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Night of the Living Dead

31 Nights of Horror. Night 12: Night of the Living Dead

October 15, 2012 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Cover of "Night of the Living Dead"
Cover of Night of the Living Dead

Tonight film is Tom Savini’s verison of the George A. Romero classic, Night of the Living Dead. When it was released in 1990 it is almost an exact scene-for-sence remake of the classic (1968). It is said that some of the reasoning behind this that Savini thought no matter how good the orginal film was, moviegoer’s of the 1990s would not go to the theather to watch a black and white movie.

In fact Savini toyed with the idea of starting the film in black and white and gradually adding color to the film but decided against it.

Did you know:

As is tradition with most zombie films, the word ‘zombie’ is never once used in this movie to describe the Living Dead.

The scene at the end of the film, where several zombies are lynched from a tree and shot at was in fact scripted in the original 1968 film, but was cut because of the racial tensions gripping the country at the time. The scene pays homage to the cut.

The car driven by Johnny at the beginning of the film was owned by Tom Savini. According to the director it was the first car he bought after meeting with success and it broke his heart to wreck it during filming.

What is your favorite scary movie? 

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Filed Under: 31 Days of Horror, Alaska, Daily Post, Horror Tagged With: 1968 in film, Arts, George Romero, List of zombie films, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, Savini, Tom Savini

Scary Movie Bracket: Dawn of the Dead vs. Rosemarys Baby

February 29, 2012 by robertforto 2 Comments

Here at the Fort we love sports, March Madness and scary movies. Play along with us and find out what is the scariest movie of all time, voted on by you, my rabid readers!

See who’s winning and the “official rules”

Scary Movie Bracket Round 1: Dawn of the Dead vs. Rosemary’s Baby

vs. 

 

 

 

 

Dawn of the Dead

In this first sequel to Night of the Living Dead, a group of four people take up residence in a deserted mall while trying to stay alive amidst the armies of the dead and a vicious gang of militant bikers.

Learn More…

Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an apartment in a building with a bad reputation. They discover that their neighbors are a very friendly elderly couple named Roman and Minnie Castevet, and Guy begins to spend a lot of time with them. Strange things start to happen: a woman Rosemary meets in the laundry dies a mysterious death, Rosemary has strange dreams and hears strange noises and Guy becomes remote and distant. Then Rosemary falls pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbours have special plans for her child.

Learn More…

Winner!!

Rosemary’s Baby

Vote Now on Facebook or Comment Below

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Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Horror, Scary Movie Bracket Tagged With: Dawn of the Dead, facebook, march madness, Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, Scary Movie

31 Days of Horror. Day 12: The Dark Half

October 13, 2011 by robertforto 1 Comment

Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon every night of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror.

31 Days of Horror. Day 12 Movie: The Dark Half

The Dark Half is one of the best King book to movie adaptations, at least in my fandamonium opinion. I love King and I love George A. Romero, the director of this movie as well as one of my all time faves, Night of the Living Dead, among others of course.

How could they go wrong: mash up two of the greatest horror minds of all time and put them in a box and they come up with something like this. Sure, it is true to form with most of King’s book adaptations for film, it is to appeal to a mass audience. It has a big name cast, a bit of CGI (when it was still in it’s infancy) as well as a bit of television type drama. But the Dark Half still rocks!

Fun Facts

Shot in 1991, not released until 1993.

In the prologue of this Stephen King adaptation, Thad Beaumont wants to become a writer and is shown writing stories. The title of his first typewritten story is “Here There Be Tygers”, which is also the real title of the first short story King wrote in his career. The story can be found in King’s “Skeleton Crew” anthology.

When he is confronted by a class member to sign the book written by his pen-name, he declines, and claims it’s not his book. The photo on the back of the book is, in fact, Stephen King himself.

In total 4,500 Cut Throat Finches were used for the sparrows in the film. The birds would consume 100 pounds of birdseed and 15 gallons of water on a daily basis during the production.

All of the shooting locations for the film were around the Pittsburgh, PA area. They were chosen for their close location to director ‘George A. Romero”s home in Pittsburgh.

Villain George Stark’s name is a homage to infamous serial killer Charles Starkweather.

Approximately 2,000 finches were released into the sets of the Beaumont house for the shooting of the films finale.

The film’s release was delayed for two years by bankruptcy problems with the films distribution company.

According to author Stephen King the story of this film was part autobiographical as it was inspired by the events that led to him revealing his own writing pseudonym of ‘Richard Bachman’.

John Hurt and ‘Michael Gough’ were considered for major cameos.

According to director George A. Romero star Timothy Hutton was quite difficult to work with at times, Hutton even quit the film for a few days during the production.

 

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Filed Under: 31 Days of Horror, Daily Post Tagged With: Dark Half, forto, George Romero, Night of the Living Dead, Richard Bachman, stephen king, Timothy Hutton

31 Days of Horror. Day 7: Dawn of the Dead

October 8, 2011 by robertforto Leave a Comment

31 Days of Horror: Day 7 Movie:  Dawn of the Dead

Filmed in Monroeville Mall, Monroeville, PA.

The weapons store featured in the film was never a part of the Monroeville Mall. George A. Romero shot those scenes in a gun shop in downtown Pittsburgh and edited the footage in to make it look like it was a shop in the mall.

In the scene where Roger hits the zombie (played by Tom Savini) with the truck and it leaves a bloody smear on his windshield, the effect was created by Savini throwing himself on the non-moving truck and spitting a mouthful of blood on the windshield.

Tom Savini chose a friend to play the helicopter zombie because he was notorious for having a low forehead.

The airstrip used in the film, the Harold W. Brown Memorial Field (aka Monroeville Municipal Airport), is still in operation as of 2002. The privately run airfield is approximately 10 miles from the Monroeville Mall, where the bulk of the film was shot.

The voice of Christine Forrest (George A. Romero’s wife) can be heard on a pre-recorded announcement in the mall (“Attention all shoppers…”).

The skating rink shown in the film was part of the Monroeville Mall. It has since been replaced by a food court.

Much of the fake blood used in the blood packets was a mixture of food coloring, peanut butter and cane sugar syrup.

Many effects were thought of on the spot. Tom Savini created many effects (such as the arm in the blood pressure tester) with no preparations whatsoever.

There was originally a scene during the biker raid involving a zombie getting an arrow in the head from a crossbow. It was filmed but never featured in the final cut.

Tom Savini used the same dummy throughout the course of filming. During that time it was blown up, burnt, shot, and beaten, among other things.

Some of the zombies (notably one in the tenement scene) were actual amputees.

Filming at the Monroeville Mall took place during the winter of 1976-77, with a three week reprieve during the Christmas shopping season (during which other footage, e.g. the TV studio, was shot). Filming at the mall began around 10 p.m., shortly after the mall closed, and finished at 6 a.m. The mall didn’t open until 9, but at 6 the Muzak came on and no one knew how to turn it off.

Tom Savini, head of makeup effects, was unhappy with how the blood mix (produced by 3M) photographed; it looked fluorescent. Director George A. Romero felt it was perfect for the film’s comic book style.

Much of the stock music used in this film was licensed from the Music De Wolfe Library, a much-used resource of stock music for motion pictures.

Shooting at the mall was suspended over the Christmas season because it would have been too costly to nightly remove and then later re-hang all the seasonal decorations.

Extras who appeared in this film were reportedly given $20 in cash, a box lunch, and a Dawn of the Dead T-shirt.

The MPAA had threatened to impose the X rating if George A. Romero didn’t make cuts. Romero did not want to cut the film, and he was adamant against an X rating, due to its stigma of hard-core pornography. In the end, Romero was able to persuade his distributors to release the film with no rating, although on all advertising and trailers, there was a disclaimer that in effect read that while there was no explicit sex in the film, the movie was of such a violent nature that no one under 17 would be admitted.

Tom Savini choose the gray color for the zombies’ skin, since Night of the Living Dead was in B&W and the zombie skin-tone was not depicted. He later said it was a mistake, because many of them ended up looking quite blue on film.

Some of the actors playing zombies in the movie would frequently get drunk at a late-night bar called the Brown Derby, which was in the Monroeville Mall. One night they stole a golf cart and crashed into a marble pillar, causing $7,000 worth of damage.

Zombie actors took photographs of themselves dressed up in full zombie makeup inside a photo booth on the second floor. They then replaced the sample pictures on the front of the booth with the ghoulish ones.

Many of the extras cast in the film (especially the zombies in close-up shots) were friends and relatives of the production crew.

The outdoor scene where hunters, emergency crew and soldiers are shooting at zombies was done through local volunteers. Several local hunters arrived on-scene with their own weapons, the local National Guard division showed up in full gear, and local emergency crew (police, fire and ambulance) were present, all voluntarily.

Several members of the marauding band of bikers were played by members of the local chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club. The elaborate motorcycles they drove were their own.

The scenes between Stephen, Peter, Roger, and Frannie in the helicopter were filmed with the helicopter never running or leaving the ground. A shell was painted blue for the day scenes and black for the night scenes and interspersed with real helicopter footage.

In the original draft of the script, the TV station’s call sign was WJAS, the call sign of an actual radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the film was shot. The call sign was replaced with WGON, which was not issued to any station at that time (it had been issued to an AM radio station in Munsing, Michigan, but the station had gone dark some time before). WGON has now been issued to a licensed low power FM radio station (WGON-LP, 103.7) in Slidell, Louisiana.

The helicopter used in the film was a Bell Jet Ranger II. The registration number was N90090.

Much of the fighting done by Fran was at the behest of Gaylen Ross, who refused to play a character who would not fight the zombies on her own.

The living quarters where the four heroes shacked up in wasn’t located in the mall. It was a set built at George A. Romero’s then production company The Latent Image located in Pittsburgh. The elevator shaft was located there as well.

With such a shoestring budget, the film couldn’t afford professional stunt people outside of drivers, so makeup artist Tom Savini and assistant and friend Taso N. Stavrakis volunteered for the task. They are responsible for almost every stunt seen in the film, though not all went perfectly as planned. When filming a dive over the rail of the mall, Savini almost missed his pile of cardboard boxes, with his legs and back landing on the ground. He had to work from a golf cart for several days. The shot where Stavrakis swung down from a banner was poorly planned and he wound up continuing on and slamming into the ceiling.

Gaylen Ross said that the brief scene where she is skating in the ice rink was a near-disaster. She had stated on her resume that she could ice skate, but hadn’t done so in nearly 20 years. She admitted in an interview that she was being shouted instructions on how to skate by the rink manager (who was out of camera shot) and stayed on her feet barely long enough to complete a single loop.

Gaylen Ross refused to scream during the film. She felt that Fran was a strong female character, and if she screamed, the strength would be lost. She told this to George A. Romero once, when he told her to scream. He never asked her again.

Peter is the first person in the franchise to refer to the undead as “zombies”. The term is never used in Night of the Living Dead.

The beer the hunters are seen drinking is Iron City Beer, a once-popular beer brewed in Pittsburgh in which ‘George A. Romero”s film company, The Latent Image, produced and filmed a number of Iron City Beer TV commercials during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Monroeville mall used as the site of much of the action was once the largest mall in America. Now it is almost a inconsequential mall compared to other larger sites.

The most profitable film in the “Dead” series.

Some of the cast were made physically sick by the makeup work.

Dawn of the Dead was intentionally more comedic than Night of the Living Dead because George A. Romero wanted it filmed in the style of a comic book.

It took up to three hours in makeup to transform someone into a zombie.

Romero’s favorite film in the “Dead” series. It was also his favorite audience experience when it was first released into cinemas.

People still visit the shopping mall just to see where Dawn of the Dead was made.

Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon every night of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror.

What is your favorite scary and/or Halloween movie? I would love to hear from you!

I welcome your comments and suggestions. Please comment below.

Robert Forto | Team Ineka | Alaska Dog Works | Mushing Radio | Dog Doctor Radio | Denver Dog Works

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  • 31 Days of Horror. Day 6: Night of the Living Dead (robertforto.com)
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Filed Under: 31 Days of Horror, Daily Post Tagged With: Dawn of the Dead, Gaylen Ross, George Romero, Monroeville Mall, Night of the Living Dead, Pagans Motorcycle Club, Taso N. Stavrakis, Tom Savini

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