Category Archives: Movies

Summer Weekend Review: I Walked With A Zombie

Just what is a zombie?
A ghost. The living dead. It’s also a drink.

One of those rare, pre-George A. Romero zombie films, I Walked With A Zombie (1943) depicts something like the original myth, and has been referenced in such diverse literature as Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Although flawed (and baffling to fans of the contemporary zombie) it transcends its B-picture status, and holds up better than most other pre-1968 zombie films.

And so ends summer 2015.

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Summer Weekend Review: “Equinox” (1967, 1970)

In case you haven’t heard, September 23, 2015 is the latest date when a subset of religious fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, and Youtube buffoons insist absolutely, positively, the world will end! You know, just like it did in December 2012 and January 2000 and all those other prophetic dates.

Spoiler: there’s no reason to believe the world will end that day. However, September 23 will mark the autumnal equinox, and so, for this Summer Weekend Review, we’re discussing you Equinox. Made by college students for $6500.00 in 1967, it became a cult hit, and its creators were given time and money to film new sequences, stretching the movie to feature-length and gaining it wider distribution. Rereleased in 1970, the film influenced such people as George Lucas, Richard O’Brien, and Sam Raimi, received praise from Ray Harryhausen, and features cameos by Fritz Leiber and Forrest J. Ackerman.

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