city of the living dead
i watched this 1980s classic at the library with a group of fellow cinema connoisseurs on a projector. the weather, atrocious. this is the third day of unceasing rain in St. Augustine, the streets are flooded, and the atmosphere for campy zombie festivities couldnt be better.
leaving aside all the predictable cliches involving sexism, suggestive sexuality, and the element of attractive women as prime targets for immediate disembowelment. ill tell you what i liked about this shindig.
very awesome lighting and camera work. yes, there were the extreme zoom-ins to the eyes, which i found so comically annoying, but there were also long pan shots and curious angles. the grainy look worked wonderfully. effects were well-toned, mostly. death scenes were gruesome; the first death involves a woman (sexually involved woman, again) bleeding from her eyes and vomiting up her internal organs. a fellow later has a drill go slowly through one side of his head and out the other. little lacking in that department, but not truly overdone. there could have been more excess, more blood, but it was relatively restrained, for what it was. it's possible somebody unaccustomed to this sort of film might have experienced disgust, suspense, and even horror. allowing for that possibility speaks quite a bit about the films quality.
the bad was downright awful though. the campiness was inescapable. some of this was well-done, as in a scene where the heroes are searching for a large cemetary for the tomb of a dead catholic priest to end the waves of undead, and the male journalist quips "damn good thing he didnt hang himself in arlington" ... but generally, the humor in the film was unintentional and more derived from confusion at randomness than at ludicrousness or lewdness. it felt slow at times, and the portrayal of undead was disappointing.
i found the soundtrack very entertaining.
leaving aside all the predictable cliches involving sexism, suggestive sexuality, and the element of attractive women as prime targets for immediate disembowelment. ill tell you what i liked about this shindig.
very awesome lighting and camera work. yes, there were the extreme zoom-ins to the eyes, which i found so comically annoying, but there were also long pan shots and curious angles. the grainy look worked wonderfully. effects were well-toned, mostly. death scenes were gruesome; the first death involves a woman (sexually involved woman, again) bleeding from her eyes and vomiting up her internal organs. a fellow later has a drill go slowly through one side of his head and out the other. little lacking in that department, but not truly overdone. there could have been more excess, more blood, but it was relatively restrained, for what it was. it's possible somebody unaccustomed to this sort of film might have experienced disgust, suspense, and even horror. allowing for that possibility speaks quite a bit about the films quality.
the bad was downright awful though. the campiness was inescapable. some of this was well-done, as in a scene where the heroes are searching for a large cemetary for the tomb of a dead catholic priest to end the waves of undead, and the male journalist quips "damn good thing he didnt hang himself in arlington" ... but generally, the humor in the film was unintentional and more derived from confusion at randomness than at ludicrousness or lewdness. it felt slow at times, and the portrayal of undead was disappointing.
i found the soundtrack very entertaining.