Movie Night! 'Satanic Panic' & 'Night of the Living Dead (30th Anniversary Edition)

My reading has been stuttering a bit, these last few days. This is more to do with work deadlines than anything else but here we are again; not so much a 'reading slump' but definitely a 'reading blip' if you like. With it being what it is, I thought I'd give myself a couple of nights off and watch some movies. I came across 'Satanic Panic' whilst browsing Prime and I'd finally got hold of a copy of the 30th Anniversary edition of 'Night of the Living Dead' so figured now was as good a time as any to see if the extra bits made any difference at all. It's a quick post today (spent most of the day asleep and the rest of it with my kids) so lets get straight to it...

'Satanic Panic' (2019)

A pizza delivery girl at the end of her financial rope has to fight for her life - and her tips - when her last order of the night turns out to be high society Satanists in need of a virgin sacrifice.

I'm normally all about the free movies, on Prime, but this looked interesting and was only 99p to rent so I thought I would. And you know what? 'Satanic Panic' was a lot of fun, creepy in all the right places (it turns out that witches freak me right out, didn't realise that until I watched this...) but a lot of fun as well. It does feel a little 'by the numbers', there are times when it's horribly clear what is going to happen next, but there are plenty of grim deaths that keep the film ticking over and kept me watching. The weirdness of all this happening in affluent suburbia is handled just right as well with stuff happening, behind closed doors, that will make you go, 'What? Really...?' I'm talking about the 'drill dildo' (drill-do?) in particular, there's an image that won't be leaving my head anytime soon. Rebecca Romijn makes for a great coven leader (although I've got a lot of time for Arden Myrin's scheming second in command) and is the star of the show although Hayley Griffith's 'Sam' is very much a heroine that you can get behind. Would I watch 'Satanic Panic' again? I probably would.


'Night of the Living Dead' (30th Anniversary Edition)

There's not an awful lot that I can say about this movie given that there's a whole post about it over Here. What I can talk about though are the extra bits that flesh (no pun intended) things out a bit. And I have to say... I can see why they were all taken out to be honest.

The whole point of 'Night of the Living Dead' is that no-one knows why the dead are rising, we certainly don't need to know the back story of S. William Hinzman's ghoul, it's enough that he's prowling the graveyard looking for food. But that's what we get here and it would be ok if these extra bits added anything worthwhile but they don't, not really. The shot of Beekman's Diner works but the ranting priest? What was that all about (other than screwing up the continuity for the rest of the films)? I think this version, of 'Night', is one of those ones that you watch just so that you can say that you've seen it. That's where I am with this edition, I didn't see anything in it that would make me choose it over the original version. It's a nice little bit of history but it doesn't improve on the original at all.

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