Dark_One79
04-07-2003, 07:35 PM
Okay fellow schmoes, here is #2 in a series of threads that details our memories about the first time we saw some of the genre's most influential films.
This week's selection is George Romero's 1978 zombie epic Dawn of the Dead.
Wow.
How can I emphasize just how important this movie is in the overall picture of my undying love for the horror genre?
Quite simply I cannot. You'll just have to believe me.
Dawn sits atop, perhaps, the loftiest pedestal in my eyes. This film was influential in so many ways. The film had an epic feel, took gore (at the time) to another level, and also tried to present a "message" within a over-the-top gorefest.
It is also, possibly, my earliest memory of horror. Easily one of my top-5 of all-time. I think many would agree.
The first time I was able to feast upon this film I couldn't have been older than 7. The year would have been 1985 (or '84) and my family had just recently purchased our first VCR, for a hefty price tag at the time mind you. My father made the weekly trip to a local electronics store that, at the time, also carried a selection of VHS rentals, as Blockbusters were quite simply non-existent. He grabbed Dawn from the collection of over 200 titles (!! :)) passing on other offerings such as Cannonball Run, Smokey & the Bandit and various other Burt Reynolds films.
When he returned home with Dawn, instantly I was terrified by the image on the front of the box. A zombie slowly, through a series of images, rising from the dead.
This was definitely a movie I had to see.
Somehow, someway, I was able to watch the movie with my father. Apparently my mother was out shopping, or some other equally worthless task, and so my father didn't feel the need to tell me to take a hike and go play some Atari or play with my G.I. Joe figures when he started the movie.
I was glued to the screen for the next two hours in a way I had never been before, and seldom have been since.
It is hard to believe that, as well as I know the movie now, there was a span of about 7 years where the film was nothing more than a series of images in my head. Images such as Peter's re-animated body rising from under the blanket, an exploding head, a biker being ripped apart, a false wall being built, rotating helicopter blades, trucks blocking doors, getting greedy bt going for that bag (Roger), madness in a television studio, Stephen uselessly twirling a pistol on his cold, dead hand, and a zombie losing the top of his head.
Images were all that remained for years until I was able to rent the movie again during my freshman year of high school in about 1991. The movie was just as graphic and unsettling as I had remembered it to be.
Seeing the film at such a young age definitely had a lasting impact on my love for the genre. Never before had I been so sickened or, for lack of a better word, scared during a movie. I remember not being able to fall asleep the night after watching it, and after I finally did, I woke up in the middle of the night sick.
Yeah, it hit me like that. And here I am - 18 years later telling this tale on a horror message board with a bunch of other horror junkies.
So, when I say that this movie was just as influential for my love of the genre as it was for the genre itself, do you believe me yet?
So, what about you?
This week's selection is George Romero's 1978 zombie epic Dawn of the Dead.
Wow.
How can I emphasize just how important this movie is in the overall picture of my undying love for the horror genre?
Quite simply I cannot. You'll just have to believe me.
Dawn sits atop, perhaps, the loftiest pedestal in my eyes. This film was influential in so many ways. The film had an epic feel, took gore (at the time) to another level, and also tried to present a "message" within a over-the-top gorefest.
It is also, possibly, my earliest memory of horror. Easily one of my top-5 of all-time. I think many would agree.
The first time I was able to feast upon this film I couldn't have been older than 7. The year would have been 1985 (or '84) and my family had just recently purchased our first VCR, for a hefty price tag at the time mind you. My father made the weekly trip to a local electronics store that, at the time, also carried a selection of VHS rentals, as Blockbusters were quite simply non-existent. He grabbed Dawn from the collection of over 200 titles (!! :)) passing on other offerings such as Cannonball Run, Smokey & the Bandit and various other Burt Reynolds films.
When he returned home with Dawn, instantly I was terrified by the image on the front of the box. A zombie slowly, through a series of images, rising from the dead.
This was definitely a movie I had to see.
Somehow, someway, I was able to watch the movie with my father. Apparently my mother was out shopping, or some other equally worthless task, and so my father didn't feel the need to tell me to take a hike and go play some Atari or play with my G.I. Joe figures when he started the movie.
I was glued to the screen for the next two hours in a way I had never been before, and seldom have been since.
It is hard to believe that, as well as I know the movie now, there was a span of about 7 years where the film was nothing more than a series of images in my head. Images such as Peter's re-animated body rising from under the blanket, an exploding head, a biker being ripped apart, a false wall being built, rotating helicopter blades, trucks blocking doors, getting greedy bt going for that bag (Roger), madness in a television studio, Stephen uselessly twirling a pistol on his cold, dead hand, and a zombie losing the top of his head.
Images were all that remained for years until I was able to rent the movie again during my freshman year of high school in about 1991. The movie was just as graphic and unsettling as I had remembered it to be.
Seeing the film at such a young age definitely had a lasting impact on my love for the genre. Never before had I been so sickened or, for lack of a better word, scared during a movie. I remember not being able to fall asleep the night after watching it, and after I finally did, I woke up in the middle of the night sick.
Yeah, it hit me like that. And here I am - 18 years later telling this tale on a horror message board with a bunch of other horror junkies.
So, when I say that this movie was just as influential for my love of the genre as it was for the genre itself, do you believe me yet?
So, what about you?