‘Stand by Me’ used to be the movie and story that Stephen King fans would point to in defense of his ability to write more than just straight horror tales. Sure, he’ll always been known most for bringing us stories of haunted cars, evil dogs, anger inducing hotel’s and pet semetary’s (yes…that’s a purposeful typo)…but his talent encompassed so much more.

The movie was adapted from the novella ‘The Body’, which appeared in the collection ‘Different Seasons’ (published in 1982). The idea for the collection came from his editor’s suggestion to try some non-horror writing out so critics and readers could see that he actually had the ability to be quite diverse.

The movie showcases an excellent tale of a group of friends on a summer quest adventure in the 60’s. What really shines through are the phenomenal performances of the four central actors (well…that and an amazing soundtrack). One can’t help but speculate upon the real life scenarios of these four young talents whenever the movie is watched.

Will Wheaton went on to portray the character that no one liked in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. He survived the Trekkie anger and now makes his living as character actor and professional geek (he’s the ‘geek editor’ for ‘Suicide Girls’, had a column in the role playing game magazine ‘Dungeon’ and provided the voices for Aqualad on ‘Teen Titans’ and Blue Beetle on ‘Batman: The Brave & The Bold’). Corey Feldman had an excellent childhood / teen career for a while (’Goonies’, ‘Gremlins’ AND a ‘Friday the 13th’ movie!) before his work delved into obscure horrible D grade ’straight to video’ type fare. River Phoenix was securely on his way to becoming the next great American actor, until a fatal drug related night outside of a Hollywood night club. And, as an episode of ‘Family Guy’ recently pointed out, the fat kid grew up to marry Rebecca Romijn.

Rob Reiner directed the film, back when he was in the midst of making other great movies like ‘This is Spinal Tap’ and ‘The Princess Bride’. He felt such an attachment to the film and to King’s work, that he went onto name his production company ‘Castle Rock Entertainment’, in tribute to the fictional Maine town where a number of King’s stories take place. ‘Castle Rock’ then went onto produce two other great Stephen King adaptations, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Green Mile’ (and the unrelated to Stephen King TV series, ‘Seinfeld’).

‘Stand By Me’, winner of the best adapted screenplay Oscar in 1987, plays Saturday October 24th at 1PM and Sunday October 25th at 2PM.

The film ‘Zombie’ (or ‘Zombi’) has had a bit of a confusing past behind it. The film was initially released as ‘Zombi 2′, which would make you think that there was a predecessor to it. Strangely enough, from a certain point of view, there is no actual ‘Zombie’ part 1. When George A. Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ was released in European Territories, it was done so under the simpler title of ‘Zombi’. The distributors of what we now here know as ‘Zombie’ decided to ride George’s coat-tails, the two films are actually unrelated…well, unrelated except for the part that they both have zombies in them. Though since all of Romero’s ‘Dead’ films are similarly unrelated in terms of characters and location, it doesn’t seem all that unfitting in the grand scheme of zombie things.

Not to play spoiler, but the movie is remembered for two scenes in particular. One involving a rather slow and painful moment involving a poor doomed character’s eye. The other involves a zombie and a shark. Like a real shark! No miniatures or CG or movie magic trickery here. The first time I saw this back in the day, it completely blew my mind. Those magnificent bastards just tossed a guy in zombie make-up into the deep end with an actual shark!

Whatever you want to call Lucio Fulci’s undead classic…all that really matters is that it is awesome. Fulci’s body of work has been described as some of the most violent and gory horror films of all. Italians filmmakers don’t mess around in this regard. Whole new levels of on-screen brutality and cruelty which often ensured X ratings and unrated movies (adding to the grindhouse and drive-in feel to the unflinching films). ‘Zombie’ alone was banned in several countries, including Great Britain.

‘Zombie’ is not banned at the Mayfair though, and the film that has also been known as: ‘Island of the Living Dead’, ‘Zombie Island’, ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’, and ‘Woodoo’ can be seen October 23rd at Midnight, and October 24th at 11:30pm.