#live 1985

[spilladabalia]

Strawberry Switchblade - Jolene (Bliss, 6th Sept 85)

[ultrakillblast]

THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)

[cosmonautroger]

The Return Of The Living Dead, 1985

[contac]

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)

[classichorrorblog]

The Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

[weirdlookindog]

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

[sacredwhores]

Hou Hsiao-hsien - The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)

[fanofspooky]

George A Romero horror movies

[ceteradesunt]

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) dir. Dan O'Bannon

[1985alive]

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

[spilladabalia]

Jim Foetus - Descent Into The Inferno - Live 1985

[ultrakillblast]

THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

[clarkarts24]

Some of my favorite B-Movies

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[nothingenoughao3]

So y'all know how Jeff Combs was doing a theater production which someone involved with Re-Animator saw him in, and how he's suggested that the character he played there influenced how he played Herbert West.

I relayed this to @andalusiapunk and they were like "Oh! That explains it! He's theater-acting!"

I am not an expert by any means, but I did misspend my teenage years in a magnet school as a theater student. I understood immediately what they meant by theater-acting and I'm mad I didn't come up with it.

A lot of this has to do with Herbert's overall physicality. We all love talking about how he's hyper-dramatic, right? How he moves in a particular way that is extremely precise and sharp and, to be on point, theatrical. How he spins the tape recorder in his hand; how he offers Meg's heart in BRIDE; how he fumbles or manipulates syringes in various scenes.

None of that's in the script and it's not necessarily justified by what's happening... unless you're trying to make sure the audience in the backass end of the theater can see you're holding something small, like a tape recorder or a syringe or a human heart. As I observed elsewhere, you can trick the audience into 'seeing' or 'hearing' things that aren't present onstage or screen if your body language insists on its reality.

And, not to get into super-nerdy film history, but: originally theater-acting and movie-acting were one and the same. Early films are blocked like plays, they have extended sequences without constant cutting between shots (like an audience watching a play), and the extremely clear, over-enunciation of a play-actor trying to make sure those poor bastards in the back can hear what they're saying. And like a play, all acting was heavily rehearsed and expected to hit the same points and produce the same results every time.

What changed this was Marlon Brando introducing the idea of improvisation into movie-acting, a choice which also led to a greater flexibility in movie-acting... including delivery of lines. A more "natural", verisimilitudinous delivery became acceptable for films. This doesn't make either style bad, to be clear: each serves its purpose.

Bruce Abbott (to name the most obvious example) is doing movie-acting. He's got some Protagonist Accent going for him, but he has a clear variety of tone and a great deal of subtlety with his facial expressions and delivery. The same goes for the rest of the cast, although David Gale kind of straddles the line between these two styles.

Herbert's delivery is pure theater-acting. When he and Dan invade the morgue, Dan is whispering--but Herbert is stage whispering, which is why he hisses so much. I've made jokes on here before about how Herbert was born on Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors-verse, and he thinks he's supposed to be in a musical... and, you know, LSOH is a film based on a play, only in that movie, EVERYBODY is theater-acting.

Anyhow, lotta words to find a different way to compliment Combs and the rest of the REANI cast on their acting, because I live for sorcery enjoying these damn movies.

[nicomoru]

doodling 80s horror movie yaoi in ms paint