Words by Ed King / Poster courtesy of Lunar Festival & The Electric Cinema
‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth…’ 
On Thursday 29th October, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin will perform their brooding score to Dawn of the Dead live – during a special screening of George A. Romero’s zombie classic at Boxxed on Floodgate St.
Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets are priced at £20 (+booking fee). For direct event information, click here
A collaboration between Lunar Festival and The Electric Cinema, the Dawn of the Dead screening on Thurs 29th Oct is a rare (and possibly emotionally scaring) chance to see a cornerstone of celluloid horror in its full gory glory.
The follow up to Night of the Living Dead, and co-written by the Italian master of ‘giallo’ horror Dario Argento, Dawn of the Dead sees the zombie attack intensify to epidemic proportions – with both flesh and flesh eaters plotting their fights for survival in an abandoned (kinda, sorta) shopping mall.
Mainly well received after its 1978/9 releases, Dawn of the Dead is known for its gruesome body count and relentless gore – courtesy of Tom Savini, who would 
go on to pave Jason’s streets with blood in the debut Friday the 13th film.
But there is a deeper social commentary that carries Dawn of the Dead above the splatter, with the seemingly sterile setting for the zombie army being chosen from “some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do; this was an important place in their lives.” When free will is destroyed, and a blinkered society is only driven by craven lust and insatiable hunger, our only place of refuge will be the world of consumerism. Or to bring it into more immediate terms, when the gates of hell open most of us will run to the Bull Ring.
Largely accredited with supporting the zombie sequel’s success, the original Goblin soundtrack cemented itself in the conscious of a global film audience – bringing a brooding futility to the plight of the film’s rooftop stranded protagonists. Not to mention an edge of menace the world’s slowest predator, dead or undead.
Having enjoyed previous success writing scores for Dario Argento, Goblin’s dark accompaniment to Dawn of the Dead would, however, mark the end of the band’s somewhat stellar soundtrack 
career. Although Goblin’s Dawn of the Dead score would leave a bloody mark on the cinema wall arguably comparable to that of Bernard Herrmann; a success that would bolster a generation of audio/visual nightmares from John Carpenter to Ennio Morricone, the latter having also cut his bloody cloth with Dario Argento.
Part of the original triptych, Claudio Simonetti founded Goblin along with Massimo Morante and Fabio Pignatelli during the release of their debut soundtrack for Argento’s 1975 film, Profondo Rosso.
Ditching their less gruesome moniker, Cherry Five, to clarify simultaneous releases between the two groups, Goblin was to be the ensemble’s biggest commercial success – selling over a million 
copies of the Profondo Rosso soundtrack worldwide.
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin is led by the Goblin founding member and musicians from his 1999 formed heavy metal group, Daemonia. Known for covering Goblin scores, alongside writing and performing their own original material, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin had previously cancelled their 2014 tour of Dawn of the Dead performances.
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin did perform on the opening day of the 2015 Lunar Festival, in June earlier this year.
And if you need a little more rotting meat on the bone, here’s our Graham with a quick reminder – introducing ‘the most intensely shocking motion picture for all time’:
On Thursday 29th October, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin will perform their score to Dawn of the Dead live, during a special screening of the zombie horror classic. For further details, visit http://www.theelectric.co.uk/programme.php?film=1255
For more on Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, https://www.facebook.com/Goblin-Claudio-Simonettis-608532229212354/
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For more from Lunar Festival, visit http://lunarfestival.co.uk/
For more from The Electric Cinema, visit https://www.theelectric.co.uk/
For more on Boxxed, visit http://www.boxxed.co.uk/
