martin - for whatever reason i avoided this for a while, and now i see the mistake in that.
beyond great in ways that people that don't "get" what bleakness is won't get out of this particular bleakness, everything from complete personal alienation to the way pittsburgh is portrayed. housewives with nothing better to do than commit suicide, broken marraiges, burned down churches and negative lifestyles. i do believe martin was a vampire or something along those lines and what got me woozy was considering how it must feel to be like that, and without the traditional social network of vampires or power that make vampiros cool to idiots... like, a total alien creature with nowhere to go and no one to tell except a late-night talk show host who doesn't give a shit. i guess that works if he was just a psychosexual deviant, too. mr amplas does an incredible job of conveying something not human through facial expressions alone and i seriously can't argue against romero being a flawed genius, which makes him a likeable and interesting genius. the ideas contained here and the style (the flashbacks?) stacked on top of NOTLD/DOTD erase all future transgressions.
has anyone seen SEASON OF THE WITCH and should i prioritize it?
a few weeks ago i watched
deathdream, which is totally similar in a bunch of ways... avoided it for years, same sort of alienation and bleakness and low-budget brilliance. both tap into the post-vietnam junkie sociotype albeit deathdream does it a little bit crudely. richard backus does almost as well as amplas in his otherworldly acting skills, more evil than haunting, and the ending is totally apeshit. spoiler: and
sad, as the zombie frantically tries to bury itself in the grave it dug, w/ it's mom watching and sobbing.
(
i would also say the director of DD is a genius in his own right: bob clark, who also directed PORKY'S, A CHRISTMAS STORY, BLACK CHRISTMAS and TURK182!
