366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 10

The Date: October 10

The Movie: Return of the Living Dead (1985)

What Is It?: This semi-official Night of the Living Dead sequel (John Russo, who co-wrote Night with George Romero, wrote this one too) is the first truly great zombie comedy. The punk soundtrack and E.C. comics aesthetic are divine.

Why Today?: Today is World Zombie Day.

Review: ‘More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead’

George Romero revolutionized the zombie flick with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. While transplanting zombies from Caribbean voodoo rituals to Middle America and transforming them from the brain-dead pawns of some nefarious witch doctor into a relentless mob of cannibals, Romero’s film also helped build the Midnight Movie phenomenon of the ‘70s. With 1978’s Dawn of the Dead he sharpened the political implications of his first film, almost making the zombie movie a respectable form of social satire. By the time he made the righteously anti-military Day of the Dead in 1985, finger waving threatened to devour the essential purpose of all zombie movies: a fun, scary time watching zombies eat people.

Psychobabble’s 200 Essential Horror Movies Part 7: The 1980s

In this feature, Psychobabble creeps through 100 years of horror cinema to assemble a highly personal list of the genre’s 200 most monstrous works, decade by decade.

(Updated in September 2021)

122. The Shining (1980- dir. Stanley Kubrick)