31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Deathdream

Deathdream

88 mins.

Dir. Bob Clark

1974/USA

Bob Clark, the genius who brought us Black Christmas, Porky's, A Christmas Story and Baby Geniuses, first did his follow up to the greatest horror film of all time, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, with Deathdream aka Dead of Night.

Some of the Children crew are back, mainly Alan Ormsby who wrote this one and did effects, his then wife Anya, who plays the daughter, as well as Jeff Gillen and Jane Daly in a bit part, plus most of the crew.  Deathdream is a take on the Monkey's Paw, be careful what you wish for story.  Andy is killed in Vietnam, his family is given the death notification, but Andy's mother is in complete denial and believes he will still come home.  Eventually Andy does come home surprisingly, even though his family informs him they were told he was dead.  To which Andy simply replies, he was.  And they all have a good laugh. 

But as we know, things that come back from the dead generally are never the same and Andy is no exception.  John Marley, the guy from The Godfather who finds his horses' head in his bed, plays Andy's father and is the first to suspect something is up.  Especially when Andy does nothing but sit in a rocking chair in his room and rock back and forth all day, doesn't eat and barely speaks.  But it isn't until he catches Andy strangling the family dog that he knows that boy ain't right.  Since technically Andy is dead, he needs blood to keep up his youthful appearance.  When he doesn't get it, he starts to age and decay.  So on the hunt he goes which ultimately leads him back where he belongs, in the ground, despite his mother's wishes.

Another win from Bob Clark, hot off the heels of Children.  Carl Zittrer is back doing another creepy score and Tom Savini got his first make-up job being Alan Ormsby's assistant.  A bit slow in parts, but Richard Backus as Andy is extremely effective at being creepy just sitting their smiling with almost a smirk on his face and a great job from make-up when he starts to rot.  Another classic solid 70s horror tale that will make you careful what you wish for.  From here Ormsby and Clark split, Ormsby went on to do Deranged and Clark went on to do Black Christmas, each a memorable horror film in their own rights.