This welcome pair of early Bob Clark horror films – both ostensibly zombie movies – reveals two sides to the director who was never very comfortable being labelled a ‘horror director’ – though that was the genre that produced his finest work. His debut feature, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, is an ambitious but deeply flawed comedy, while Dead of Night is a bleak minor masterpiece.

Children…, made in 1971, stars future screenwriter and make-up artist Alan Ormsby, Deranged director Jeff Gillen, Ormsby’s then wife Anya and Jane Daly – the latter two also appearing in Dead of Night. They play a theatre group who head out to a small island to bicker, perform black magic rituals and dig up the corpse of Orville Dunworth. Unfortunately, their ritualistic games are a bit too successful, and soon the dead are crawling out of the ground and chowing down on the hapless cast.

Sadly, it takes a very long time for this to happen, and for the first hour or so, the viewer is stuck watching Ormsby chew the scenery as he verbally abuses his fellow actors, and some efforts at comedy that don’t really come off. Once the zombie attack begins, the film perks up and actually develops some degree of tension, but on the whole this is a spirited but doomed pastiche, notably only for the careers it launched and for being the first Night of the Living Dead-inspired zombie film.

Dead of Night – better known as Deathdream and subject to assorted title changes over the years – is very different, and much more effective. Headed by an impressive cast including John Marley and Lynn Carlin – both of whom had previously been paired in John Cassavetes’ Faces – the film is a grim retelling of The Monkey’s Paw, with Carlin wishing her son, killed in Vietnam, back to life. And sure enough, Andy (Richard Backus) does come home, but he’s not quite right…

As much a dour social drama and subtle anti-war statement as a horror film, Dead of Night is quietly effective, building the horror and the tragedy very effectively. Hampered over the years by retitling and recutting, this version is as complete as we can hope for, and confirms itself as one of the great sleeper classics of the 1970s.

With a double bill of movies, you shouldn’t expect much in the way of extras, but the disc does include a good-natured and entertaining commentary track for Children… and trailers. Nicely wrapping up the package.

DAVID FLINT

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