Editorials
Fan Details the Real ‘Day of the Dead’ World Premiere!
The Internet is an interesting place because, while the entire world’s knowledge is at all of our fingertips, it’s also a trash heap filled with incorrect information. Take the world premiere of George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead for example. A quick search online reveals the first ever screening took place on July 3, 1985. Nope. Long time horror fan David Brudie wants to set the record straight and can prove it with a ticket he carries from a screening that was held on June 30, 1985, in Hicksville Long Island.
“A few weeks ago I was working on an article for a horror Facebook group and I needed to look up U.S. release information on George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead,” Brudie explained. “It seemed that something was wrong about the earliest date everyone seemed to have, which is July 3rd, 1985. I didn’t remember the world premiere being right before independence Day. You see, I was at the World Premiere days earlier, on June 30th, which was held at the UA Hicksville theater (on east Marie street) in Hicksville Long Island! Honestly, I was very surprised that no one seemed to know about this first public showing (which was one night only), and it is impossible to find any information about it, at least I was unable to find any. I always assumed that this world premiere would have been recognized by people and accounted for in release date information, but that is not the case at all.
“The premiere was put together by United Film Distribution Company themselves,” he continues, “and at that time they were headquartered in Great Neck, Long Island. Not very far from where the premiere took place.
“Between April and May (1985) a popular radio station of the time, WBAB, was running a promotion for Romero’s new “Dead” film and offering listeners the chance to get free tickets to the world premiere on the condition that you be present at the South Shore Mall (on Sunrise Hwy. in Bayshore Long Island) on a certain date and time. People were told to meet in the music store that was inside the mall. The dozen or so people there waiting were finally greeted by a WBAB employee who brought along a zombie that was attached to a leash. The zombie gave out the tickets to us, and although you were only supposed to get one ticket each, I asked for a second to give to a friend, the zombie reluctantly gave it to me. I’m actually very glad that I was able to obtain two tickets because, although I was unable to give it to my friend it allowed me to hold on to one because the theater took my ticket at the door and didn’t give it back.”
He continues: “If you look at the right side of the ticket it mentions that if you dressed as a ‘zombie’ to the event that it would have ‘special meaning’. It turned out that the special meaning came by way of a jacket you could get by going down the street to a bar and getting one. Since I wasn’t quite old enough to get into the bar my step-father went instead. People in the bar were not going to give him the jacket at first because he wasn’t dressed as a zombie, but when he explained that I was waiting outside they agreed to give him one, as long as he bought a drink first. Although the jacket is rather generic, as I don’t believe it was created specifically for this world premiere, I believe it is a significant part of the story.
“It is my position and intent that all Day of the Dead fans knows about this (apparently) forgotten world premiere, and that maybe online databases and such will want to add this event to their information concerning release, for reasons of accuracy. I’m happy to share this with you all and contributing to Day of the Dead’s history.” – David Brudie
How. Freaking. Cool. What do you guys think?!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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