The Dead Next Door on the Radio

Happy Halloween! We'll be live on Pittsburgh NPR station WESA today talking about Pennsylvania horror films with "Essential Pittsburgh" host Paul Guggenheimer. Special effects artist/actor/director Tom Savini will be on from Noon to about 12:30; I'll step in at that point to explain why you should run out and watch Toxic Zombies as soon as possible.

Night of the ... What's That Again?

I love it when people send me stuff, particularly when they send me interesting new research material, and especially when the source is another regional horror film enthusiast.

I recently received an e-mail from Julia Hedstroem, a PhD student in sociology of communication and media at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, who is writing her dissertation on American newspaper reception of Night of the Living Dead.

Julia is currently poring through a mound of NOTLD-related news clippings, and graciously shared some interesting items, which we've posted below. Note the evolution of the title in these articles from Night of the Flesh Eaters to Night of the Anubis and, finally, to the more familiar title.

So thank you, Julia, and good luck! We need more zombie-obsessed PhDs.

Still Crazy After All These Years

THE CRAZIES (1973)

Pittsburgh, Pa.

With the remake now in theaters, I figured it was time for a post on George Romero's The Crazies (1973).

While Night of the Living Dead was still in the process of building its cult audience, Romero directed two commercially disappointing films, the drama There's Always Vanilla (The Affair, 1971) and the supernaturally-themed Season of the Witch (Hungry Wives, 1972).

The Crazies was a return to form, although sandwiched as it was between Romero's zombie classic and his artistic tour-de-force Martin (1977), it's always seemed like something of an ugly stepchild in the Romero oeuvre.

In the film, the government attempts to cover up the accidental release of a bioweapon (code named Trixie) into the water supply near Evans City, Pa. The military swoops in, declares martial law and quarantines the community, but the hazmat-suited soldiers soon find themselves confronted by the now infected citizens, who have been turned into homicidal maniacs by the chemical.

The Crazies initially had a very abbreviated theatrical release in 1973, and according to a 1978 clip in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it never even played a theater in Romero's home town. It was re-released under the title Code Name: Trixie and under its original title by the newly formed Laurel Entertainment in 1976. The film nevertheless had a clear influence (along with David Cronenberg's Rabid) on many of the infection-themed zombie films of the past decade -- notably 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

You can read TIME magazine's take on The Crazies from the April 2, 1973 issue here, where the unnamed reviewer describes Romero's scripts as hovering "dangerously close to illiteracy."

And just for fun, you can compare trailers below: