Really Awful Movies

Derided upon first release and championed with some benefit of hindsight, the truth rests somewhere in the middle for Night of the Living Dead (1990).

A beat for beat retread of George A Romero’s transcendent 1968 original, the only key differences are Tony Todd in the Duane Jones role, and Patricia Tallman’s channeling of her inner Ripley to give Barbara more agency as a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER (say that phrase with the Scottish brogue of top-notch YouTuber, The Critical Drinker).

Does this affect the price of tea in China at the end of the day?

What the new Night does have is a bit of coda social commentary with warden/convict dynamics between captured zombies and their hillbilly captors.

While effective, this also seems forced as screenplay writer George A Romero already gave us this kind of moral ambiguity through undead Bub’s emotional intelligence and Frankenstein monster pathos in the superior Day of the Dead.

There are a more than a few things that work in the original Night of the Living Dead’s favour too.

The film had DIY graininess, which gave it a newsreel feel – fitting amidst the difficult racial politics of the time. And the originality of the first effort cannot be overstated: Romero is the zombie genre’s prime mover, the pebble that caused the ripple to torture an undead metaphor.

The 1990 Night of the Living Dead feels like a colorized version of 1968.

The frenetic pace and cheesy tone seem a bit…off. But it’s still entertaining.

*** (out of 5)

Check out the Really Awful Movies podcast about Night of the Living Dead!

Urban sophisticates visit a small town and are met with suspicious, evasive locals. That is the plot of about, oh, 1,000 horror films at last count – and in particular, Demons 3.

Demons 3 gifts us a prologue, which every horror film in the 80s was required by have by law, featuring a young mom Cheryl’s terrifying childhood visions.

Cheryl, her husband and kid are travelling around Southern Italy. And mom, a Portland horror novelist can’t seem to escape childhood dreams/traumas that befell her in Oregon and these aren’t providing much in the way of inspiration as she looks for a place to get some writing done, a la The Shining.

The fam arrives at what will be their home for several months, and wow the local barista with their Italian language abilities. But café denizens give them the stink eye when the question of the family’s holiday destination comes up – turns out they’re staying in a dusty castle rather than a charming air b’n’b.

And before you can say, The Shining, but also Sinister, House, or Burnt Offerings, the writer is going mad in the confines of their accommodations. And it certainly doesn’t help matters that she’s skulking around the cobweb-ridden basement with a flashlight instead of pecking away at a keyboard.

Made-for-TV Demons 3 is a tame affair. But it has some flare associated with Fulci productions, probably because the co-writer Dardano Sachetti was a longtime Lucio collaborator. Actually, this one carries a whiff of the lesser known, Demonia.

Also known as Demons III: The Ogre, it’s worth noting for all you title purists out there, that there are no actual demons in this kinda-sequel to Lamberto Bava’s first two gore-fests, the iconic Demons and less iconic Demons 2.

When the demons-displacing title Ogre makes an appearance, it’s hardly breathtaking – but this one’s still fun.

*** (out of 5)

Check out the Demons 3 discussion on the Really Awful Movies Podcast!