4/17/07: Deathdream (1974)
We often try to be a respite from the blogosphere. That’s
partly because somebody has to be. We also don’t want to seem as if
we’re trivializing important events. So we’re particularly glad to
spend the start of this week catching up on events that we missed
during our vacation—starting with a tribute to the late Bob Clark.
The director and screenwriter would be a RightWingTrashMan just for making one of the great family films of all time. 1983’s
A Christmas Story, however, was just one twist in a bizarre career. Clark was already coming off the success of the
Porky’s films, and had earlier made the original
Black Christmas. That was easily the scariest film of 1974, and remains the scariest slasher film ever.
Everything after
A Christmas Story is probably best forgotten.
Clark still left much to be remembered by before he—along with his
son—was killed on April 4th, reportedly by an illegal alien who was
driving drunk in Los Angeles. Rest assured that, if found guilty,
Hector Velazquez-Nava will be promptly deported so he can sneak back
into America and kill somebody else.
Anyway, let’s remember Bob Clark with
Deathdream—aka
Dead of Night and
The Night Andy Came Home. This was Clark’s first horror film of 1974, and it’s a more intellectual affair than
Black Christmas.
It’s also become a cult favorite amongst Leftist film critics. Not a
year has passed since its release without some alt-weekly invoking
Deathdream as an important anti-war film wasted on a drive-in audience.
The script—written by Clark’s frequent partner Alan Ormsby—certainly
has the makings of a good Leftist fantasy. The pre-title sequence has
young soldier Andy Brooks dying in Vietnam. His family gets the sad
news, and then a big shock when Andy shows up at their door the next
day. There’s something not quite right about Andy, though. He’s
detached and cold and he strangles the family dog in front of some
neighborhood children. He’s also rotting, and kills people so that he
can shoot up their blood with a syringe.
You can find lots of reviews about how Andy serves as an attack on the evil patriarchal society that sends young boys to war.
Deathdream
is actually better than that. Conservatives today certainly seem more
anti-war than today’s loony Leftists, and we’re more likely to
appreciate
Deathdream as an American tragedy.
Andy asks of one victim, “I died for you. Why shouldn’t you return the
favor?” That’s a valid question. Sometimes it has to be
answered, as by the civilians who took up a war on United Flight 93.
The old men of Andy’s suburban neighborhood are veterans of WWII, and
that Good War haunts a fight that Andy was never allowed to win. Andy’s
right to come back angry.
On a more fannish note, Richard Backus is amazing as the undead
veteran. The scene where Andy has a date at the drive-in (where the
office has a poster for another great conservative horror film) makes
Backus the heppest villain since Alan Arkin terrorized Audrey Hepburn
in
Wait Until Dark. His performance helps turn
Deathdream into
The Ballad of Andy Crocker done right, with a similarly touching final scene. Let’s keep claiming it for our side.
Make it your own: The archivists of Blue Underground did a fine job on their
Deathdream DVD.
It’s certainly a better print than any we ever saw at the drive-in. The
extras include a commentary by Clark and Ormsby, but we haven’t
listened to it. There might be some surprising sentiments to be found. The pair also made 1972’s
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, and that film isn’t kind to hippies.
And let’s mention that formerly-talented director Joe Dante recently did a horrific rip-off of
Deathdream
in which Iraqi War soldiers returned from the dead to vote for the
Democratic ticket. It was a typically moronic metaphor from Hollywood,
since no one in the short film pondered why Saddam Hussein’s victims
weren’t crawling out of their mass graves. There’s a true
conservative companion to
Deathdream, but we’re saving that one for our first anniversary on July 4th.
Black Christmas has already been ruined as a remake, and new takes on
Porky’s and
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things were in the works before Clark’s death.
Deathdream
will hopefully be spared a slavish Leftist revisitation. Also, don’t
look too closely at the main menu on the DVD. It
gives away the ending.
