacteria but it doesn't really matter.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things that tickled me. It's unapologetically a rip off of Night of the Living Dead with a finale that is in essence the siege of the farmhouse, and it has a myriad of problems but it's just so darn hard to dislike. Watching the ridiculous story unfold is always interesting and fun. It's daft without ever becoming a farce and whilst not particularly horror in a scare the pants off you way, there's a dark pervasive tension and some quite dark themes played with. Daft, captivating and original, I'm sure this will become a film I come back to regularly and quite the guilty pleasure, 7/10.

Steven@WTD