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| Night of the Living Dead [30th Anniversary Edition] |
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"Yeah, theyre dead. Theyre all messed up. "
Once upon a time a young girl and her brother traveled three hours from home to place flowers on the grave of their father. The brother started teasing his sister, telling her in a creepy voice, "Theyre coming to get you, Barbara." The only thing was, they really were. Only they got him first.I first saw "Night of the Living Dead" when I came home one afternoon and discovered that the Iowa City Public Library Channel on cable was showing the film. I have to admit, I was rather surprised that this cult classic horror film would be on at a time when kids could come home and discover it on television (one of the living dead is naked and they do like to eat human flesh), but Iowa is a state that thinks caucuses are a good way of selecting presidential nominees, so what can I say? But this is a horror movie that is even scary in the daytime with all the lights on. "The Night of the Living Dead" is a horror classic, which is rather surprising when you take into account that director George A. Romero made the film in 1968 for $114,000 without a cast of first time actors (extras who playing the zombies were paid $1 and a t-shirt that said "I was a zombie on Night of the Living Dead"). Filmed in black and white with Romero as the cinematographer, this film has a technical proficiency that is missing from other low-budget classics like "Dementia 13" and "Carnival of Souls." You can take or leave the various sequels to this film, but this one has to be on everyone’s Top 10 list when it comes to horror films. The horror comes from the situation and the simple effectiveness of the slow moving, silent zombies in their growing numbers, their arms reaching out to find human flesh to eat. Barbara (Judith ODea) runs to an abandoned house, where she is joined by Ben (Duane Jones). After fending off the first attack of the living dead, they discover five more people hiding in the basement: Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), and their daughter (Kyra Schon), along with a young couple, Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley). Harry wants to hide out in the basement, but refuses to be trapped down there, and the two spend more time arguing about what to do than doing anything. They listen to the radio and watch the TV, learning that the dead are rising to eat the living, and try to figure out a way of getting out of the death trap in which they find themselves. Meanwhile, the little girl in the basement is getting weaker. The only real weakness in the film is the attempt to explain why the dead are walking around as flesh-eating ghouls (which is, I believe, redundant), which has something to do with a satellite and scientific mumbo-jumbo that really does not mean anything to the people trying to survive against the growing horde of zombies. Fortunately, the "why" does not matter in this story; just the "how" in terms of taking these creatures down. Besides, if anything clinches this one it is the end of the film, both with its final twist, and the use of grainy still photographs to show the end of the tale. Few horror movies, whatever their budgets, have an ending this memorable. Note: Avoid the colorized version. Avoid the expanded edition (necessitated somewhat by the fact the copyright on the original went public domain). Save the remake for sometime down the road. Stick to this original black & white classic.
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truly influential horror.
Ill never forget seeing "Night Of The Living Dead" for the first time, it delivered jolts all along the line. From the eerie opening scene in the graveyard when the zombie is sighted stumbling noiselessly through the headstones, to the claustrophobic scenes in the farmhouse, to the (much-copied) documentary-style newsroom scenes, this is first-class stuff, even if it was made on a shoestring budget. I find it hard to believe that anyone could not be unnerved by some of the dialogue used in the newsroom, because, far-fetched as the whole premise is, they make it seem so real! The remake in the early 1990s wasnt as bad as some would have you believe, but it simply lacked the full horror factor of the black-and-white low-budget original, and was nowhere near as good as "Dawn Of The Dead".
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George Romeros standard setter
George Romeros classic zombie shocker that set the standard for all horror movies that followed it.
Sharp picture and sound and a few extras thrown in {although if you dont want to see a short spoof of this film where loafs of bread attack people called Night of the Living Bread - dont check out the extras, me I found it quite amusing}.
George Romero uses every chance he gets to frighten and shock the audience in this claustrophobic tale, from the approaching first zombie who attacks brother and sister in the graveyard where they are visiting their mothers grave right up to the storys gripping conclusion.
As a film Night of the living dead still delivers the chills to your spine even though it was released around the same time man walked on the moon, the desperate plight of all in the farmhouse and the claustrophia that sets in when the zombies have completly surrounded the farmhouse keeps right on going until the ironic ending which stills seems fitting to the hopeless situation the story sets from the beginning.
Out of the three movies from the Dead Trilogy this is probably the best for one reason - there is no humour in it, just pure horror, although Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead are excellent movies in their own right and are also a must for any fan of horror movies.
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