Bob Clark is the most overlooked  horror director of the 1970s.  For whatever reason he’s always played second fiddle to the big names in the golden age of 70′s horror.  The most well known example of this critical oversight being the contrasting of Clark’s Black Christmas (74) with John Carpenter’s Halloween (77).  Both films are centered around a significant holiday, feature an escaped mental patient murdering young women, and have similar visual stylistics (i.e. opening shot of killer’s p.o.v. in long take as he stalks his victims from outside of their house).  Narrative wise they are almost identical yet Carpenter gets all the credit despite the fact that Clarke’s film was made 3 years earlier.  Shit happens. Regardless, Clark still went on have a  very successful directing career.   He basically invented the teen sex-comedy genre with Porky’s, which would become the highest grossing Canadian film of all time for over 25 years, and directed the holiday classic and forever syndicated Christmas Story. He died tragically in 2007 from a head-on collision, along with his son.  His last completed film was 2004′s Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.  Definitely not the man’s finest hour, but name the last great Carpenter, Craven, or Hooper film?  That’s not a criticism, it’s just the nature of the beast.  They got old.

Having gotten that little history lesson out of the way, watching Deathdream for the first time a few days ago was akin to finding an old photograph of your grandfather punching a Nazi in the face, that you never knew existed.  It’s so impactful that afterwards you ask yourself why the hell didn’t anyone tell me about this and why has it been excluded from the history books?  Made the same year as Black Christmas, the film centers around the Brooks family whose son Andy is killed in Vietnam.  The following day he shows up at home, somehow alive.  As the film goes on, certain family members suspect that something is not right with their son.  Some family members on the other hand refuse to accept that anything can be wrong, choosing to live in denial. Whereas many horror films of the 70′s used the condemnation of the Vietnam war as a kind of critical subtext, Deathdream makes no such allusions but rather rubs your face in it.  Instead of the war itself serving as the narrative backdrop, Clark gives us a rather a nightmarish domestic drama  about a family failing to come to terms with the severity of their son’s experience.  Narratively speaking, it’s a far more ambitious plot than say, people finding themselves trapped in a room and on the run from maniacs, zombies, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, leprechauns etc.   The conceit of the plot however, is not the only thing that distinguishes the film.

Part of the enjoyment of watching this film is seeing how Clark characterises Andy. When we see Andy alternating between vacant stares and polite responses with that of unprovoked acts of cruelty, the nature of his monstrosity becomes harder to clarify.   Is he a zombie, a ghost, or perhaps a vampire?  Whatever he is, Clark often contradicts the typical signifiers of such creatures and keeps the answer ambiguous.  Furthermore, Andy doesn’t seem to be motivated solely by typical movie monster goals of revenge, hunger, or mayhem.  Although Andy utilises some of these motivations there is the sense that he is simultaneously repulsed by what he is.  The film’s final scene confirms Andy’s self-loathing, culminating in one of the most memorable and disturbing final images I’ve ever seen in a horror film. I’m trying to avoid mentioning specifics as much as possible because it ruins the fun of watching such a surprisingly original horror film.  That being said,  it’s easy for me to conclude that Andy is one of  the most compelling and original modern horror monsters I’ve come across.

So far this review reads like a goddamn film school paper.  Sorry about that.  Let me switch gears and talk about some of the elements unrelated to subtext and other fart smellery, namely the awesomeness of John Marley .  You might remember him as the sleazy studio executive from The Godfather who winds up with a horse head in his bed.  Like all great, homely looking character actors, the man has the chops to pull off a great performance in any genre.  The greatest tribute I can pay to Marley as well as all of the other performers in the film, is that they don’t phone in their performances because they are in a horror film. They respect the script, the genre, and the audience.  The greatest accomplishment a horror film can achieve, beyond even that of scaring an audience, is making you care about the characters.  When that happens the stakes are just that much higher, the scares more affecting.  Regardless of what afflicts Andy, the heart of the story centers around the slow disintegration of a family from within.  Clark’s direction is rooted in the desire to play out the film as a character study rather than a boogeyman film.

I would also like to point out for the more hardened and knowledgeable horror fans, that Deathdream was make-up effects legend Tom Savini’s first film.  You can tell that the man was still developing his craft as some effects are a little rough around the edges, yet the they still work.  The film itself has an unpolished visual quality to it. It’s not uncommon for independent horror films of the 70′s to have that low rent aesthetic, yet it adds to a strange sense of realism that permeates the film.  It’s not the same as that documentary feel you get when watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but something altogether different.   Imagine John Cassevetes directing a horror film, then you would be getting a sense of the look and tone of Deathdream.  Throw in  a couple of Brian DePalma styled zooms for good measure and you’re pretty much there.

I realise this review is a little lighter than usual on hyperbole and clever witty observations that often accompany my reviews, but there is a reason for it.  Unlike those other reviews, I actually care about people seeing this film and taking an interest in Bob Clark.  I don’t want to give away any more away than I already have, I don’t want to post a trailer, or a goofy cross comparison of similar films. This is probably the most honestly reverential I’ve been in a review so far and I hope others will seek it out.