Dancing Devil of San Antonio
One of the strangest stories to come out of the Texan city of San Antonio is that which revolves around a terrifying character referred to locally as the Dancing Devil, and who surfaced briefly in 1975. According to many eyewitnesses, as well as newspaper articles from the time, a dashing, handsome, young man dressed entirely in white entered the El Camaroncito night club on Old Highway 90 late one night, around the time of Halloween, 1975.
According to all of those who were present, the man was a fabulous dancer and impressed and captivated many of the ladies who were in attendance that evening. As the night progressed, however, things took a horrific turn when one of the man’s dancing partners happened to glance down at his feet. The woman screamed out in terror, broke free of the man’s grip and immediately began pointing downward. It was then, amidst a flurry of gasps and shrieks that the patrons noticed the man’s shoes had transformed into creepy, clawed, chicken’s feet!
In some versions of the story, his feet had become something akin to the hooves of a goat. Either way, it was certainly a bad sign to be sure, as the night club attendees were now quite certain they were in the presence of none other than the Devil himself. After a couple of seconds of uncomfortable silence, the man dashed, or perhaps waddled or galloped, towards the men’s room, where he vanished out of an open window. In his wake remained a cloud of smoke, which was permeated with a strong, sulfuric smell—surely a classic calling card of the horned and forked-tailed one himself.
But that’s not all: for weeks afterwards, stories circulated that the Dancing Devil had been seen performing late-night, Voodoo-style rituals in a certain area of San Antonio woodland, where he and his disciples secretly sought to create a slave-like army of definitive I Walked with a Zombie style. Since, as history has clearly shown, the city did not become overrun by mind-controlled dead(ish) slaves, we can conclude one of two things: (a) the rumors were without merit; or (b) the Dancing Devil failed in his attempt to plunge San Antonio into apocalyptic chaos. Either way, it was very good news for the people that called the city their home.
Darklings
Since the late 1800s, strange creatures that the great Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau described as “the evil thoughts that good church people have, but do not act upon” have prowled the streets of New Orleans, seeking innocents whom they may possess. These beings, aptly called The Darklings, will take possession of people and make them act like someone they are not. In extreme cases, those who are possessed by a darkling have been known to kill or to hurt their family members.
Some believe that a darkling enters an individual through his or her mouth. The victim is like a zombified demon. Marie Laveau is said to have used ground-up monkey and cock statue powder, red brick, and a secret ingredient to chase them off.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Although George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead movie hit the big-screen in 1968, and proved to be a huge hit with audiences, it took Romero pretty much a full decade before a follow-up appeared in cinemas. Granted, Romero’s The Crazies surfaced in 1973, but the infected of that particular movie were not of the undead kind. Rather, they were still living, albeit highly dangerous, all the same. In that sense, they were very much the inspiration for the infected of the likes of 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later that act like zombies but actually aren’t in the slightest. But, in the same way that it’s very hard to stop a zombie, it was equally hard for Romero to stay away from the gory genre—which was very good news for fans of the flesh-eating ghouls everywhere.
The location of the filming of Dawn of the Dead has become almost as famous as the movie itself. It was the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where shooting was chiefly undertaken, at night, from October 1977 to January 1978. There was, however, a break for Christmas, since mall staff had adorned the complex with seasonal decorations that, to say the very least, would have looked decidedly out of place at the height of a zombie-based Armageddon!
Dawn of the Dead certainly follows on from Romero’s first foray into zombie-world, but it’s definitely not a direct sequel to Night of the Living Dead since the characters are completely different, as is the time-frame. In Night, the zombie outbreak has just begun. In Dawn, it is weeks later, and the United States of America is quickly becoming the United States of Anarchy. As is the case in so many zombie productions, the best places to try and survive are the rural parts of the nation. In the cities, the infected are swarming like flies. And there’s another aspect to the movie that has become a staple part of just about all zombie productions. As the chaos, carnage, and death all increase, and as food and shelter become more and more important to the uninfected, those who have yet to fall victim to the undead turn upon each other. Survival is not just about avoiding the dead: it’s also about being very wary of the living.
Just like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead is set in Pennsylvania, specifically in the city of Philadelphia which, like the rest of the country, is now under martial law. Not that such a law is doing any good at all, however. Those who have successfully managed to avoid infection are very much taking the law into their own hands, regardless. The authorities, meanwhile, take a decidedly dim view of such things and summarily execute those that don’t abide by the emergency laws. Or, they take a dim view of such things until even the military and the police become overwhelmed by the ever-increasing number of walking corpses. Then it becomes a case of every man for himself—soldier, cop, or member of the public alike.
In Dawn of the Dead the zombie infection is already in full swing when the movie starts, and director George A. Romero explores how the living begin to compete not only with zombies but also each other.
Dawn of the Dead chiefly revolves around four characters: Stephen (who works for a local television channel), Francine (who is Stephen’s pregnant girlfriend) and two SWAT men, Roger and Peter, who astutely realize that trying to enforce martial law is likely to get them killed very quickly. When Philadelphia becomes more and more overrun by bone-crunching cannibals, and it’s clear that the battle to beat the dead has taken a severe turn for the worse, the four flee, by helicopter, to the Monroeville Mall.
Thanks to a bit of nifty fortification, they are able to keep the undead hordes out of the mall—for a while, at least. Unfortunately, during the process of getting the mall in lock-down mode, Roger falls foul of a wandering zombie and receives a bite that decides his fate before the movie is over. Or, rather, Peter decides his fate: a bullet to the head—what else should we expect? As the movie comes to its climax, the mall is invaded by a gang of bikers, whose door-opening actions allow the dead to make their presence known, and in the hundreds. There is only one thing for Stephen, Francine and Peter to do: make a run for it to the helicopter. Unfortunately, Stephen isn’t so lucky: he soon becomes zombified himself. Only Peter and Francine survive unscathed, taking to the skies and heading for destinations unknown, as the movie closes.
Romero was back, right where the fans wanted him: deep in the heart of the domain of the
