When video first reached the high street back in the early 80’s, my mother decided that plonking us down in front of the TV for a couple of hours would be a great way to get some relief from the endless (and expensive) games of ‘living-room football’ that me and my two younger brothers enjoyed on a rainy day.
So it was with great excitement that my parents took delivery of a top of the line video cassette recorder (even if it was the size of large suitcase!). After a lengthy installation and training session my parents left us at home and went off to the newly opened local video store – ‘Hollywood Greats’, to choose our first piece of family viewing material.
A £75 joining fee plus £1 pound rental later, they returned with what has got to be one of my favourite films of all time – Bruce Lee’s ‘Enter the Dragon(1973).
From the moment the Warner Brothers logo and the cool 70’s funk/ oriental music (by Lalo Schifrin) started, I was mesmerised.
Forget the fact that this was an ‘X’ certificate movie, (this was well before the ‘Daily Mirror’ had started their witch hunt against violent movies, which ultimately led to the Video Recordings Act in 1982 and the withdrawal of Lee’s seminal work in the UK), my parents saw no problem in letting an impressionable 11 year old sit through what had been one of their favourite films at the local flee pit years before.
I think we watched Bruce fight his way through 90 minutes of bad guys 7 times in total before we had to begrudgingly take it back. However, offering to help my mother do her shopping before taking the film back had garnered me the ultimate accolade. I would be able to choose our next rental.
‘Hollywood Greats’ didn’t have hundreds of copies of the same film like its’ modern day equivalents. There was only one copy of each film, and if it had that darned little orange tag stuck to the cover then it was already out on rental. Even worse, there was a reservation system in place, meaning that it was possible for the film you wanted to be out for days, if not weeks, on end.
I didn’t care about this though. There were hundreds of films ‘in’ to choose from.
Being 11 years old, I wasn’t interested in award winning dramas, new-wave art-house noirs or even the abundance of child friendly fare. I didn’t have a clue what sort of film I wanted.
All that interested me was the covers. And back then there were some classic video covers. I was somewhat of a budding artist (my mother told me that I had a penchant for drawing tractors on her newly decorated walls) so if anything was going to garner my attention it would be a good cover.
My mother was becoming anxious that we would miss our bus home and was losing patience with my indecision. She was prepared to re-rent Enter the Dragon and spend another night in the company of Bruce Lee and John Saxon.
It was then I saw it. The beautifully painted cover, obscured only by a small red and white sticker reading ‘Strong Uncut Version’, a hand reaching up through the dirt, shadowy figures stumbling in the background, a blazing orange sun and then the title, ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’.
I picked up the box and handed it to my mother. She didn’t even look at it (just as well considering the images on the reverse), and passed the box and £1 to the shop assistant.
A short bus ride later and we were in the comfort of our living room.
Now, I should mention that my mother is a big fan of horror books. She has been reading them for as long as I can remember and has a massive collection. However, she never really ‘got’ horror films. I guess she’d seen a few Hammer films and thought they were a bit, well crap, compared to some of the stuff she had dreamt up in her own imagination.
It was then that she told me (for the first time) that my father was a bit squeamish, so maybe we ought to watch this film now rather than waiting for him to come home from work, just so we can make sure it would be suitable!
So this is how I ended up watching my first horror, and indeed, my first ZOMBIE horror movie at the ripe old age of 11, with my mother nervously watching over the top of her newspaper on a lazy afternoon sometime in 1980. Needless to say, my father never watched it.
‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ or, ‘Zombie’, to our American friends remains to this day, one of my all time favourite horror films. Great music and art design, fantastic gore effects and action, all directed in an unflinching style by Italian maestro Lucio Fulci. Do yourself a favour and check it out!
Anyway, now that the history lesson is over let me take a moment to welcome everyone the ‘Stag Night of the Dead’ blog.
In the future, I will be reporting on, and giving reviews of the latest genre specific offerings from around the world and also delving into my extensive horror movie back catalogue to bring you recommendations and revelations regarding the world of the living dead.
Hope you have a (bloody) good time.
The Wrangler
