Gay horror film “Spiral”

[quote]Night of the Living Dead, in which Ben’s blackness has nothing to do with the story.

I'm not sure that was the case. While the casting of black actor Duane Jones seems to have been a last minute whim, it certainly altered the story in a good way. Romero liked it so much that he made certain that each of the sequels had a black male protagonist.

Yeah, Ben wasn't cast because of his color. Everyone involved thought he was hands down the best guy who auditioned, so they cast him. The script didn't mention race and they just shot it as written.

Yeah, Ben wasn't cast because of his color. Everyone involved thought he was hands down the best guy who auditioned, so they cast him. The script didn't mention race and they just shot it as written.

That look good, OP. Thank for posting.

I want Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman in me quite deeply.

It looks a bit corny but the reviews when it played festivals last year the reviews were very good

Oh, damn.

The leads are ugly.

[quote] I'm not sure that was the case. While the casting of black actor Duane Jones seems to have been a last minute whim, it certainly altered the story in a good way.

It was definitely the case. I’m not sure how you can say it altered the story.

They should of released it during Labor to maximize viewership, and get so leverage. Regardless, I will be looking forward to watching this 'Get Out' style movie.

[quote] They should of

Oh dear.

Small towns scare me. I'll watch this for sure if I can find someone to watch it with.

[quote]I’m not sure how you can say it altered the story.

It caused the entire film to become meta-commentary on the ongoing civil rights struggle of blacks, which was raging at the time (and rages still). Making Ben black created an entirely new set of tensions and anxieties between the characters, i.e. Ben and Barbara, and between Ben and Harry Cooper, entirely apart from the living dead crisis. Reading then-current racial tensions into the storyline became unavoidable. One has to know that the depiction of a white woman and a black man apparently alone in a house together caused the film to play differently than if Ben had been white. (I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet some venues, particularly in the Southern states, may have refused to play the film, over that aspect alone. It would not surprise me.)

Armed white rednecks, scouring the woods, taking aim and shooting Ben, and throwing his body on the pyre, comes across differently with a black Ben. One has to wonder if perhaps they knew he wasn't one of the living dead, but shot him anyway because he was black. Living or dead, it might have made no difference to them; one can never be sure.

Casting Duane Jones was probably the best thing that happened to that film.

[quote] It caused the entire film to become meta-commentary on the ongoing civil rights struggle of blacks, which was raging at the time (and rages still).

There’s absolutely no element of that in the film. It’s imposed on the movie by people determined to see it, because of the actors blackness.

Night of the Living Dead would not be the classic it is without the race element. Period, I say that as a huge Romero fan -- he would say the same thing, and you're a weirdo troll r13 pretending otherwise. God forbid people watching a projected film, a piece of art that exists to be read and interpreted by the audience, project their thoughts onto it? You're a moron.

The fact that you’ve been so easily reduced to hysterics by a little contradiction suggests you don’t have anything of substance to say, r14. Lol!

So no ones watched this yet? It’s on Shudder on Amazon. I thought it was very well done and conjures an effectively creepy atmosphere.

I was worried that homosexuality would be presented as too much of an oddity but as it turns out the horror in the movie is a bit of a macguffin and it’s really more about how society treats gays (and in fact any group that’s different).

It’s not perfect and I think it lays on some of the horror elements with a trowel, in contrast to its overall understatement, making it feel tacked on. But it’s a solid picture, and surprisingly thought provoking.