2/21/15 (Part Four): The Fiddle, The Flame and The Left Behind

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87th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, air evacuations, Ambassador Graham Martin, archival footage, Best Feature Documentary nominee, black ops, cinema, Communism, covert military action, documentary, fall of Saigon, film reviews, films, Henry Kissinger, interviews, Keven McAlester, Last Days in Vietnam, Mark Bailey, moral dilemmas, Movies, PBS, refugees, Richard Armitage, Rory Kennedy, South Vietnam, South Vietnamese, troop withdrawal, U.S. embassy, Viet Cong, Vietnam, Vietnam War, war, work camps

When the Paris Agreement was signed in 1973, effectively ending America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and withdrawing the bulk of our troops, legendary diplomat Henry Kissinger hoped that the resolution would lead to a situation similar to that in Korea: two separate states, one for the North Vietnamese and one for the South. These hopes were shattered when the North launched a massive assault on South Vietnam, systematically taking back any territory that had been ceded only a few short years earlier. With fresh memories of the atrocities that the North inflicted on their first campaign through Vietnam, the South Vietnamese civilians (and military) fled in panic before the rising surge. As the country was quickly retaken by the North, it became apparent that the cause was lost: at this point, the only thing to be done was for the refugees and remaining American military and diplomats to leave as soon as possible. Despite the increasingly dark clouds on the horizon, however, one man was determined to make a stand and prevent the inevitable: as the North marched and the South fled, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin was determined to stand strong, come hell or high water.

This story of American involvement, Northern aggression and Southern stoicism forms the foundation of Rory Kennedy’s Last Days in Vietnam (2014), the full-length, Oscar-nominated ‘American Experience’ documentary that details the time period between American withdrawal in 1973 and the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Through a mixture of archival footage and interviews with American and Vietnamese military personnel, Kennedy shows the ways in which Ambassador Martin stalled the withdrawal as long as possible, partly because he refused to admit defeat but also because he seemed to genuinely want to save as many South Vietnamese civilians and military as possible. As one interviewee states, this “terrible moral dilemma” was the ax that hung over everyone’s heads, from President Gerald Ford to Richard Armitage to the individual men and women who were stationed in Vietnam. Despite having their marching orders, no one on the ground could just stand by and watch their former comrades-in-arms succumb to the very enemy they’d been jointly fighting: while not everyone made it out (short of a miracle, not everyone could have), thousands of South Vietnamese were rescued at the 11th hour, thanks to a combination of Ambassador Martin’s moxie, military black ops and good, old-fashioned stubbornness.

One of the most illuminating aspects of Kennedy’s documentary is its laser focus: rather than rehash pro and con arguments for America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, Last Days in Vietnam focuses on the very end game, when everything had already been decided and the world only waited for the dust (and blood) to settle. It’s a smart move, since it allows the film to really dig in to its subject: in particular, we end up with a pretty balanced, nuanced portrayal of Graham Martin, an individual who’s easily as divisive as they come. While there’s still more than a heaping dollop of political machinations to Ambassador Martin’s decision to delay withdrawing from Vietnam, it’s pretty hard to deny that he also carried very deeply for the South Vietnamese: his plan to stretch out the withdrawal by only including a couple of Americans in every chopper full of South Vietnamese was a bold one and one that could have easily blown up in his face. Regardless of what U.S. politicians were doing at the time, the diplomats and personnel who were actually on the ground, in the shit, were scrambling to come up with real solutions and plans of action, even as Viet Cong tanks rumbled through the countryside.

Some of the most powerful scenes in the film deal directly with the South Vietnamese military: the bit where a pilot heroically lands his chopper on a U.S. naval carrier, rolling out one side of the machine before the whole thing slides right into the ocean; the interviewee who talk about missing the last chopper out of Saigon and spending the next 13 years in a North Vietnamese work camp; the heartbreaking moment where the South Vietnamese military lower their flag and sing their anthem for the last time…when Last Days in Vietnam kicks, it kicks like a mule. Just as powerful, for different reasons, is the scene where Martin finally admits defeat and prepares for “Option Four (the chopper evacuation)”: for the first time in the footage, Martin looks old, tired and defeated, a quick-witted huckster watching his kingdom burn for the last time.

As a film, Last Days in Vietnam is very well-made, although it never feels far removed from what it actually is: a PBS documentary. As such, we get all of the expected elements, from the archival footage to the overall tone. While the film was informative, it never really surprised or went the extra mile needed to really set itself apart. Nevertheless, history buffs, those interested in the Vietnam War or the vagaries of America’s international diplomatic policies should plenty of good stuff here. More than anything, Kennedy’s film helps to shed light on a chaotic, dark and terrible time in human history: it shows how oppression can dim but never truly extinguish the human pilot light…where there’s a will, there’s a way, no matter how slim.

If the point of history truly is to learn from the past and avoid the same mistakes in the future, may films like Last Days in Vietnam and their ilk continue to make it impossible for us to ever truly bury these terrible events. If we ever really need a reminder, let’s think about the thousands of refugees who were able to make it out…and the hundreds of thousands who didn’t.

2/21/15 (Part Three): A Monster Mash

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Adam Green, Alex Pardee, ArieScope Pictures, auteur theory, Chillerama, cinema, creature feature, Digging Up the Marrow, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, Frozen, Hatchet, horror, horror films, indie horror film, interviews, mockumentary, Monsters, Movies, Nightbreed, practical effects, pseudo-documentary, Ray Wise, self-promotion, Will Barratt, William Dekker, writer-director-editor

As I stare forty years of living in the face, there are precious few holdovers from my childhood but there are still a few: I’m still terrified of spiders, I’m still fascinated by outer space and I still believe in monsters. Call it a life-long delusion, a long-held conviction or just plain bull-headedness but I staunchly refuse to believe that we puny humans really know all there is to know about this massive ball of rock and water that we live on (much less the billions of unexplored ones that blanket the cosmos). The oceans are mighty deep, the jungles are mighty thick and there are plenty of dark places to poke around in…if you think about it, we know as much about our world as any child does, which is, of course, not much.

Indie horror auteur Adam Green also believes in monsters and, like me, isn’t afraid to admit it. The difference, of course, is that this stuff is his bread-and-butter: as the head of ArieScope Pictures, creator of the Hatchet franchise (2006-2013) and horror-oriented TV show Holliston, as well as writer-director of the ‘stuck-on-a-ski-lift’ chiller Frozen (2010) and a segment in the rather odious Chillerama (2011) anthology, Green is one of the brightest stars in the modern horror constellation. With his newest film, Digging Up the Marrow (2014), Green fuses his life-long love of monsters and horror to a sturdy found-footage template and comes up with something along the lines of a low-key, indie, found-footage Nightbreed (1990). In the process, he illustrates the fact that true believers have known all along: monsters are real…and they don’t always have our best interests in mind.

Structurally, Digging Up the Marrow is similar to another indie horror film: writer-director J.T. Petty’s S&man (2006). Like S&man, Green’s film begins as a mockumentary, with the writer-director going around various fan conventions and interviewing genre luminaries like Lloyd Kaufman, Tony Todd, Mick Garris and the like. On the surface, the subject is monsters but the early part of the film is actually all about Green and his film company, ArieScope Pictures. In an exceptionally clever bit of cross-promotion, Green and his associates play themselves in the picture and we get plenty of behind-the-scenes peeks into films like Hatchet (2006): it works within the structure of the film but it also serves as a neat little bit of fan service, a two-for-one that speaks volumes to the way Green approaches the subject (and his films, in general).

As Green discusses the various monster-related things that fans and peers send him, all while accompanied by erstwhile cameraman Will Barratt, we finally get to the “fiction” at the heart of the “fact.” In the midst of all the documentary footage and interviews, Green discusses one particular person, William Dekker (Ray Wise), who claims to have actual evidence of real monsters. Dropping everything, Green and Barratt head out to go see Dekker and prove (or disprove) his claims. Once there, the filmmaking duo find their host to be an exceedingly eccentric individual: intense, no-nonsense and utterly convinced of the existence of monsters, Dekker claims to know where the entrance to their underground world is. Dubbed “The Marrow,” Dekker claims that monsters regularly emerge from the otherwise unexceptional hole in the nearby forest and he gives Green the opportunity he’s waited his whole life for: the chance to actually see a real monster.

As Adam and Will settle in, however, they begin to get the gradual impression that Dekker isn’t playing with a full deck, especially when he claims to see monsters that neither of them can. When Green unexpectedly gets his wish and actually sees something, however, it sets off a fire in him: despite Dekker’s increasingly frantic pleas to leave well enough alone, he’s bound and determined to descend into The Marrow, scratching that unscratchable childhood itch for the first time. Will Adam and Will find the monsters that they seek? Is Dekker telling the truth, completely insane or some combo of the two? And where, exactly, does that ominous hole really lead?

Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way up front: Digging the Marrow suffers from many of the same issues that most found-footage films do (at this point, these issues are starting to seem like inherent genetic defects in the sub-genre), the finale is a little rough and we don’t get to see quite as much of the monsters as I’d like (pretty much a standard complaint in most horror fare, if you think about it). As with pretty much any found-footage film, the movie also ends just as it’s really kicking into gear: again, pretty much endemic of the sub-genre.

And that’s pretty much it, folks: past those few small complaints, Green’s film is a complete joy, a fan love letter to monsters that manages to push pretty much ever necessary button in my black, little heart. While I’ve been a fan of Green’s since Hatchet, I was unaware of how genuinely charismatic the guy is: it’s always a danger when directors “play themselves,” as it were, but Green manages to be friendly, likable, interesting and, most importantly, absolutely believeable during the fictional portions of the film. It shouldn’t be surprising that Green can interact effortlessly with the other directors and industry folks at the conventions (those are his peers, after all) but his acting scenes with Wise have just as much authenticity and realism. Ditto Barratt, who proves a more than capable foil to Green. In a subgenre that often suffers from unrealistic, unlikable actors/characters, Digging Up the Marrow acquits itself most ably.

This, of course, doesn’t even take into account the stellar contributions of long-time genre great Ray Wise. Always dependable and usually the best thing on any screen at any given time, Wise is one of those actors that lights up any production: to be honest, his part in Chillerama was just about the only thing I enjoyed in that entire film and it probably accounted for a grand total of five minutes, tops. Here, Wise has never been better, for one important reason: Green actually gives him the opportunity to stretch out and sink his teeth into a meatier role. We get much more of Wise, here, than we usually do (maybe since Swamp Thing (1982), to be honest) and the results are predictable: more Wise equals more badassitude, period. He’s tough, snarky, sarcastic, caustic, funny, vulnerable, sinister, innocent and all-around amazing: it’s a full-rounded performance and a multi-dimensional character. More than anything, this should serve as a wake up call for other filmmakers: stop using Wise as seasoning and start making him the main course…there’s no reason this guy shouldn’t be carrying more movies.

Any film about monsters, however, must still answer one very important question: how cool are the monsters? In the case of Digging Up the Marrow, the answer is “Very cool.” Based on the artwork of outsider illustrator Alex Pardee (who also appears during the film’s faux-interview portion), the monsters are unique, frightening, weird, cool and all-around unforgettable. My big complaint, of course, is that we never see as much (or as many) of them as we should but that’s also like complaining that free ice cream isn’t your favorite flavor: are we really going to bitch about free ice cream? What we do see, however, makes all the difference in the world: it’s obvious that Green and crew have genuine love for their subject and it really comes out in the exceptional practical effects and creature designs.

One of the biggest compliments I can give Digging Up the Marrow is that I wanted more as soon as the film was over: the film is ready-made for a sequel (The Marrow has many entrances, according to Dekker, all over the world…including in an IHOP, since monsters like pancakes) and I say “Bring it on.” Digging Up the Marrow is a fascinating, unique and extremely personal film by a massively talented filmmaker: I have a feeling that Green still has a lot to say about the subject and I can’t wait for him to say it.

While monsters always function better in the darkness, Adam Green is one of the few filmmakers to successfully grab them and haul them into the light. As a lifelong monster hunter, I tip my camouflaged hat.

2/2/15 (Part One): Hiding in Plain Sight

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abused children, Academy Award Nominee, Best Feature Documentary nominee, biographical films, Charlie Siskel, child-care, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, documentaries, film reviews, films, Finding Vivian Maier, interviews, John Maloof, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, mysteries, nanny, Phil Donahue, photography, street photography, Vivian Maier, writer-director-cinematographer

At one point in Finding Vivian Maier (2014), filmmaker John Maloof makes one of the truest statements that anyone’s ever made: “You have to draw an understanding of the individual from the information you have.” In this day and age of over-sharing, this wouldn’t seem to be a huge issue…after all, you can basically find all the personal information you’d ever need just by spending a little time browsing someone’s social media presence. At a time when waiting for your 15 minutes is passe, it seems like folks are only too eager to shout their life stories from the nearest rooftop, in the desperate hope that the right person is listening and ready to turn the spotlight in their direction.

It wasn’t always like this, however: in previous eras, folks seemed to value their privacy more than they do now and it wasn’t uncommon for public figures, much less “commoners,” to be all but anonymous. For some people, even exceptionally talented artisans, there’s nothing glorious or desirable about the white-hot scrutiny of the masses. In some cases, individuals would rather leave behind a lifetime of unseen, unappreciated art than deal with people poking into every nook and cranny of their lives. There’s more to being a public artist than just talent and intent, after all: you have to actually put yourself out there and “live” among the people, as it were.

Maloof’s Finding Vivian Maier, one of the nominees for this year’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar, tackles this subject head-on as it purports to examine the life and work of the formerly mysterious titular subject, a life-long nanny who also happened to be one of the very best street photographers around. Maloof came into contact with Maier’s work when he happened to buy a chest full of her negatives at an auction house. After examining the negatives, Maloof made a rather exciting discovery: not only was there a tremendous amount of material to pore through (upwards of hundreds of thousands of negatives) but the photographs were, for lack of a better descriptor, absolutely stunning. Perfectly composed, exquisitely lit and with a definite eye towards the “darker” side of life, Maier’s photos were real works of art. This, of course, led Maloof to the next, most logical question: just who, exactly, was Vivian Maier?

The answer to that question, such as it is, makes up the bulk of this extremely engaging documentary. As Maloof delves into Maier’s life, he discovers that she spent her life as a nanny for various families: various interviews with the people who employed her, as well as their grown children, help paint an intriguing, contradictory portrait of the secretive woman. She spoke with a French accent, yet was born in New York City. Some of her charges say that she approached all of her subjects, while others say that she shot everyone on the sly, leading to more than a few heated exchanges with her unwitting “subjects.” Vivian is described as being beloved by the children, yet each of them mentions a number of incidents that would paint her, at the very least, as casually abusive and abrasive. She took hundreds of thousands of photos, yet developed only a small handful. In every way, as Maloof (and us) will discover, Vivian Maier is an enigma, a mystery to be examined, figured out and “solved.” As he mentions, we must form our opinion based on the information about Vivian that we’re given and, as we see, there aren’t a lot of concrete facts floating around out there.

Despite a slightly rough start, Finding Vivian Maier gets gradually better, as it goes along, and ends up being quite the quiet little powerhouse by its final moments. One aspect that briefly kept me out of the movie (aside from its sometimes overly kinetic style) is actually John Maloof, the writer-director (along with Charlie Siskel, who we never see). At first, I found him to be uncomfortably aggressive and way too driven: there are times when he has more the feel of a bull in a china shop than a thoughtful commentator. As the film goes on and Maloof gets deeper into the mystery of Vivian, however, his passion for the subject begins to overtake his personality and I found my earlier reservations falling by the wayside. Call it a case of taxiing to get up to take-off speed but the film (and Maloof) find their groove at roughly the same time.

At the end of the day, however, a documentary lives or dies by its subject and Vivian Maier is a suitably fascinating one. While I’m fairly certain that progressive mental illness was responsible for many of her quirks, particularly late in life, there’s no denying that she was a helluva person and a genuine artist. The photos, themselves, are nothing short of amazing and are easily comparable to photographic greats like Annie Leibovitz or Ansel Adams: her portrait shots have a way of delving below the subject’s surface and revealing the myriad little tics that make us all such individuals, something that’s readily apparent in Leibovitz’s photography. It’s also fascinating to discover how intelligent and politically minded she was: the video footage of her interviewing various people about Nixon’s impeachment is a real revelation, as is the bit where she traces a crime from the scene all the way back to the victim’s home. In many ways, Maier was way ahead of the curve, a “citizen journalist” before the phrase even existed.

Many folks will probably have issues with Maier, the person, especially once the film begins to dig into the abusive incidents that the grown children describe. The film never picks a side, however, since everything is filled with such contradictions: we’re constantly hearing two versions of Vivian, sometimes from the same person, which only helps to drive home the notion of her as a living enigma, a reclusive, mysterious figure who lived life on her own terms. Was she misunderstood? A monster? Insane? A tortured artist? Ahead of her time? From what we’re shown/told, she may have been all of these things or none of them. The only thing we know for sure is that she managed to take hundreds of thousands of amazing photographs over the course of her lifetime.

As a lifelong writer who has the equivalent of Maier’s hundreds of thousands of negatives sitting around in the form of half-finished manuscripts, boxes of short stories and poetry, there’s definitely something about Maloof’s film that personally spoke to me. There’s a point in the film where someone remarks that Vivian did all of the hard work involving her art but none of the hard work that goes into being an actual “artist”: she didn’t try to put herself out in the world, to any great extent, which is what any successful artist needs to do. I found something terribly sad about the notion that Maier died without ever knowing the impact her art would have: who knows what difference that might have made in her life? For all of its sterling qualities as a documentary, perhaps the greatest thing that can come from Finding Vivian Maier is that it might convince similar artists to take a leap of faith: if you never try anything, you never succeed. For those of us who toil in obscurity (whether desired or not), Maloof’s film is nothing short of thought-provoking. By “finding” Vivian Maier, Maloof and Siskel might just have helped us all find ourselves.

12/27/14 (Part One): Tongue Through Cheek

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Bruce Campbell, Chad Herschberger, cinema, co-writers, Doc of the Dead, documentaries, documentary, film reviews, films, George Romero, goofy, Greg Nicotero, horror films, interviews, Max Brooks, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, pop culture, Robert Kirkman, SImon Pegg, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, voodoo, writer-director, zombie invasion, zombies

Sometimes, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Take, for example, documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe’s Doc of the Dead (2014). Chock full of fun interviews, interesting tidbits and plenty of in-depth history about the genesis and evolution of the zombie in both film and pop culture, there’s a lot to like here. Despite all of the good information, however, Philippe’s film still nearly sinks under the weight of its frequently flippant, mocking tone, especially when the film drops any “serious” pretensions and devolves into a series of silly zombie invasion spoofs and tedious musical skits.

When Doc of the Dead isn’t taking cheap potshots at the sillier aspects of its subject matter (zombie survivalists, zombie porn and the like), it’s quite an interesting, fast-paced film, if decidedly lightweight. Philippe and co-writer/editor Chad Herschberger utilize the standard formula of plenty of “talking head” interviews (George Romero, Simon Pegg, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Mel Brooks’ son/World War Z scribe Max Brooks, et al) alongside lots of film clips and the odd historical/epistemologial segment to give a pretty thorough overview of zombies in Western film, TV and pop culture.

I stress “Western,” since the filmmakers manage to completely bypass such admittedly rich zombie treasure troves as the Italian gore films of the ’70s and ’80s and any of the over-the-top Asian zombie films that have cropped up in the past decade or so.  While this would have, undoubtedly, broadened the focus of the film, I can’t help but feel that at least some mention of these other films would have been appropriate, if for no other reason than to point out how universal this particular horror trend has become in the past 40 years.

Foreign omissions notwithstanding, my biggest and most critical complaint regarding Doc of the Dead has to be all of the silly digressions, goofy skits and tongue-in-cheek stupidity that sits uncomfortably next to the more serious scholarship. I’m not claiming that all documentaries need to be serious or even that a zombie-themed documentary could ever be completely serious…we are talking about re-animated corpses, after all, so some measure of suspension of disbelief is required, no matter how you tackle the subject. I will firmly state, however, that the split-tone in Philippe’s film made it impossible for me to ever be completely on-board. For every cool story related by Romero or interesting observation (zombie cinema is one of the only horror genres to develop from folklore rather than literature, for example, which is pretty interesting, when you think about it), there’s a dumb segment involving amateur re-imaginings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), a zombie music video or silly interview with survivalists about the best weapons to use in case of a zombie attack.

The biggest problem with this tactic, quality of the goofy segments notwithstanding (and the quality really can be extraordinarily shabby, especially when compared to the relative polish of the rest of the film), is that it makes it seem as if the filmmakers don’t really care about their subject matter. This was the same team that put together The People vs George Lucas (2010), so they definitely have a reputation for irreverence, but the goofy tone just seems out-of-place most of the time. I found myself enjoying the “serious” parts of the film enough that I wanted more consistency but the inherently inconsistent nature of the film just made me tired and frustrated, by the end: I wanted more scholarship but the filmmakers wanted more “funny” scenes of badly made-up zombies stumbling around in domestic scenarios.

Ultimately, I didn’t hate Doc of the Dead: there’s too much good stuff here to completely write off the film. I just wish that Philippe and crew had been able to maintain a more consistent tone or, barring that, were able to craft something as humorous and entertaining as Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010), which managed to be both scholarly and flat-out funny. Fans of zombies in film, TV and pop culture will find plenty to enjoy about Doc of the Dead (although most fanatics will have heard most of this stuff before) but the film is too lightweight to make much of an impact beyond the true believers…and the truly patient.

6/9/14 (Part Two): Father of the Living Dead

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1960's films, behind-the-scenes, cinema, Civil Rights Movement, documentaries, documentary, Elvis Mitchell, film criticism, film reviews, film theory, filmmaking, films, George Romero, guerrilla filmmaking, horror, horror film, horror films, independent film, independent films, interviews, Jr., Larry Fessenden, Mark Harris, Martin Luther King, Movies, Mr. Rogers, Night of the Living Dead, Pittsburgh, Prof. Samuel D. Pollard, Rob Kuhns, Robert Kennedy, Russell Streiner, social upheaval, societal changes, talking heads, the 1960s, The Birth of the Living Dead, visual effects pioneer, Whine of the Faun, writer-director-producer-cinematographer

By 1968, the Summer of Love was officially over: the war in Vietnam was in full escalation, racial tensions led to race riots in the inner cities and the disastrous Altamont Free Concert was but a year away, although neither Robert Kennedy nor Martin Luther King, Jr. would survive to know about it. The Zodiac Killer was still killing, the Cold War with the Soviet Union was still decades from thawing and the hippie “revolution” of the early-mid ’60s had failed to bring about the kind of lasting, peaceful change that adherents hoped for. Hope had been replaced by anger: the 1960s had failed to fix anything and the system was just as broken as ever. Into this caustic stew of fear, anger, war and turmoil slipped a humble little film that would go on to revolutionize not only horror films but the world of cinema, in general. When 27-year-old college dropout George Romero first unleashed his seminal horror film, Night of the Living Dead (1968), on an unsuspecting populace, little did he know that the film would permanently change everything that came after it, directly influencing the next 46 years of horror filmmaking.

Rob Kuhns’ exceptional documentary, Birth of the Living Dead (2013), gives an insightful and in-depth look into not only the making of Romero’s classic film but also the societal issues and developments that made the film not only possible but necessary. Night of the Living Dead was a new kind of horror film for a new era of horrors: when the horrors of Vietnam were being beamed into homes on a nightly basis, the same old “haunted house” scares weren’t going to work anymore. Kuhn’s film does an amazing job of showing just how truly groundbreaking NOTLD was, especially concerning its views on race and the family unit. By the end, he actually managed to give me new respect for a film that I’ve idolized for more years than I care to remember: no mean feat and a pretty sure sign that Kuhns is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

Birth of the Living Dead takes us through the entire process of NOTLD, beginning with Romero’s background making short films for Mr. Rogers (I was surprised, to put it mildly) and beer commercials before taking the filmmaking leap with his first attempt, Whine of the Fawn (what a name!). When his art film tanked, Romero decided to try his hand at horror and the rest, as they say, is history. Romero served as cinematographer, director and editor, while the entire cast pulled double (sometimes triple) duty both in front of and behind the scenes. Some of the most glorious moments in the film come from the fascinating behind-the-scenes insights that Romero shares about the making of the film. Some of my favorites include the special effects experts who constantly smoked cigars while working with explosives and fuses, the actor/producer who built a wooden bridge with his own hands and the fact that the crew only got their sound edit after actor Russell Streiner (who played Johnny in the film) challenged the owner of the sound lab to a chess match: he won and the crew got their sound mix. For anyone interested in filmmaking, particularly ultra-low budget guerrilla filmmaking, the behind-the-scenes stories about NOTLD are absolutely priceless and worth a watch all by themselves.

Far from just being a “making-of,” however, Kuhns film is filled with plenty of insightful “talking head” interviews and commentary on the era that was directly responsible for Romero’s chiller. We get plenty of great stuff from independent filmmaking majordomo Larry Fessenden, whose enthusiasm for Romero’s film is absolutely infectious, along with historians and critics like Elvis Mitchell, Mark Harris and Prof. Samuel D. Pollard. In a truly magical bit, Mitchell talks about seeing NOTLD at a drive-in, when he was 10, and how it absolutely changed his life. There’s also plenty of on-point discussion about the casting of Duane Jones as the lead in a time where a strong, black hero in an all-white film would have been not only eye-opening but revolutionary. This was, after all, the era where one of the biggest black movie stars of all-time, Harry Belafonte, was not allowed to touch Petula Clark (a white singer/actress) in an advertisement. The fact that Ben’s race is never brought up in NOTLD was totally radical: for the first time in popular cinema, a leading black actor was just allowed to be a man, instead of a symbol. There’s real power in the stories about how the black inner city adopted Ben as a true hero, especially when they’re told by commentators who were actually in the theaters at the time of the film’s screening.

As a film, itself, Birth of the Living Dead is a complete success. The structure is well-organized, the footage and interviews are perfectly integrated and everything has a really exciting, kinetic sense of energy. Even better, Kuhns utilizes some really badass “Sin City-esque” red-and-black graphic-novel-type animation for many of the behind-the-scenes bits, making the whole film even more visually appealing. Birth of the Living Dead looks and sounds fantastic, although that just ends up being icing thanks to the fundamentally solid information being shared. If you’re a fan of Night of the Living Dead, Kuhns’ documentary is an absolute must-see, helping to fill in any gaps and offering up a virtual treasure trove of previously unknown insights. If you’re a fan of independent filmmaking, Birth of the Living Dead is a must-see for the ways in which we see Romero and his small band of true-believers literally wrestle this iconic film into being. Basically, if you like movies in any way, shape or form, you owe it to yourself to see Birth of the Living Dead: documentaries about horror films don’t get much better than this.