Creatures of War #26: Dead of Night (1974)

+Breaking down my notes app

Hello

Well, it’s definitely summer. I’m burning alive in my apartment and spend most of my time huddled around my little AC unit. Also, there are rats in my walls. Like, there are literally rats in the walls. Smart ones too; they won’t fall for my peanut butter-filled traps. Fun times. You know what hides the sounds of scurrying and insulation chewing? Movies!

Review

Dead of Night (also known as Deathdream, but I prefer Dead of Night) is a Monkey Paw’s story about Andy, a young man who dies in the Vietnam War only to return to his family in the middle of the night, alive, but fundamentally changed.

I am going to structure this review a little differently from my others, because I find it difficult to form a coherent analysis. When I watch a film at home that strikes me, I sometimes write notes as I’m watching. Random sentences, quotes, thoughts. I don’t do this often, and usually the notes turn into nothing more than KBs on my phone, but occasionally they turn into one of these posts. Below is a list of what I wrote, along with some explanations as to why:

Sitting in a rocking chair in the dark, truck lights barrelling behind. Wind

Image from IMDb

This is a description of one of the early scenes. Andy’s mother is in the dark, whispering her prayers that her son will come home, and from the corner, the headlights of the truck Andy is arriving in are drifting into frame. These moments (the rocking chair and the truck) exist at the same moment, miles apart, but are blended into one frame in what appears to be an empty chasm of ink. It reminded me of a painting and a phrase about blowing into town on a bad wind. I don’t talk a lot about the structure of a frame in film because frankly, I don’t know anything about what makes a good composition and what does not. I do know that this one resonated with me.

Lighting. Everything is half shadow.

General observation about the film. Dead of Night is low budget, so it makes sense that a lot of the movie is shadowed to save some money on sets and effects. There’s something in that about a metaphor of hiding true natures and the US obscuring the realities of the Vietnam War, but that sentence is all I’ve got of it. The lighting is very stylized, like the lighting of a black and white film. Smart and lovely.

Sound fills up space. Not clear. Lost in the wind. Like hearing things from another room.

Can you tell I was held up on the wind? I really enjoyed the poor sound quality. The sound felt like it was being broadcast from voices in my earshot, like someone was actually speaking softly in the room. Modern sound quality is like I’m wearing headphones. I want the clear sound most of the time, but for this movie specifically, I wanted the eeriness of a lack of clarity.

Hysterical laughter. Borderline. Restrained but barely.

Image from IMDb

This is concerning the scene where Andy arrives and sits at the dinner table. His family tells him they thought he died, Andy replies that he did. The rest of the table broke into laughter that at first I thought was hysterical, but I then decided was not quite hysterical. Like it should be hysterical, but they are keeping it just barely together. I think this mock restraint and hidden resentment are the central draw of the movie for me. These people should be panicking, they should be horrified at this entire situation, and they are, but they feel they need to keep it together for the sake of… for the sake of what? Andy? Their family? Their country? Dead of Night is so restrained in its horror, its gore, its violence, until the end. Cathartic.

I can’t believe a soldier would do a thing like that. But Andy wouldn’t kill anybody.

Various characters remark that Andy could not be a murderous vampire/zombie; he’s a good kid! He’s a soldier! Soldiers don’t murder people. The obvious irony in these statements does not need to be spelled out. I appreciate that Dead of Night is a critique of the Vietnam War, made during the war. The tail end of it, sure, but it’s still fresh. I was discussing the recent travel bans with my father, and we were both surprised to hear that Laos had been added to the list. During the war, it became the most heavily bombed country in history. You’d think we’d be begging for forgiveness, but that’s not the American way. The American way is to bomb the fuck out of you, then label you the threat.

Scittering

Was this the movie or the rats?

You owe me this

Andy says this as he kills the doctor. He died for the country; why shouldn’t you? A clever and very thoughtful line. At one time, there was talk of a Dead of Night remake, and normally, I would say that’s a bad idea. It’s a good movie that is deeply rooted in the event it satirizes, it would not hit the same decades later. Unless, much like the truck barrelling towards a rocking chair, bringing your vampiric son home, a similar event is barrelling towards us all. Maybe now would be a good time to remake such a movie.

That’s really all I have to say, scattered thoughts about light, sound, and war. But isn’t that all my movie reviews?

Bye!

I loved Dead of Night and would absolutely recommend it. It’s got a vampire/zombie, a fiery car chase, and it’s streaming free on Tubi. What’s not to love?

Bonus

Some other quotes in my notes app with no explanation:

• Various stuff punctured foot including computer charger

• This year I think I’ll be able to look at pictures of my cat and not cry

• *a long, carefully crafted text to a crush*

• Magnesium is really important

I like to think the rats in my walls look like the Dark Souls rats