{"id":3989,"date":"2024-09-13T03:15:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T03:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3989"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:26:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:26:57","slug":"night-of-the-living-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/13\/night-of-the-living-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Night of the Living Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Night of the Living Dead <\/strong>(1968)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Walter Reade Organization\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, gruesome images, cannibalism, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Russo and George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: William Loose and Fred Steiner (stock recording)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1, 1968 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Duane Jones, Judith O\u2019Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon, Bill Hinzman, Russell Streiner, Charles Craig, George Kosana.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $12-$15M (US)\/$30M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Prior to George A. Romero\u2019s groundbreaking horror film Night of the Living Dead<\/strong>, zombies were ghouls of a different type. Typically, in movies like White Zombie (1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943), they were living beings under the influence of voodoo witch doctors. With Night of the Living Dead<\/strong>, Romero transformed them into reanimated flesh-eating cannibals thereby revolutionizing the horror genre. From then on, horror movies were never quite the same.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Made on a minuscule budget of $114,000, Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is a DIY (Do It Yourself) project. He and a couple of friends found investors, raised money and shot it themselves on 35mm black-and-white film in rural Butler County, PA (outside Pittsburgh). When they finally had a completed film in 1968, Romero literally threw the cans in the trunk of his car and drove straight to New York City in search of a theater willing to screen it that very night.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> was one of the last films released before the new MPAA ratings system went into effect. This meant that theater owners weren\u2019t legally obligated to deny admittance to children. If only they knew what was in the film. As was the norm for horror movies at the time, it was shown as a Saturday afternoon matinee feature. Parents dropped off their kids figuring it was just another silly horror movie with a crazy title. They had no idea the horrors their children were about to witness- i.e. violence, cannibalism and walking dead people. They were understandably outraged when they returned two hours later to find their kids crying or puking outside the theater. Naturally, shocked theater owners revised their admission policy once they actually viewed the movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story begins in a quiet rural cemetery where Barbara (O\u2019Dea) and her brother Johnny (Streiner) are visiting their father\u2019s grave. Johnny good-naturedly teases his sister about how scared she was of this place as a child.<\/p>\n

Johnny: \u201cThey\u2019re coming to get you, Barbara!\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbara: \u201cStop it! You\u2019re ignorant!\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnny: \u201cThey\u2019re coming for you, Barbara!\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbara: \u201cStop it! You\u2019re acting like a child!\u201d<\/p>\n

As they go to leave, a strange-looking old man (Hinzman) walking through the cemetery suddenly attacks Barbara. Johnny is killed when he tries to protect his sister. Barbara flees the scene on foot and ends up at a farmhouse where she finds the owner\u2019s mangled corpse lying at the top of the stairs. A few moments later, a black man named Ben (Jones) arrives on the scene and barricades them inside the house as it becomes surrounded by \u201cghouls\u201d (as they\u2019re known here). He boards up the doors and windows as Barbara descends into a catatonic state.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They\u2019re not alone in the house. A man named Harry (Hardman) emerges from the basement. He\u2019s been down there the whole time with his wife Helen (Eastman) and injured daughter Karen (Schon) who was bitten by one of the ghouls. There\u2019s a young couple, Tom (Wayne) and Judy (Ridley), hiding down there as well. Harry insists that the basement is the safest place to take refuge from the attacking creatures while Ben says they should stay upstairs where they can escape if necessary. If they want to make it through the night alive, they\u2019re going to have to work together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Since Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is more than 50 years old, it\u2019s a safe bet everybody and their brother has seen it by now so I\u2019m not going to worry about spoilers. NOBODY survives the night. All the major characters die by the end, but the one death that sticks with most people in Ben\u2019s. As the hero of the story, he\u2019s expected to make it out alive especially after all he\u2019s been through. Nope! Mistaking him for a ghoul, a member of the posse hunting and killing ghouls shots him in the head (the only way to kill one of the ghouls). It\u2019s a harsh ending, but it\u2019s the only one that makes sense. Romero himself said that he couldn\u2019t imagine a happy ending. His refusal to change it cost him distribution deals with major studios so he released it independently. I\u2019m glad he stuck to his guns. Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is, after all, about a zombie apocalypse. There are no happy endings in an apocalypse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0With the recent passing of Mr. Romero, I revisited the original Dead trilogy starting, of course, with Night of the Living Dead<\/strong>, rightfully regarded as a classic of the horror genre. It\u2019s amazing what can be accomplished with a small budget and a crew of amateurs. It\u2019s Romero\u2019s first feature film and one of the strongest debuts I\u2019ve ever seen. It\u2019s also one of the first horror movies to feature graphic violence and gore (aside from Herschell Gordon Lewis\u2019 splatter flicks, of course). Romero used Bosco chocolate syrup to simulate blood and roasted ham for flesh in the \u201cchomp, chomp\u201d scenes. It sure looks freaky real in a black-and-white flick. The makeup effects are also terrific. Since there wasn\u2019t enough money in the budget for elaborate decaying effects, only the recently deceased come back to life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The storyline is simply great! Seven people trapped in a house by cannibalistic zombies, the idea alone gives me the heebie-jeebies. I love how Romero completely changed our perception of zombies (a term never<\/em> used in the movie). To me, a zombie is a slow-moving reanimated corpse that feeds on the flesh of the living. When somebody gets bitten by a zombie, they become one. Zombies can only be killed by destroying the brain either by gunshot or bludgeoning. They\u2019re afraid of fire. All of this came from Romero\u2019s imagination. All I can say is \u201cCool!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is fairly good for a low-budget horror flick. Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is one of the first films to feature a black hero in an all-white cast. Jones does an amazing job as Ben. Originally, the character was supposed to be an uneducated truck driver. Jones, then an unknown stage actor, rewrote it to reflect how he felt the character should be portrayed. As an educated black man, he felt Ben should exhibit the same values. O\u2019Dea is also good as Barbara, but there\u2019s always been debate (especially among feminists) about her character being portrayed as a frightened, helpless girl. I argue that in times of crisis, everybody reacts differently. Barbara was terrified. Moreover, she saw her brother killed. Wouldn\u2019t you be traumatized if that happened to you? The rest of the performances are passable for the most part even though some of the line readings are a bit stiff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The score in Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> isn\u2019t entirely original. Much of it was borrowed from the low-budget 1959 sci-fi flick Teenagers from Outer Space. Stock music from The Hideous Sun Demon (1959) is also used. Romero makes great use of sound in several scenes, namely when Karen kills her mother with a garden trowel after transforming into a ghoul. Eastman\u2019s screams are looped in over shots of the child repeatedly stabbing her mom. That still freaks me out. In the end, Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> plays like a nightmare. It ends with a series of still shots of ghouls\u2019 corpses being piled up and set on fire. Ben\u2019s body is among them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s a reason why Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is still remembered. It\u2019s legitimately scary. It really is like a nightmare. I can see why the kiddie matinee audiences were so freaked out. Some will argue that it\u2019s tame by today\u2019s standards and while that may be true to some extent, it doesn\u2019t diminish the movie\u2019s power to frighten. Romero\u2019s movie really struck a nerve with viewers. Some see it as a critique of America in the 60s with its Cold War politics, racism and our involvement in the Vietnam War. I\u2019ll agree that Night of the Living Dead<\/strong> is pretty subversive. It\u2019s definitely nihilistic. However one chooses to interpret it, there\u2019s no arguing that it\u2019s a damn good scary movie. Isn\u2019t that what really matters?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Night of the Living Dead (1968)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Walter Reade Organization\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, gruesome images, cannibalism, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Russo and George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: William Loose and Fred Steiner (stock recording)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: George A. Romero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1, 1968 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Duane Jones, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-these-are-some-classic-flicks","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Night-of-the-Living-Dead-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5129,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions\/5129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}