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Staking Out New Territory: Film Experiment in Fear
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14662 |
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THE ARTS
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11 / 1988 |
1,010 Words |
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Elliott Stein
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One of the most exciting American films of the year was not made in Hollywood, did not cost mega-millions, and has not a single star name in its cast. Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear, like most of George Romero's work, was produced in Pittsburgh on a relatively low budget. It garnered rave reviews in both Time and Newsweek, but elsewhere the notices were largely mixed. Romero's reputation as a cult-film director is based on a series of violent horror films. This may have conditioned the views of some critics. However, in his latest movie, he is staking out new territory; a fascinating science-fiction thriller that works on several levels, Monkey Shines is thought-provoking and unsettling, and although a frightening film, it never indulges in gratuitous gore.
Industrious Origins
The director was born in New York City and studied art and drama at Pittsburgh's Carnegie-Mellon University. He then settled in the steel city and in 1963 founded Latent Image, a production company specializing in commercials and industrial films. Eager to direct a narrative feature but unable to secure financing, Romero pooled his savings with those of a few friends. The result was Night of the Living Dead, released in 1968, which became a landmark cult film. Romero's first feature was made in black and white for about $100,000 and was shot on weekends over as even month period, its production alternating with that of pickle commercials. Much of the strength of this lurid tale of radioactive and cannibalistic zombies decimating the Pennsylvania countryside resided in its utter realism--it looked like a documentary or a newsreel recording of actual events. It eschewed comic relief, explanatory scientists, romance, distractions of any sort--all the conventional elements usually tacked onto horror films to relieve tensions but which usually merely dilute interest. The result was one of the most truly horrifying films ever made.
Consciously or unconsciously, the film mirrored the social upheavals of the late sixties. The critics had a field day, and interpretations were wildly divergent: Some reviewers saw it as an image of America devouring itself; for others the zombies were symbolic of corpses returning from Vietnam, or else the silent majority on the march. Whatever its connotations, Living Dead became a critical and popular success in Europe and a durable midnight-movie favorite in this country; and it earned a place in the prestigious film collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
In Martin (1978), Romero crated a moving and beautiful tale of a shy and alienated young man who just may or may not be a vampire. This intelligent horror film never spells things out clearly. Shot in gritty Braddock, near Pittsburgh, its fantastic story gains credibility from being set in a once-prosperous industrial town that is falling on hard times.
With Dawn of the Dead (1979), Romero resurrected his zombies--but with a difference. Although some scenes are quite grisly, Dawn is basically a black comedy about consumerism, set in a Pennsylvania shopping mall. The flesh-eaters become the ultimate faceless horde of Saturday-afternoon shoppers, stomping around voraciously in the giant mall full of goods that Romero viewed as "a veritable temple to the materialism of the 'me' generation of the seventies." It was a tremendous success--one of the most profitable independent films ever made. With it, Romero became firmly established as the principal
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