Bob Clark arguably invented the slasher in 1974 with the original Black Christmas, yet he’d already rewritten the rules of zombiedom two years earlier with Deathdream, aka Dead of Night, a film that is a truly horrifying reinvention of the Vietnam veteran flick. Grisly and heartrending, the story of a soldier who comes home from the grave is one of the most distressing visions of PTSD ever given flesh. More Coming Home than The Evil Dead, its caustic political commentary saw it shunned for years. Now, because of Clark’s incredible direction, the unrelenting script by his longtime collaborator Alan Ormsby, a heartbreaking turn by Richard Backus as Andy, the soldier who came home, and the genius decision to reunite Faces co-stars John Marley and Lynn Carlin as Andy’s parents, its dark power has only been more recognized over time. – Richard Whittaker