hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Bill Hsu) (11/06/85)
On the subject of scary movies, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the classic Dead of Night and its remake. I've only seen the remake, but I heard the original was even better. The remake was pretty powerful stuff, even though I was hardly a wee lad when I saw it (well, I was maybe 16...). It's in three episodes, and starred among others Patrick McNee (of TV's Avengers and New Avengers). I don't remember the first two episodes too well, but the last one was a classic return-from-the-dead story, with wild scenes in the dark when the undead kid (no fancy makeup, just atmosphere) was playing hide-and-seek with his mom. I'll remember the great telephone scene for a long time... Any fan of old horror movies should check this one out if they haven't seen it. Bill Hsu pur-ee!hsut
leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (11/09/85)
>On the subject of scary movies, I'm surprised no one has >mentioned the classic Dead of Night and its remake. I've >only seen the remake, but I heard the original was even >better. The remake was pretty powerful stuff... I am afraid that you are confused. There have been three films I know of called DEAD OF NIGHT. They have had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. All have been pretty good, however. 1945's DEAD OF NIGHT was an anthology film of horror stories, each directed by a different respected director. The stories do not stand up really well today for the most part, mostly because Rod Serling borrowed shamelessly for episodes for TWILIGHT ZONE. By the time I saw the film, most of the stories were old hat. The ventriloquist sequence is generally considered the best. I frankly prefer the mirror story. In 1972 Alan Ormsby, a Canadian filmmaker, made a film known in the theaters as DEATHDREAM, DEAD OF NIGHT, and NIGHT WALK. On TV it has just the title of DEATHDREAM. It is a low-budget horror film that just barely misses being great. Though a boy is killed in Vietnam, his mother still wishes he return home so strongly that he does come home. The rest of the film answers the question of what would have happened in "Monkey's Paw" if there *wasn't* a spare wish at the end. In 1975 Dan Curtis produced a pilot for an anthology series on TV to be called "Dead of Night". The name of the pilot was TRILOGY OF TERROR. It was three stories by Richard Matheson forged into a film. The third story, "Prey," was a real shocker by anyone's standards. It didn't sell as a series and two years later Curtis made a second pilot film, DEAD OF NIGHT. Again it was three Matheson stories, the last was a shocker almost as powerful as "Prey," called "Bobbie." I seem to remember it was about a boy stalking his mother. To the best of my knowlege, you cannot go too wrong seeing any film called DEAD OF NIGHT. Each is pretty good in different ways.