Horror,
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Deathdream (aka Dead of Night) is one of the first narrative films to directly address the Vietnam War. In it, a soldier (Richard Backus) returns home from Vietnam after his parents (John Marley and Lynn Carlin) had already received a letter from the army stating that he was killed in combat. The logline for Bob Clark‘s (Black Christmas, Porky’s) second feature labels the man a zombie, but he returns addicted to blood and kills animals and locals so that he can inject blood into his veins and keep living. Needing blood like clockwork in order to keep living? Sounds a little bit like a vampire, too.
Deathdream uses the horrific symbol of intravenous addiction to approach the issues of an American soldier returning home. Many soldiers became addicted to drugs during Vietnam, or in the veteran’s hospital or upon their return. Sometimes just for coping with what they’d seen, sometimes for coping with how they’d been received at home. Backus’ sullen detachment from his parents and his surroundings —coupled with his need to inject blood in order to keep being human—is a haunting allusion to the veteran drug-abuse problems the country turned away from ever since Vietnam.
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