Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

After more than twenty years of failed attempts and missed opportunities, Terry Gilliam did what many thought impossible — he transformed Hunter S. Thompson's classic novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, into the cinematic equivalent of a having sledgehammer whacked across your frontal lobes. The book had finally been fully realized and brought to the big screen in all of its demented glory. The film crashed and burned in theaters, infamously debuting at the Cannes Film Festival where it was roasted by critics, but it has aged very well, attracting a devoted cult film following that quote from its numerous memorable scenes.

Gilliam's film faithfully adapts journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo's (Benicio Del Toro) trip to Las Vegas to cover the 1971 Mint 400 motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated magazine. The competition, however, is merely an excuse for the duo to abuse their expense account and indulge in a galaxy of drugs. What was initially a simple journey to cover a motorcycle race mutates into a bizarre search for the American Dream.

"As true gonzo journalism, this doesn't work at all, and even if it did, I couldn't possibly admit it. Only a goddamn lunatic would write a thing like this and claim it was true." – Hunter S. Thompson

Originally, Thompson was assigned to write captions for a photo-essay on the Mint 400 off-road motorcycle race in Las Vegas for Sports Illustrated magazine. Along for the ride was his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta whom he had met through a mutual friend. Thompson remembers, "I dragged Oscar away while he was working on the 'Biltmore Seven' trial because we couldn't talk in that war zone. So I said, 'Let's get the hell out of town!'" At some point, the editor for Rolling Stone magazine heard that Thompson was in Vegas and asked him to also cover the National District Attorneys Association's Third Annual Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which was being held at Caesar's Palace.

When Sports Illustrated rejected his work Thompson took the Rolling Stone gig. It was at this point that he began to put his weird journey on paper. Truth was truly stranger than fiction as he remembers one incident with his wild attorney: "He would do things like drop me off at the airport in my rental car, and then two months later I'd get a bill for three weeks that he used the car. He'd forget to take it back." Acosta had inspired Thompson to take his writing to a new level: "gonzo journalism," where the journalist participates in the story he is writing about. Taking refuge in a Ramada Inn in Arcadia, California, Thompson wrote relentlessly, frequenting a 24-hour coffee shop and breaking only for the odd swim in the pool. By the time he had returned home to Aspen, Colorado, the writer had a first draft done. In his basement, Thompson blasted the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" while he "anguished over five or six drafts until I got it right."

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was first published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971. Thompson invented the Raoul Duke moniker because he was worried that his debauched misadventures depicted in the book might ruin his chances of acquiring press credentials from the White House so that he could cover the 1972 Presidential campaign. He got his credentials and allowed the book publishers to use his real name when the story was released in book form in 1972.

The newsreel footage that plays at the very beginning of the film sets the time period – a turbulent time in American history with the war raging over in Vietnam while anti-war protests raged in the United States. Duke and Gonzo reflect this anti-authoritarian stance as they wage their own war on the establishment armed with a trunk full of alcohol and drugs. They are introduced already drunk and high with Duke feeling acutely paranoid, talking to himself about imaginary bats in the sky. “Our vibrations were getting nasty but why? Was their no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?” This foreshadows the “savage journey to the heart of the American Dream” (the subtitle of the book) these two men will take as they debase themselves to the level of animals as a way of dealing with how dark and ugly America has gotten.

Early on, Duke lays out their mission statement: “Our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country.” Las Vegas epitomizes everything that is grotesque about the American Dream. It is even weirder under the influence of LSD as upon arrival at his hotel Duke sees people’s faces distort hideously and the lobby carpet moving ominously. He and Gonzo go into a bar filled with grotesque caricatures that, on acid, are transformed into slimy, human-sized lizards. Gilliam warps the scene with garish colors and echoey audio where it is impossible to understand what is being said.

Gilliam presents Vegas as an intentionally artificial place, intentionally using rear projection with vintage footage of the town as Duke and Gonzo cruise around in their rental car. This technique enhances the surreal aspect of ‘60s era Vegas when the likes of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra ruled. By the time, Duke and Gonzo arrive the town is in a state of flux as it was being transformed into a family friendly place. This is evident in the circus-themed casino they eventually visit as Duke hilariously observes via voiceover: “Bazooko Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the 6^th Reich.” This scene shows Duke and Gonzo in a less than flattering light as the latter has a bad drug trip, insulting a waitress and making a scene while Duke, the slightly straighter of the two, gets increasingly paranoid.

Some of their worst behavior comes when they get back to their hotel room where they take more drugs and completely trash it. Gonzo gets increasingly upset, threatening violence. Benicio del Toro excels at these scenes with his scary, intimidating presence as evident in a brief scene where he and Duke share an elevator with people covering the motorcycle race. When one of them questions Gonzo’s assertion that he’s a rider in the race, he pulls a knife and threatens them with it in an unsettling moment. This results in Duke musing via voiceover, “One of the things you learn after years of dealing with drug people is that you can turn your back on a person but never turn your back on a drug, especially when it’s waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.”

What saves Fear and Loathing from being nothing more than an exercise in excess are the moments where Duke takes a break from the alcohol and drugs and thinks about what he is doing and what is going on – not just where he is at the moment but in the world:

“Who are these people? These faces. Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas and sweet Jesus there are a helluva lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American Dream. That vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.”

This is spoken over footage of Duke walking through a casino populated by several older white men by themselves sullenly gambling. It ties in rather well with a later scene (and the best part of the film) where he ruminates on the idealism of the ‘60s in San Francisco:

“But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world…There was madness in any direction, at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, we were winning…That sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense. We didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.”

These poignant words play over vintage footage of ‘60s counterculture. This scene and its speech perfectly captures the idealism of that era and a lament for its failure as ushered in by a darker more selfish attitude that came in the 1970s – a paranoid time spawned by political assassinations of important leaders and the Watergate scandal.

If the beginning of Fear and Loathing is akin to 1967 and the Summer of Love with everything groovy, funny and we’re laughing along with these guys, then the last third is the Rolling Stones at Altamont. The film goes to a dark place as the drugs get worse, much like the mood of the country over the years. Duke and Gonzo are products of the  ‘60s, taking no responsibility for their actions and not paying for anything. These aren’t likable guys and the film doesn’t make any excuses for them.

This is particularly evident when Duke and Gonzo trash another hotel with the former taking a drug called adrenochrome. It conjures up all kinds of nightmarish imagery as he hallucinates the latter as some kind of demonic beast. As horrific as this scene gets, it is a warm-up for the next one – a flashback where Duke and Gonzo take late night refuge at the North Star Coffee Lounge, located in a rough Vegas neighborhood where we see three cops beating an unarmed man. The joint is grimy and imbued with a sickly yellowish green hue. They are served by a disheveled waitress (Ellen Barkin) that Duke describes as a “burned out caricature of Jane Russell.” Gonzo insults her and she gets angry at him. She threatens to call the cops and he replies by pulling out a knife and threatening her with it. There is no actual violence in this scene, only the implication of it that hangs thick as does the palpable tension between Gonzo and the waitress as he intimidates and humiliates her. Del Toro is a revelation in this scene, unafraid to portray a repulsive person that goes over the line.

Duke does nothing but watch and at the end of the scene Depp gives a brief, subtle look that conveys shame as he did nothing to stop Gonzo. This is the duo at their worst – one was the instigator of bad behavior while the other condoned it in his silence. This is truly the apex of their “savage journey” and while the rest of the film allows the characters go out on a high note, matching the gleeful tone of the beginning, it does little to diminish the ugly truth on display in the North Star scene.

Many attempts to get a Fear and Loathing Las Vegas film going were launched by the likes of Martin Scorsese and Jack Nicholson but nothing ever materialized. It took actor Johnny Depp and his friendship with Thompson to get any kind of serious attempt at an adaptation even possible.

Depp first met Thompson in Aspen, Colorado just before New Year's Eve, 1995. Depp left that initial meeting wondering why Fear and Loathing had not been made into a film. The actor subsequently invited Thompson to do a one-night gig at Depp's nightclub, The Viper Room on September 29, 1996 with the intention of asking the writer about doing a film version of his book. The opportunity never materialized but the two began corresponding via faxes. Early one day, Thompson called Depp on the phone and asked him if he would consider playing Raoul Duke if a film was ever made of Fear and Loathing. "Without hesitation, I said, 'You bet!'" Depp recalls. By the Spring of 1997, Depp had moved into the basement of Owl Farm, Thompson's home in Aspen in order to do proper research for the role.

"I've been dealing with these yo-yos buying options on things for years. Options have been essentially paying the rent." – Hunter S. Thompson

Rhino Films was the latest in a long line of people trying to bring Thompson's vision to the big screen. Head of Production (and one of the film's producers) Stephen Nemeth originally wanted Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) to direct. However, Tamahori wasn't going to be available until after the January 1997 start date. Rhino asked Thompson for an extension on the movie rights but the author and his lawyers said no. As Thompson later remarked in an interview, "They just kept asking for more [time]. I got kind of agitated about it, because I thought they were trying to put off doing it. So I began to charge them more...I wanted to see the movie done, once it got started."

Rhino countered by green-lighting the film and hiring Alex Cox to direct. According to Nemeth, Cox could "do it for a price, could do it quickly, and could get this movie going in four months." Judging by his past efforts, films like Repo Man (1983) and Straight to Hell (1987), Cox was no stranger to the same kind of Gonzo sensibilities evident in Thompson's books. He started writing the screenplay with Tod Davies, a UCLA Hunter S. Thompson scholar. Depp and Del Toro committed to the film at this point. However, during pre-production Cox and another of the film's producers, Laila Nabulsi (and an ex-flame of Thompson's) had "creative differences" and she forced Rhino to choose between her and the filmmaker. Despite having no background in movies, Nabulsi did have an arrangement with Thompson to produce the movie.

The fatal blow came when Cox encountered Thompson with his own ideas of adapting the Fear and Loathing into a film. Johnny Depp remembers that "Alex had some dream that he could make Thompson's work better. He was wrong. He had this idea about animation in the film.” Cox and Davies, met Thompson at his home and it was at this point that Cox expressed his desire to incorporate animation into the movie. Thompson took offense to his book being reduced to a cartoon and promptly kicked Cox and Davies out of his home. When all the dust settled, Rhino sided with Nabulsi, fired Cox, and paid him $60,000 in script fees.

"I want it to be seen as one of the great movies of all time, and one of the most hated movies of all time." – Terry Gilliam

The studio approached Terry Gilliam's agent. There was an air of desperation because the option on the book was about to expire and Rhino had another project they wanted to start in 1998. Hunter S. Thompson granted the studio an extension for the rights but they didn't have a definite deal with Gilliam. Thompson would only grant another extension if Gilliam was given a concrete deal. Rhino did not want to commit to Gilliam in case he didn't work out (like Cox). They threatened to make the film with Cox and without Depp or Del Toro if the two actors didn't like the possibility of Gilliam being ousted. Nabulsi told them about Rhino's plans and Gilliam and Depp were furious. Universal stepped in to distribute the movie and Depp and Gilliam were paid half a million dollars each. Ironically, Gilliam ended up making Fear and Loathing without a firm deal in place.

Gilliam was the perfect choice to direct an adaptation of Fear and Loathing. The theme of insanity and altered states of reality had always figured into his films but had since taken a more prominent role with his previous couple of projects. Fear and Loathing completes an informal trilogy based on madness that included The Fisher King (1991) and Twelve Monkeys (1995).

When Gilliam had first read Fear and Loathing back in 1971, he "immediately identified with what Hunter was saying. I'd left the States to move here for the very same reasons that Fear and Loathing was written—that feeling the ideals of the '60s had died and that it was all fucked. I was so angry I was going to start throwing bombs. So when I read the book it was like, 'Jesus! He's got it! That's exactly how the fuck I feel!'" Gilliam enjoyed the book but didn't think about it for years afterwards.

Ralph Steadman, who illustrated the book, was a good friend of Gilliam and began to bug him over the years to do a film version of Fear and Loathing. In 1989, Gilliam remembers a "script turned up which briefly got me excited about the book again, but I was busy with another project and I ultimately decided that the script didn't capture the story properly."

Gilliam and his friend, Toni Grisoni, were originally working on a project about Theseus and the Minotaur. Grisoni read in a magazine that Alex Cox was set to direct Fear and Loathing. Grisoni called up Cox (they knew each other) and expressed an interest in adapting the book into a film. Cox said that he was doing it himself and that was that. In April 1997, Cox was out and Gilliam got the call from Laila Nabulsi to direct. Gilliam said in an interview, "she sent me a script, and it reminded me of how funny and good the book was. I didn't really care for the script, but it inspired me to go back and read the book again.” Gilliam scrapped Cox and Davies' screenplay and asked Grisoni to help him write their own. Together they hammered out a screenplay in only ten days at Gilliam's home in London, England in May of 1997. As Grisoni remembers, "I'd sit at the keyboard, and we'd talk and talk and I'd keep typing.” Gilliam felt that the structure of the film should be organized much in the same way as the book:

“We start out at full speed and it's WOOOO! The drug kicks in and you're on speed! Whoah! You get the buzz—it's crazy, it's outrageous, the carpet's moving and everybody's laughing and having a great time. But then, ever so slowly, the walls start closing in and it's like you're never going to get out of this fucking place. It's an ugly nightmare and there's no escape. And then they get out into the desert and it's light again. But it's a really rough ride for a lot of people to climb inside that head.”

Gilliam also felt that the more surreal parts of the book could be transferred onto film if done right. For example, the imaginary bats that Duke sees on the highway at the beginning of the book was one such passage the director felt could be translated into visual terms.

“Right at the start I thought, 'Well, we can't show them in the sky, we can only show them inside Duke's eyeball. So in the film we push in really tight on one of his eyes, where you can see these reflections of bats flapping around. We then cut to a wide shot that shows Duke waving his arms at nothing. I wanted to some how convey that this was an internal problem.”

When Gilliam first joined the production there wasn't even a set budget. "I went out there and said all right, to start with just double it, whatever the budget is, seven and a half? I want $15-million, whatever it is just double it. And at the same time we're running around doing location scouts, discovering we can't use this, which we thought we could use, and we're trying to invent everything at the same time. I've never done a film like that, but on the other hand that was part of the fun of this one." From there, the pace never slackened as Gilliam and company shot Fear and Loathing on location in a fast 56 days on a lean budget (by Hollywood standards) of $18.5 million. "One of the reasons I made this film,” Gilliam remembers, “was to push myself and see if I could still work the way I used to: fast, furiously and cheaply."

Visually, Fear and Loathing is a masterpiece with an inspired kaleidoscope of colors and insanely inventive camera angles and perspectives that make you feel like you're actually on drugs. Each drug consumed by Duke and Dr. Gonzo had its corresponding cinematic look to simulate its effects on the characters' perception. As the film's cinematographer, Nicola Pecorini points out, the effect of ether was done with "loose depth of field; everything becomes non-defined,” while the effects of amyl nitrate were done so that the "perception of light gets very uneven, light levels increase and decrease during the shots."

The look of Fear and Loathing was not inspired by Ralph Steadman's famous artwork that accompanied Thompson's words. Robert Yarber, an artist who paints pictures of people inside hotel rooms using fluorescent colors, influenced the look of the film. His paintings captured the hallucinatory feel that the filmmakers were looking for: "the paintings use all kinds of neon colors, and the light sources don't necessarily make sense," Pecorini said in an interview. As Gilliam remembers, "people inside hotel rooms in really fluorescent colors. His work is very strange and extraordinary and the colors he uses are extremely vibrant. We used him as a guide while mixing our palette of deeply disturbing fluorescent colors." This is evident in the scenes set in hotel rooms that each has their own garish Las Vegas decor that Duke and Dr. Gonzo subsequently transform into a twisted disaster area.

Depp was given complete access to every memento the writer saved from his 1971 trip to Las Vegas. "We went through the manuscript and the notes. There's notes on napkins and everything. He saved it all." The actor read through the writer's notebooks (which included an unpublished chapter entitled, "The Coconut Scene," which Gilliam placed in the film) only to realize that "the freakiest thing was that it was all real, that the reality was as insane as the book."

Thompson was disappointed that the film's costume designer wanted Depp to wear "bizarre Hawaiian zoot suits, and shit like that." The writer let Depp rummage through his wardrobe at the time of the book: Hawaiian shirts, a patchwork jacket, a safari hat, and a silver medallion given to him by Acosta. Thompson graciously allowed Depp to wear it all in the film. Gilliam remembers that the actor would "come back from Hunter's house with shirts and bags that Hunter had taken on the trip. In fact, Johnny drove the original Red Shark—the 1971 Chevrolet convertible in the film—down to Vegas from Hunter's house in Colorado."

All of these items only enhance Depp's performance. In the film, he has literally transformed into Duke/Thompson, complete with the man's unusual bow-legged walk, sweeping arm movements, mumbling speech pattern, and the trademark Dunhill cigarettes in a holder between clenched teeth. It's an incredible performance that transcends simple mimicry. Depp's research culminated after a week when Thompson shaved almost all of the actor's hair for the film and entrusted him with the very car he used in the trip. The actor soon became Thompson's roadie and in charge of security for The Proud Highway (a collection of Thompson's letters) book tour.

If anything, the concern was that Depp would get too into the role and never emerge intact afterwards. While making the film, the actor received a phone call from Bill Murray who had also spent a lot of time with Thompson while researching for his role in Where the Buffalo Roam. Murray had had a very hard time shaking Thompson's distinctive persona after filming ended. Murray warned Depp to "be careful or you'll find yourself ten years from now still doing him...Make sure you're next role is some drastically different guy." Depp seemed to heed Murray's advice and went off to do The Astronaut's Wife (1999), a lackluster rip-off of Rosemary's Baby (1968), where he played an astronaut who is possessed by an alien entity.

"I don't think it was a well-organized film. Its birth was not easy. Certain people didn't...I'm not going to name names but it was a strange film, like one leg was shorter than the other. There was all sorts of chaos." – Terry Gilliam

One of the biggest obstacles Gilliam faced while shooting Fear and Loathing was working in the casinos in Las Vegas. He was only give six tables to put extras around and "the only time they'd give us was between two and six in the morning. And they insisted that the extras did real gambling!" In order to alleviate this problem, Gilliam decided to shoot the exterior shots of the Bazooko Casino in front of the Stardust hotel/casino with the interiors built and filmed on a Warner-Hollywood soundstage. That way, the director could exert more control over his surroundings instead of relying on the casinos that weren't always that co-operative.

To make matters worse, Gilliam faced another battle after Fear and Loathing was made. The Writer's Guild of America wanted to give sole writing credit to Alex Cox and Tod Davies even though Gilliam and Toni Grisoni had written their own script. According to WGA rules, if you're a writer-director, you have to produce more than 50% of the script, while other writers involved only have to produce 30%. However, as Gilliam pointed out, "there have been at least five previous attempts at adapting the book, and they all come from the book. They all use the same scenes." The WGA determined that Gilliam and Grisoni had not written the film. To add insult to injury, Gilliam wasn't even allowed to know who the arbiters were that made the decision or see their reports.

Universal brought in their lawyers and Gilliam and Grisoni had to write a 25-page document to prove that they had written more than 60% of the film. By early May 1998, the WGA revised its decision and gave writing credit to Gilliam and Grisoni first and then Cox and Davies second. This hardly satisfied Gilliam who burned his WGA card in protest.

"I always get very tense in those (test screenings), because I'm ready to fight. I know the pressure from the studios is, 'somebody didn't like that, change it!'" – Terry Gilliam

Fear and Loathing debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and Gilliam said, "I'm curious about the reaction...If I'm going to be disappointed, it's because it doesn't make any waves, that people are not outraged."

To say that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas received a mixed reaction from audiences and critics alike is a gross understatement. In The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, "Even the most precise cinematic realizations of Mr. Thompson's images (and of Ralph Steadman's cartoon drawings for the book) don't begin to match the surreal ferocity of the author's language." Stephen Hunter, in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, "It tells no story at all. Little episodes of no particular import come and go...But the movie is too grotesque to be entered emotionally." Mike Clark, of USA Today, found the film, "simply unwatchable." Perhaps Gilliam and company made too faithful an adaptation that only really appeals to devotees of the book. Or, as Gilliam suggests, people were scared off because they had to think about what they were watching. "You've got to work out what it's told you, and that's not what America's about. They want their morality clear.”

Gilliam found that the American press refused to "even talk about Fear and Loathing. They won't say, 'Ban the film'—they're too liberal for that—so instead they seem to have adopted this attitude of, Oh, maybe if we don't talk about it, it'll go away. That's modern America all over.” And judging by Fear and Loathing's quick demise at the box office and subsequent disappearance from theaters, this strategy worked. While most critics praised Depp and Del Toro's performance, most found Gilliam's film to be a muddled mess with no coherent structure: just one long debauched road trip.

Regardless of what the critics thought, Gilliam hoped that one person would at least appreciate his efforts: Hunter S. Thompson. "Yeah, I liked it. It's not my show, but I appreciated it. Depp did a hell of a job. His narration is what really held the film together, I think. If you hadn't had that, it would have just been a series of wild scenes,” Thompson said in an interview. Gilliam remembers Hunter's reaction to the film when he saw at the premiere: "He was making all this fucking noise! Apparently it all came flooding back to him, he was reliving the whole trip! He was yelling out and jumping on his seat like it was a rollercoaster, ducking and diving, shouting "SHIT! LOOK OUT! GODDAM BATS!”

Fear and Loathing is a genius film, but in a really demented way — a 128-minute acid trip from beginning to end with no respite, no rest stops, and no objective distance from which to view the whole insane picture safely. You are plunged headlong into this weird, wild world along with the characters. It contains many funny moments, bits of dialogue, and visual zingers as Duke and Dr. Gonzo make their way through the surreal landscape that is Las Vegas. The humor in this film is simultaneously disturbing and hilarious — a pitch-black satire of American culture and excess.

The film starts off as a kind of period piece snobs vs. slobs comedy as Duke and Gonzo thumb their noses at authority figures wherever they go. Whereas in most of these types of comedies there is something likable about the slobs this is really not the case with Duke and Gonzo who are violent, vulgar human beings. Gradually, Gilliam introduces the darker, unseemly aspects of these characters. What saves the film from being nothing more than just another stoner comedy is the emotional and socio-political depth to it. Like the book, the film provides a snapshot of 1971 and what it was like to be alive then. Late in the film, Duke says via voiceover narration, “We’re all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the ‘60s.” Prescient words indeed and ones that still apply today. We are all trying to survive as the world continues to get darker and weirder.

Fear and Loathing became an instant cult item. It endured the critical brickbats of the day and has been reappraised as one of Gilliam’s best films. As Thompson put it in the book, "There he goes, one of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind, never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, too rare to die." Fear and Loathing is pure Gonzo filmmaking for people who like weird, challenging films.

SOURCES

Brinkley, Douglas. "Johnny, Get Your Gun.” George. June 1998.

Brinkley, Douglas. "Road to Ruin.” Sunday Mail. July 26, 1998.

Doss, Yvette C. "The Lost Legend of the Real Dr. Gonzo.” Los Angeles Times. June 5, 1998

Ebner, Mark. "Fear and Bleating in Las Vegas: Hunter Thompson Goes Hollywood.” Premiere. January 1998.

Elias, Justine. "Behind the Scenes: Terry Gilliam.” US Weekly. June 1998.

Gale, David. "Cardboard Castles and Chaos.” Icon. June 1998.

Holden, Michael John Perry, Bill Borrows. "Fear and Loathing.” Loaded. December 1998.

Houpt, Simon. "Going Gonzo with Fear and Loathing.” The Globe and Mail. May 21, 1998.

McCabe, Bob. "Chemical Warfare.” Sight and Sound. 1998.

McCabe, Bob. "One on One.” Empire. December 1998.

McCracken, Elizabeth. "Depp Charge.” Elle. June 1998.

Pizzello, Stephen. "Gonzo Filmmaking.” American Cinematographer. May 1998.

Pizzello, Stephen. "Unholy Grail.” American Cinematographer. May 1998.

Rowe, Douglas J. "Terry Gilliam Can Fly Without Acid.” Associated Press. May 29, 1998.

Smith, Giles. "War Games.” The New Yorker. May 25, 1998.

Willens, Michele. "How Many Writers Does it Take...?" The New York Times. May 17, 1998.

DVD of the Week: The Mist: 2-Disc Collector's Edition

Filmmaker Frank Darabont has a real affinity for Stephen King’s stories, having previously adapted two of the author’s non-horror tales (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) and with his latest film he tackles another King story, The Mist (2007), which comes from The Skeleton Crew collection of short stories. Darabont’s film thankfully flies in the face of the two prevailing trends of gruesome torture porn horror films and lame J-horror remakes to deliver old school scares for a truly satisfying horror film.

After a violent storm knocks out their power and puts a tree through one of their windows, David (Thomas Jane) and his son Billy (Nathan Gamble) go into town for supplies with their next-door neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher) along for the ride. They are in the supermarket for only a few minutes when they hear the chilling sound of air raid sirens followed by a frantic man (Jeffrey DeMunn) who rushes in yelling about how the mist took a man away. No sooner does he say this then a fast-moving mist envelopes the entire area forcing everyone in the store to hold up until they can figure out what to do.

Everyone has a theory as to its source: fallout from a possible chemical explosion at the local mill, some freaky weather system or maybe it has something to do with the nearby top secret military base? However, when David and a few others go to check out the back-up generator in the recesses of the store, one of them is attacked by multiple tentacles coming out of the mist, suggesting something more supernatural is lurking in the mist. They go back to the rest of the people and try to explain what they saw and what happened.

Naturally, some are skeptical, but the longer everyone stays cooped up and are eventually assaulted by all sorts of horrific creatures that come in waves, like Biblical plagues, the more tempers get frayed. A line is drawn between those who believe that this threat is some form of religious retribution, led by Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), and those who believe that there is some kind of malevolent force out there but use logic and reason to figure things out.

Darabont does an excellent job establishing the characters, the dilemma they all face, and then pitting them against each other. Some critics had problems with the shrill, Bible-thumping character of Mrs. Carmody as being an easy caricature; however, by the end of the film, all of the things she has said come true. As anyone who has read any of Stephen King’s fiction or seen one of his adaptations knows, a recurring motif is how the internal squabbling of a large group of people is as much of a threat as the horror that threatens them. King shows how fragile the trappings of society are and how it only takes one thing to trigger its collapse.

What is so refreshing about The Mist is how flawed the characters are as represented by David, a movie poster artist and the film’s hero. He gets scared and makes mistakes but rises to the occasion when needed. Is he any less of a hero for doing what he does in the film? Darabont raises some fascinating questions about the notion of heroics and this is masterfully realized by Thomas Jane’s wonderfully layered performance. The filmmaker has created a clever, tension-filled apocalyptic monster movie that has the balls to go out on such a daring sucker-punch of an ending that really pissed off some fans of the original novella. Darabont’s film remains true to the spirit and vibe of King’s story despite the radical reworking of the ending.

Special Features:

The first disc features an audio commentary by writer/director Frank Darabont. He spends the bulk of the track pointing out how he cut costs on this modestly budgeted film and gives credit to the crew members who helped him make it, in particular, the effects people. Darabont goes into the nuts and bolts of filmmaking but the highlight is his explanation/justification of the film’s controversial ending. As always, he delivers thoughtful observations and imparts loads of information.

Also included are eight deleted scenes with optional commentary by Darabont. One scene provides an interesting bit of insight into Brent’s character. There is more of David and Ollie trying to convince the others early on about the outside threat. Also included are more of Mrs. Carmody’s religious ramblings.

“Drew Struzan: An Appreciation of an Artist” is a profile of this prolific movie poster artist. He has done some of the most memorable posters of all time, including ones for the Star Wars films, E.T. (1982), Blade Runner (1982), and the Indiana Jones films to name but a few. Darabont points out that the introduction of David working in his studio in the film is a tribute to Struzan.

There are three Webisodes hosted by Darabont that provide a behind-the-scenes look at three scenes in the film and show what it looks like on the set juxtaposed with final product. We get to see how they did various practical effects in these scenes.

Also included are three trailers.

The second disc features a black and white version of the film that Darabont claims, in his introduction to it, is his preferred version because it was intended as an homage to classic horror films of the mid-1960s.

“When Darkness Came: The Making of The Mist” takes a look at the origins of the film. Darabont had always wanted to make a horror film and after making two non-horror Stephen King films, he decided to do The Mist. King sings Darabont’s praises and talks about how he trusted the filmmaker with the material. There is plenty of on the set footage where we see the cast and crew in action. None of the major studios wanted to do it but Bob Weinstein gave it the greenlight so long as Darabont agreed to do it cheaply and in very little time. This is an excellent look at how this film came together.

“Taming the Beast: Shooting Scene 35” takes a look at the scene where the mutant bugs and birds invade the supermarket. It’s the most action-packed scene in the film and was a challenge to shoot and coordinate because it involved a tricky combination practical and digital effects, lots of extras, and stunts.

“Monsters Among Us: A Look at the Creature FX” examines the designs for the various creatures in the film. He employed effects legend Greg Nicotero and illustrator extraordinaire Bernie Wrightson to design them and make them exotic-looking yet realistic enough so it seemed like they could really exist. It was a mix of CGI and practical mechanical creatures and puppetry.

Finally, there is “The Horror of It All: The Visual FX of The Mist” which takes a look at Café FX’s work on the film’s visual effects. Their main guy used to do prosthetic effects and so he had an idea of what would be practical and what would be CGI. His company had very little time and we see the various stages of the effects. We also see how various effects shots in the film were achieved.

Manhunter

"Do you think I'm going to see him standing in the street and say, 'there he is.' That's Houdini you're thinking about. Toothy Fairy's going to go on until we get smart or get lucky. He won't stop...He's got a genuine taste for it."

— Will Graham

Before Jonathan Demme's Academy Award winning The Silence of the Lambs (1992) graced the screen with Anthony Hopkins in all of his visceral glory, Michael Mann's little remembered (and seen) thriller, Manhunter (1986) presented a very different kind of Hannibal Lector. While Demme's film opted for over-the-top performances and needlessly gory scenes of violence, Mann's film took a subtler, creepier approach to its material. Manhunter is less interested in depicting the actual killings (the main attraction of this genre when it became popular) than in the cerebral and actual legwork required to enter the killer's frame of mind and track him down.

Thomas Harris' novel, Red Dragon, was published in 1981. It explores one man's eerie trip into the mind of a serial killer. Profiler Will Graham (William Petersen) reluctantly comes out of retirement to track down Francis Dolarhyde (Tom Noonan), a man who slaughters whole families to fulfill his own power fantasies. Graham is able to pursue the killer by thinking and dreaming as he imagines the killer does. However, the last time he tried this technique it pushed him to sanity’s edge. The case involved a cunning psychiatrist named Hannibal Lector (Brian Cox) who viciously killed his patients, scarring Graham both physically and emotionally. Now Graham must make the dangerous journey back into the mind of a killer to catch him before he kills again.

Producer Richard Roth (who produced the much-lauded Julia, starring Jane Fonda, in 1977) bought the film rights to Harris' novel for Dino De Laurentiis with David Lynch attached to direct. Lynch had already made the critical and commercial disaster Dune (1984) for the Italian movie mogul and was looking for a chance to redeem himself. "I was involved in that a little bit, until I got sick of it. I was going into a world that was going to be, for me, real, real violent. And completely degenerate. One of those things: No Redeeming Qualities." Lynch went on to make Blue Velvet (1986) and so Roth offered the project to Mann. Although, one wonders what Lynch’s take on the material would have been like.

After the failure of The Keep (1983), Mann went back to television and produced the very popular Miami Vice television series for NBC. The 1980s was a time when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. The country was a consumer culture, a carnivorous, materialistic society that is reflected in the show with its stylish fashion and architecture. Manhunter is also a product of its time as it reflected where popular culture (fashion, style and music) was at. Mann read Red Dragon not long after it was published and "thought it was the best thriller I'd ever read, bar none." Mann was intrigued by Harris' exploration into the nature of evil. As Mann wrote the screenplay, he decided not to graphically depict the murders as in the book. This is why Mann's film stands out from the other Lector films and other “serial killer” films.

The first Mann theme that Manhunter explores is the conflict of the individual versus the desire to preserve their family. Will Graham is a consummate professional and the best at what he does – profiling serial killers. His friend, Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina), seeks him out. Two families have been brutally murdered by the same killer: the Jacobis in Birmingham, Alabama and the Leeds in Atlanta, Georgia. They talk on the beach in front of Graham's house. Crawford shows Will not pictures of grisly murders as we almost expect, judging from the way they're talking, but snapshots of two families frolicking in a recreational setting. This is quite shrewd on Crawford's part. He is obviously appealing to Graham's protective nature towards his own family. He knows Graham will feel empathy for the dead families and future ones and therefore offer his services.

This opening conversation between Graham and Crawford is also a teaser of sorts. Nothing is alluded to concretely – especially Graham's ability to get into the mindset of a killer. The closest we get to what happened to him before he quit is when Crawford says, "you look alright." Graham responds, "I am . . . alright." That hesitation makes one wonder – is he really okay? How damaged is Graham? What is so fascinating about this scene is that so much is implied. The scene begins mid-conversation and alludes to Graham’s mysterious past, one that has caused an obvious rift between him and Crawford. The audience can only imagine what the source of this tension was and will only learn bits and pieces of what happened to him later on in the film. While Graham keeps in the tradition of Mann’s intensely professional protagonists who are the best at what they do, he is also one his most layered characters. There is much more to Graham than a driven investigator. He is also an extremely sensitive person who is compelled to do what he does out of a need to save others from being brutally murdered. The process that Graham undergoes to catch these killers is what intrigued Mann in the first place.

The visual motif of imprisoning bars features prominently in the scene between Graham and Lecktor where the investigator goes to visit the killer in order to get the criminal mindset back. The first shot has Graham framed with bars in front of him. The film cuts to a shot of the imprisoned psychiatrist lying on his bed, his back to Graham with bars in front of him as well. In a way, both men are imprisoned. Lecktor literally and Graham is metaphorically trapped in the nightmare of trying to solve these murders. Graham is almost trapped in his nemesis' presence. Graham does not want to talk too long to Lecktor and risk exposing his mind to the psychiatrist's horrible thoughts.

As Lecktor gets up and faces Graham, the camera slowly zooms in ever so slightly on him which creates a great dramatic effect. Lecktor resides in an antiseptic white prison cell and he wears white so that he almost blends into his surroundings except for his black hair and the skin color of his face and hands. It is a miniature disturbance in this immaculate and pristine place that effectively conveys how dangerous Lecktor is: those tiny bits of him are already disruptive to the immaculate white of the scene. It also throws everything off just ever so slightly as the focus is directly on Lecktor's face, forcing the audience to pay attention to what he is saying and how he is saying it. Even though he is imprisoned, he seems very clearly in control.

The two men engage in a verbal dogfight as Lecktor tries to push Graham over the edge, while Graham fights being exposed to Lecktor's madness.

Graham: I know that I'm not smarter than you.

Lecktor: Then how did you catch me?

Graham: You had disadvantages.

Lecktor: What disadvantages?

(beat)

Graham: You're insane.

The speed of this little exchange is like some kind of perverse screwball comedy. Cox is so effective in this scene by the way he underplays it: completely calm, yet always just a tad menacing – be it the affectations of his accent or the quiet and ruthless way he gives his lines an off-center spin.

Lecktor does not go for the easy insult and counters, "you're very tan, Will," and proceeds to analyze him, demonstrating how easily he can pick him apart. Then, Lecktor goes in for the kill when he says, "Dream much, Will?" At this point, Graham has had it and gets up to leave. He cannot let Lecktor invade his thoughts or his dreams. In Mann's world this would be fatal. Finally, it gets to be too much for Graham as Lecktor presses his advantage: “You know how you caught me, Will? You know how you caught me? The reason you caught me, Will, is because we're just alike. You want the scent? (quieter, menacing) Smell yourself.” Lecktor starts off speaking quietly yet insistently. Graham can no longer stand it and begins pounding on the door, demanding to get out. Lecktor continues, increasing the volume of his voice until Graham, frantic at this point, runs out of the building. As Lecktor says this last line his voice dips back down to a threatening whisper. Graham runs down the many corridors of the psychiatric hospital, almost as if he is symbolically escaping Lecktor's brain, his cell being the vortex or center of it.

The scenes that take place at the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane were shot at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia while the scenes in Lecktor’s cell were shot on a soundstage in Wilmington, North Carolina. According to Cox, he and Petersen rehearsed this scene for ten days and shot it over a period of four days. Not surprisingly, Mann shot the scene many different ways. "At one point," Cox remembers, "I screamed the line 'Smell yourself!', at another I did it very quietly. I did it every way imaginable." Cox plays Lecktor as a polite man, but you can sense the menace seething underneath the cheery facade. He delights in probing Graham's mind, threatening to invade his thoughts and his dreams.

Another of Mann's preoccupations is showing the process of professionals hard at work, doing what they do best. This is showcased prominently in the scene where Graham and Crawford analyze the Dollarhyde’s note to Lecktor. While cleaning Lecktor’s cell one day, a janitor finds the note addressed to the psychiatrist. Lecktor is taken out of his cell with only a few hours for the investigators to decipher the note before he gets suspicious. First, the hair fibers are analyzed; second, the note is analyzed for fingerprints; third, they try to figure out what the missing section of the note says; and finally, they try to decipher Lecktor's reply in the National Tattler personal ads. Mann is meticulous in how he shows the hard work that these professionals do as they analyze physical evidence with state-of-the-art science and technology at their disposal. Everybody works and communicates together as a team racing against time – they have to decipher the note before Lecktor gets suspicious and has to be returned to his cell. As a result, there is a believable tension between the haste of beating the clock and the patience Crawford and Graham exert as they supervise their expert forensic team.

Another stand-out scene is the one where Graham decides to deal with the rift that has been created between him and his family by talking with his son. The scene between them features some of Mann's best writing. Fascinating insight into Graham's past and his special ability are discussed in detail. It is also a nice scene between a father and his son. It takes place in an every day setting – a grocery store – but they are talking about extraordinary things. Kevin tries to understand what his father does and Graham explains how he caught Lecktor: "I tried to build feelings in my imagination the killer had so that I would know why he did what he did." They also talk about how catching Lecktor affected him:

Graham: But after my body got okay, I still had his thoughts running around in my head. And I stopped talking to people. And a doctor friend of mine, Dr. Bloom, asked me to get some help. I did. And after awhile I felt better. I was okay again.

Kevin: And the way he thought felt that bad?

Graham: Kevin, they're the ugliest thoughts in the world.

This scene beautifully underlines the danger that Graham faces. He runs the risk of hurting himself physically and mentally again. It also shows that he is able to compartmentalize his thoughts and his feelings. He recognizes that the thoughts of killing and hurting people are wrong where Lecktor and Dollarhyde do not. And that is what separates Graham from them. This exchange is fascinating because we learn more about the internal struggle that exists within Graham and how much of a threat it is to his well-being. What is even more interesting is that Mann sets this scene in a grocery store. Graham and his son have a heartfelt talk about madness which is contrasted by their banal surroundings: brand name consumer goods. This nicely foreshadows what eventually happened to the serial killer genre: in the 1990s it became riddled with cliches and stereotypes (i.e. the "normality" of the serial killer who is a symptom of our consumerist culture). At the time that Manhunter was made, the genre was still quite fresh and new. Terms like "profiler" and "serial killer" were not as commonplace. The scene ends with a final shot of Graham and Kevin, his arm draped protectively over his son's shoulder, heading to the checkout. Most importantly, this scene demonstrates that Lecktor was not successful in splitting up Graham and his family because they were able to communicate and talk to each other about their feelings.

Mann also provides insight into Francis Dollarhyde's day-to-day existence. This is an attempt to humanize the killer. He is not just some faceless, inhuman maniac or an obvious caricature a la Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. Dollarhyde works at a photo developing lab. We see him walk into a room and look intensely at a photo of what will be the next family that he will kill. As he stands up, he rubs the sides of his head and looks up. We can see a shift in his facial expression – he has gone from being Dollarhyde to the Red Dragon, his murderous persona. The way Tom Noonan plays this scene is excellent and understated. He effectively conveys the sudden shift of personalities in Dollarhyde.

Mann goes to great lengths to make Dollarhyde more humane in the sequence where he and Reba (Joan Allen), a woman from work that he becomes romantically linked with, lie in bed together after making love. He rests his head on her chest almost as a child would and much in the same way she did in an earlier scene with a tiger. She rolls over and puts her hand on his chest but he places it on his mouth. The camera zooms in and his expression transforms into one of sadness as he starts to cry. There is this realization that buried beneath those frightening eyes is a scared, abused child. The Red Dragon persona has not completely taken over. All that Dollarhyde really wants is what most people want: to be loved and needed. He has found this with Reba. Noonan's performance in this sequence is a revelation. He uses his big, awkward-looking body to menacing effect but is as sad as he is deadly in a child-like, almost uncomprehending way. With his very expressive face, Noonan conveys the tortured soul buried deep within and this brings a sense of humanity to his character.

Mann's theory on why a killer like Dollarhyde does what he does is revealed in a great phone conversation between Lecktor and Graham. The first shot of Lecktor shows him lounging in his cell, his feet up like he is talking to an old friend. It is amusing because here is this very dangerous psychopath being completely casual. Lecktor unwittingly provides Graham with the key to understanding Dollarhyde and thereby allowing the investigator to find him. Lecktor explains why killing feels so good. "God has power. And if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is." As Lecktor rambles on about what "a champ" God is, Graham is not even listening to him anymore. He has found the key to understanding Dollarhyde and he does not need Lecktor anymore. At this point it becomes readily apparent what Graham meant early on in the film when he said that Lecktor had "disadvantages." This is what allows Graham to finally surpass him.

Throughout the film, William Petersen portrays Graham as a low-key, brooding, tortured individual. He also maintains an incredible amount of intensity and this no more apparent than in the scene between Graham and Crawford where they talk about what motivates and creates monsters like Dollarhyde.

Graham: He dreams about being wanted and desired. So he changes people into beings who will want and desire him.

Crawford: Changes?

Graham: It's a word. Killing and arranging people to imitate. And Lecktor told me something. If one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is. You put it together you get: if our boy imitates being wanted and desired enough times, he believes he will become one who is wanted and desired and accepted.

Petersen takes the intensity of this scene up another notch when he delivers this monologue about the duality that exists within Dollarhyde:

“My heart bleeds for him as a child. Someone took a kid and manufactured a monster. At the same time as an adult, he's irredeemable. He butchers whole families to pursue trivial fantasies. As an adult someone should blow the sick fuck out of his socks. Do you think that's a contradiction, Jack? Does this kind of understanding make you uncomfortable, Jack?”

It is a disturbing monologue, delivered with scary vigor by Petersen. This scene is the heart of darkness in the film. Serial killers do not materialize suddenly, they are made, gradually, over many years, until they explode, expressing themselves the only way they know how: through violence. In a baffling move, Mann subsequently cut Petersen's monologue from the recent DVD versions of Manhunter that were produced by Anchor Bay. Perhaps Mann felt that it spelt things out too much but it also diminishes one of the most powerful scenes in the film.

Not everyone appreciated Mann's approach to filmmaking. Many crew members were stressed out from a grueling and intense shooting schedule. This was only exacerbated by De Laurentiis having financial trouble at the time and as a result the production was running out of money. They were forced to shorten their shooting schedule, which meant that the film’s exciting showdown between Dollarhyde and Graham would have to be shot in only one or two days. The special effects team quit prior to the filming of the scene. The gunshot effects, as Dollarhyde is killed by Graham, were done by Mann himself. The entire confrontation was shot in one day over three-and-a-half hours. Mann remembers that they were shooting so fast it felt like they filmed the scene in real time.

Harris' novel was named after poet/artist William Blake's famous painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Rays of the Sun." Mann kept the name “Red Dragon” for the film right up to its release. The title was changed to Manhunter so that, according to Mann, the audience would not mistake it for a kung-fu film. The "Manhunter" moniker came from a headline on the Tattler newspaper in the film. The cruel irony is that this change in name did nothing to help the film at the box office. Manhunter was released theatrically and it grossed $2.2 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $8.62 million in North America.

Critical reaction to Manhunter was a predictably mixed bag. David Ansen of Newsweek felt that Mann was “too stylish for his own good, but the movie holds the viewer all the way to the predictably explosive end.” Ron Base of the Toronto Star wrote a particular insightful review where he praised the film for being “among the most stunningly sophisticated thrillers ever made, in that it meticulously shows the real brilliance required to run down the sort of sociopath killer at work murdering in American society.” Joe Brown of The Washington Post criticized what he felt was a predictable conclusion as “Mann abandons his painstakingly developed realism, switching to flashy jump-cut editing and turning the killer into a ‘Friday the 13th’-type indestructible monster,” but praised Dante Spinotti’s “seductively slick visual style.” Jay Scott, in his review for the Globe and Mail wrote, “Michael Mann’s irritatingly fashionable and self-consciously estheticized version of Red Dragon, entitled Manhunter, is no help . . . Mann is a chic, high-tech William Friedkin, an image-maker attracted to the shine of sleaze.”

The most significant dissenting voice was Walter Goodman of The New York Times who took Mann to task for his “taste for overkill; attention keeps being diverted away from the story to the odd camera angles, the fancy lighting, the crashing music, and you realize you’re being had. It’s like catching a glimpse of the gimmicks in the magician’s bag.” Goodman’s comments certainly date his review back to a time when film critics generally did not look favorably on films with a distinctive style. One only has to look at the critical vehemence directed at Francis Ford Coppola’s stylish adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s young adults novel, Rumble Fish (1983) to find the pulse of where critics were at in regards to overtly stylish filmmaking.

In retrospect, Mann feels that "the project was probably doomed commercially from the outset." At the time, Harris had only written Black Sunday and was not the big name he is now. The movie's title is still a sore point for the director. "The film's backers all said, 'Red Dragon? It sounds like a Chinese movie. Who cares about kung fu movies?' . . . Manhunter was a compromise title and a bit too much in the mode of generic police thrillers." Mann’s film was dumped into cinematic limbo after the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group declared bankruptcy. However, Manhunter survived on video and cable television. With the film’s commercial failure, Mann returned to television and continued to executive produce Miami Vice and a new television series, Crime Story. In a few short years, Crime Story was canceled after only two seasons and Miami Vice ended its lengthy run soon afterwards. He would not make another feature film until six years later.

DVD of the Week: Night of the Living Dead

In recognition of its 40th anniversary, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) has been given the special edition treatment on DVD...again. Since entering the public domain, everybody and his brother has released this film on home video so the buyer has to really be careful which version they get because the quality of the film and accompanying extras (if any) varies. In 2002, the “Millennium Edition” was released and it had the best mix of quality transfer and collection of extras. So, how does this new edition hold up?
Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) are visiting their father’s grave and spot a man (S. William Hinzman) walking rather oddly among the tombstones. Johnny teases his sister with the now classic line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra,” scaring her. As the man comes closer, she begins to apologize and he grabs at her. Johnny intervenes and he and the man struggle. Johnny is knocked to the ground, hitting his head on a tombstone. Terrified, Barbra runs for the car and manages to escape to a nearby farmhouse.

A few minutes later, a man named Ben (Duane Jones) shows up and by now a few more shambling figures like the man in the cemetery have appeared. After boarding up the house to keep those things out, Ben tells Barbra what happened to him and how he got there. They turn on a radio and a news broadcast confirms what we’ve already suspected – the dead have come back to life to feast on the living. Pretty soon their activity causes people hiding out in the cellar to surface: a man, his wife and their young daughter, and a young couple. They decide to pool their resources and fortify the house in an effort to hold up until help arrives.

What is so striking about the film’s memorable opening sequence is the matter-of-fact way Romero introduces the first zombie. The initial shot of him looks like someone out for a stroll but as we get a better look at him, something doesn’t seem right. The zombie doesn’t talk but rather snarls like an animal. What is also interesting is how smart he is – considering he’s a zombie. He knows enough to pick up a rock and smash a car window to get at Barbra when she tries to escape. When she takes refuge in the house he has enough sense to tear down the phone line.

For a first feature, Night of the Living Dead is a remarkably assured debut for Romero as he has EC horror comics scares with film noir flourishes and a dash of social commentary, especially with the film’s shocking ending (for its time). Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film is the group dynamic. Romero presents us with a group of diverse characters and then bounces them off each other, pitting Ben’s rational heroics against Harry’s (Karl Hardman) cowardly arrogance. Romero creates believable characters who act realistically to extraordinary circumstances.
Romero also provides tantalizing details about what is happening through radio and later, television news reports that do a great job of establishing the frightening new world our characters are now living in. The broadcasts also hint at a possible source for the zombie epidemic – radiation from outer space that is a nice nod to science fiction films from the 1950s. Night of the Living Dead pioneered the modern zombie film complete with its own set of rules (i.e. the dead are slow moving and have to be shot in the head) that many other films of the genre would also adhere to afterwards. Romero’s film also demonstrated the power of an independently-made horror film that did not have to play by the safe, tired rules mandated by the Hollywood studios. It also launched Romero’s career, giving us several more thought-provoking films for years to come.

Special Features:

So, what’s missing from the “Millennium Edition?” Gone is Kevin O'Brien's 8-minute student film Night of the Living Bread (1990). Also, MIA is a collection of Romero’s early commercial work. Perhaps, the most glaring omission is the 400 pages (or screens) containing the original treatment, and more than 160 still images. Finally, missing is a video interview with actress Judith Ridley.

There is an audio commentary by co-writer/director George A. Romero, producer/actor Karl Hardman, actress Marilyn Eastman, and co-writer John A. Russo. They recall the creative solutions they came up with to deal with unforeseen problems and put crew members in front of the camera in order to cut costs. They provide plenty of filming anecdotes and talk mainly about how they pulled off certain shots, make-up effects, and other technical details on this production-oriented track.

Also included is a commentary by producer Russell Streiner, production manager Vince Survinski, actors Judith O’Dea, Bill Hinzman, Kyra Schon, and Keith Wayne. Everyone laughs and jokes with each others as they reminisce about making the film. They have a lot of fun recounting the stories behind what we are watching and speak admiringly of Duane Jones. This is an engaging, anecdotal track.

The set piece of the special features is “One for the Fire: The Legacy of Night of the Living Dead,” a feature-length retrospective documentary that opens with actors Judith O’Dea and Russell Streiner recreating their famous drive to the cemetery that started it all. They talk about how they were cast while Romero talks about his background in industrial films and how he cut his teeth on this kind of work. Screenwriter John A. Russo and Romero talk about the origins of the story. Most of the surviving cast and crew take us through the challenges of making this low-budget film in great detail. This is a fascinating, extensive look at how this landmark film came together.

“Speaking of the Dead” features an excerpt from a public appearance that Romero made in Toronto in 2007 where he talks about the influences on Night of the Living Dead. He cites EC horror comics for their content – lurid stories with lots of gore. Stylistically, he was inspired by Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Romero also talks about the downbeat ending and the angry feelings behind it. Later films, The Crazies (1973) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) are also touched upon.
“Ben Speaks” is the last, in-depth interview with Duane Jones in 1987 before he died in 1988. He has no regrets making the film despite being forever associated with it. The actor speaks very eloquently about his thoughts on the film and the fame that came with it.
Also included is the theatrical trailer.

Finally, there is a “Still Gallery” with various posters, promotional stills, and behind-the-scenes photographs.

Rudy Ray Moore (1937 - 2008)

From the Los Angeles Times:

Rudy Ray Moore dies at 81; comedian and filmmaker influenced rap and hip-hopBy Jocelyn Y. Stewart. October 21, 2008.

Rudy Ray Moore, the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Rap" who influenced generations of rappers and comedians with his rhyming style, braggadocio and profanity-laced routines, has died. He was 81.

Moore, whose low-budget films were panned by critics in the 1970s but became cult classics decades later, died Sunday night in Toledo, Ohio, of complications from diabetes, his brother Gerald told the Associated Press.

Though he was little known to mainstream audiences, Moore had a significant effect on comedians and hip-hop artists.

"People think of black comedy and think of Eddie Murphy," rap artist Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew told the Miami Herald in 1997. "They don't realize [Moore] was the first, the biggest underground comedian of them all. I listened to him and patterned myself after him."

And in the liner notes to the 2006 release of the soundtrack to Moore's 1975 motion picture Dolemite, hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg said:

"Without Rudy Ray Moore, there would be no Snoop Dogg, and that's for real."

When it came to his own sense of his accomplishments, Moore was never burdened by immodesty.

"These guys Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac claim they're the Kings of Comedy," Moore told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2003. "They may be funny, but they ain't no kings. That title is reserved for Rudy Ray Moore and Redd Foxx."

The heyday of his fame was in the 1970s, with the release of Dolemite followed by The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law and Money Hustler.

The way Moore told it, his introduction to Dolemite came from an old wino named Rico, who frequented a record shop Moore managed in Los Angeles. Rico told foul-mouthed stories about Dolemite, a tough-talking, super-bad brother, whose exploits had customers at the record shop falling down with laughter.

One day Moore recorded Rico telling his stories. Later Moore assumed the role of Dolemite, a character who became the cornerstone of his decades-long career as a raunchy comedian, filmmaker and blues singer.

"What you call dirty words," he often said, "I call ghetto expression."

But long before Dolemite debuted on theater screens, Moore had found fame -- and fans -- through stand-up routines and a series of sexually explicit comedy albums.

Not only were the album contents raunchy, the album covers featured women and Moore nude and were too racy for display. So store clerks kept the albums under the counter. Without airplay or big-studio promotion, the so-called party records were underground hits.

"I put records in my car and traveled and walked across the U.S. I walked to the ghetto communities and told people to take the record home and let their friends hear it. And before I left the city, my record would be a hit. This is how it started for me," he told the St. Louis Post Dispatch in 2001.

Although contemporaries such as Foxx and Richard Pryor found success with a broader audience, Moore's stardom was bounded by the geography of race and class: He was a hit largely in economically disadvantaged African American communities.

According to his website, Moore was born in Fort Smith, Ark., on March 17, 1927.

In his youth Moore worked as a dancer and fortune teller and he entertained while serving in the U.S. Army. But his big break came with the recording of his Dolemite routine:

Dolemite is my name

And rappin and tappin

that's my game

I'm young and free

And just as bad as I wanna

be.

By the time Dolemite appeared on film, he was the ultimate ghetto hero: a bad dude, profane, skilled at kung-fu, dressed to kill and hell-bent on protecting the community from evil menaces. He was a pimp with a kung-fu-fighting clique of prostitutes and he was known for his sexual prowess.

For all the stereotypical images, Moore bristled at the term blaxploitation.

"When I was a boy and went to the movies, I watched Roy Rogers and Tim Holt and those singing cowboys killing Indians, but they never called those movies 'Indian exploitation' -- and I never heard The Godfather called 'I-talian exploitation,' " he told a reporter for the Cleveland Scene in 2002.

Late in life, Moore saw his work win fans far beyond his African American audience. There is a "Dolemite" website and chat room that boasts a cross-cultural collection of young fans. Such interest won him mainstream work in an advertisement for Altoid Mints and a commercial for Levi's jeans.

Though Moore built a career on talking dirty, he was very religious. He took pride in taking his mother to the National Baptist Convention each year and often spoke in church at various functions. He rationalized his role as a performer.

"I wasn't saying dirty words just to say them," he told the Miami Herald in 1997. "It was a form of art, sketches in which I developed ghetto characters who cursed. I don't want to be referred to as a dirty old man, rather a ghetto expressionist."

Here's a vintage clip from The Human Tornado: