Consumer culture

Halloween

(1978)

Have I ever told you about the first time I ever saw this movie? Not in 1978, when I was married with a small child and unlikely ever to go to a scary movie, but during a second run in 1981, when I was separated and living in a $90/mo. basement shithole apartment in downtown Champaign and the picture showed at the Rialto and, having heard from enough of my grad school colleagues that I should, I went to the late screening on maybe the final night of the run. In any case, I was . . . the audience . . . the entire audience. And then, after watching this eminently creepy film alone, I had to walk alone home to my dark apartment, where I was also alone, and . . . well, you get the idea.

Even tonight, as I near 60 and should be immune to things that go bump in the night, it was still plenty creepy walking around my mostly dark home after watching it, and then walking downtown to the Chinese restaurant to pick up some dinner. It was particularly ill-advised, I think, for someone to have hopped out of his or her car and walked behind me on the sidewalk dragging his or her feet in the dry leaves.

Dawn of the Dead

(2004)

Funny that I never noticed before the extent of the borrowing here from my favorite zombie film, which is on tap for tomorrow night: fast-moving zombies, invocation of a culture of hate, aerial shots of apocalyptic infernos, protective figures gone bad. But hey, this is in Wisconsin, and who ever set a zombie flick in Wisconsin before? Or cast indy darling (and now bigtime writer/director) Sarah Polley in a kickass role or Ving Rhames as . . . well, Ving Rhames? So this remains my second-favorite zombie film.