Dead of Night (1974)

AKA: Deathdream

Director: Bob Clark

Writer: Alan Ormsby

Composer: Carl Zittrer

Starring: John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Richard Backus, Henderson Forsythe, Anya Ormsby, Jane Daly, Michael Mazes, Arthur Anderson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Andy's coming home...

Plot: A young man killed in Vietnam inexplicably returns home as a zombie.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.

This was a nice transition for director Bob Clark from his fun-titled CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972) and his genre-defining horror classic, BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974).  John Marley leads the cast as Charles Brooks, the father of Andy (Backus), the Vietnam soldier who comes home after being killed in the war.  So Andy comes back and he's not himself but with reasons.  It's a nicely made picture on how war can change a person.  Andy clearly has PTSD (even though it wasn't recognized as such until years later but the affects of the war were very clear) but this is a social commentary movie disguised as a horror film so he's got something else going on that is very, very bizarre and wrong.  Not only is this a well-made picture from its look and pacing, the acting is very good. The makeup effects by Tom Savini (in his first year in pictures) is great.  It far into the film that you see any of Andy's 'problems' but when you do it's jarring and cool.  The ending is great from the car chase that ends with a car slamming into large iron gates to the few minutes until the close of the film.  This is a good low-budget Canadian horror film that's made better than most of the era.  It's also worth watching to see what Clark was up to that led to his making BLACK CHRISTMAS which would change the face of cinematic horror for decades.