Bill Hinzman Movies

A mad scientist and his assistant strike a deal with a local crime boss: in exchange for the gangster funding the scientist's experiments in reanimating dead bodies into killer zombies, the scientist will send the zombies to rub out the gangster's rivals. However, when the scientist turns up dead, his son suspects a double-cross and decides to use the zombies to take revenge on his father's killers. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Majorettes and cheerleaders of a high school are being killed with their own batons by a mystery murderer in this low-budget horror film. Vicky (Terrie Godfrey) is the next targeted victim because she stands to inherit $500,000. Soon her grandmother Helga (Denise Hout) and the crooked local sheriff (Mark V. Jevicky) are the focus of the investigation and are later suspects in the murders. Helga is the nurse of a wealthy employer who stands to gain from his demise. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

George Romero's The Crazies involves a biochemical warfare virus code-named "Trixie" that gets into the water supply of Evans City, Pennsylvania. It has two equally unpleasant effects, either killing its victims outright or driving them hopelessly insane. The military descends on the town like a plague of locusts, quarantining the area and dragging the frightened citizens from their homes to be corralled at the local high school while the "powers that be" figure out what to do. Human interest revolves around firefighting Nam vet David and his pregnant wife Judy, who try to escape the quarantine, the virus, and the militant redneck locals whom Romero portrays as even more fearsome than the soldiers. There's also an infected father and daughter, played by Richard Liberty (Day of the Dead) and pretty Lynn Lowry (Shivers), who gives the film's best performance as an innocent waif who mourns the passing of her own sanity. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

When unexpected radiation raises the dead, a microcosm of Average America has to battle flesh-eating zombies in George A. Romero's landmark cheapie horror film. Siblings Johnny (Russ Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) whine and pout their way through a graveside visit in a small Pennsylvania town, but it all takes a turn for the worse when a zombie kills Johnny. Barbara flees to an isolated farmhouse where a group of people are already holed up. Bickering and panic ensue as the group tries to figure out how best to escape, while hoards of undead converge on the house; news reports reveal that fire wards them off, while a local sheriff-led posse discovers that if you "kill the brain, you kill the ghoul." After a night of immolation and parricide, one survivor is left in the house.... Romero's grainy black-and-white cinematography and casting of locals emphasize the terror lurking in ordinary life; as in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), Romero's victims are not attacked because they did anything wrong, and the randomness makes the attacks all the more horrifying. Nothing holds the key to salvation, either, whether it's family, love, or law. Topping off the existential dread is Romero's then-extreme use of gore, as zombies nibble on limbs and viscera. Initially distributed by a Manhattan theater chain owner, Night, made for about 100,000 dollars, was dismissed as exploitation, but after a 1969 re-release, it began to attract favorable attention for scarily tapping into Vietnam-era uncertainty and nihilistic anxiety. By 1979, it had grossed over 12 million, inspired a cycle of apocalyptic splatter films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and set the standard for finding horror in the mundane. However cheesy the film may look, few horror movies reach a conclusion as desolately unsettling. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide