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One of the main reasons this movie is great - that idiots will not get.

posted 8 years ago by shango7200
4 replies | jump to latest

The Set Up.
YOU are with them from the first frame. You're IN. It's almost a role-playing game in a weird way. When you see Fran - you want to RUN WITH HER and GET OUT of the station!

I. LOVE. THIS. MOVIE.
My history with this movie: 1) Saw the trailer in a local movie house (The main feature was either "The Changling" with George C. Scott OR the Ralph Bakshi animated "Lord of the Rings") I was ignited and fascinated! Especially by the narrator "in 1968 George A. Romaro created the classic horror movie of all time "Night of the Living Dead......
Then the graphic from the poster crawled up on the screen...the most iconic graphic of all time (for me).

From there I first saw this at a local drive-in theater the week it opened.It was around the time of "Greek Easter" which is later after our American Easter. I went a second time as well-- I could not believe what I had watched. I was beyond thrilled by the action and pacing. I was also very scared ! The scene in the basement with Fly Boy and the ping-pong bullets is right up there with any scene from a Universal horror movie from 1939 in my eyes.
In 1980/81 it made the "Midnight Movie" circuit a la "Rocky Horror". I did see it at one of the HUGE old movie houses in NYC as well (it was extra scary as NYC was pretty run down back then!)
and then we had..................VHS rentals all through the 1980s............

The Set Up of this movie makes you feel like YOU ARE WITH THEM IN THE HELICOPTER and LIVING WITH THEM INSIDE THE MALL. You can smell their cigarettes when they light up in that one scene in the helicopter. YOU feel like you MAY escape from all this madness...or not..while flying over the "good ole boys" shootin' party.
The other part of the SET UP that makes you feel A PART OF THIS MOVIE is the CHARACTERS.
That's all . 4 people that you can TOTALLY REALTE to and want to help along the way. Their BELIEVABILITY makes you forget "blue zombie make up". Their BELIEVABILITY makes your forget "red grammar school art class paint-for-blood".
YOU DO NOT WANT THEM TO DIE. YOU CARE ABOUT THEM. (On a side note- I was amused by dismay of the too-early departure of our friend ROGER by the fans.....Never crossed my mind but whatever...) The 5th player in this movie is THE MALL ITSELF. When you watch this YOU FEEL LIKE YOU KNOW EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY!

Now let me ask you; in the remake of DOTD- did you feel like you were there with them in that (fake ?) shopping mall>? Did you like and believe those characters ? Did you really care if they died or not? Ask yourself that about the past 22 years worth of horror movies. Is anything believable at all? Do you care what happens?
Discuss:

[–] mwgfgrey 8 years ago

You make a good point about the mall. The mall in this one actually looked like the local malls here in MD. Kinda small but big enough. The one in the remake just looked fake. And yeah the characters weren't nearly as likeable in the remake, but I still LIKED it. Said liked because i LOVE this one. Lots of great quotes and what happens when theyre using the trucks to block the entrances always makes my heart sink. Watching it now.

[–] shango7200 8 years ago

I saw it when it was NEW ! In the drive in theater !

I cannot tell you the incredible feeling this movie gives you....

"The ENEMY of my ENEMY is my FRIEND"

[–] regularfellow 8 years ago

Last Halloween I saw the "Extended Mall Hours" edition which is a mash-up of the available versions of the movie into one.

The thing felt damn fresh; a lot of characterizations and you got a higher sense of how desperate things had become.

This cut will be my go-to version of the film.

[–] HalloweenNinja (32) 5 years ago

Amen!

I was born in 1993, so I missed out on seeing it in the theaters. But I watched it all the time on VHS and local cable back then.

I first saw the movie when I was a little kid in the late 90's/early 2000's (ah, the joy of permissive Gen X parents) and I was both terrified and enthralled by it.

What the OP said about feeling like you're in the movie is dead on the money.

And I will second the recommendation of the Extended Mall Hours cut. That's become sort of my Halloween tradition each year now.

The 2004 remake was lame and was ultimately forgotten, it's only real legacy at all was being parodied on South Park when they did the episode about the homeless.