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Night of the living dead
Directed by George A. Romero
Reviewed by Nick Burton
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Until George A. Romero’s 1968 independent classic, zombies in film were usually treated as manifestations of Haitian voodoo cults (see Victor Halperin’s incredibly evocative 1932 film White Zombie and Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s poetic 1943 re-working of Jayne Eyre, I Walked With A Zombie). With Romero’s Night, all the rules changed, and zombie mythology was re-invented. Still the lumbering undead, Romero’s zombies were now also vampire-like flesh eaters that could press you into their service with a quick bite. Night spawned a rash of like-minded zombie films, including such gore fests as Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (featuring a jaw dropping scene that pits an underwater zombie against a hungry shark!) and Romero’s own sequels, such as the apocalyptic zombie-mall-kill fest, Dawn of the Dead, a film that defies horror film conventions and ends up as a social satire par excellence. But it all starts with Night of the Living Dead. |
 Night of the living dead George A. Romero VHS Tape - $4.49 Rated - NR |
Ben does his best to board up the house and to keep an eye on the zombie count (which increases as the sun goes down), but no sooner has Ben calmed himself and Barbara down than five other people, who have been barricading themselves in the cellar, surface to see whats going on. Unfortunately, Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) is a hothead and a coward who seems more interested in saving his own hide than that of his wife Helen (Marilyn Eastman) and their little girl (Kyra Schon). Young Tom (Keith Wayne) and his wife Judy (Judith Ridley) side more with Ben, who feels they should make an effort to get out of the house, while Cooper votes for the cellar.
While Ben and Cooper jockey in their power struggle, the news reports over the radio and television get odder and odder. At first, they are incredulous reports about an outbreak of mass homicide in the Eastern U.S., but they soon become harrowing tales of the living dead coming back to life to eat the living. Read by a newscaster (Charles Craig) determined to be implacably professional at all costs, the newscasts are jaw-droppers. One report suggests that the best way to kill a zombie is by a bullet in the head. " The plan is," the newscaster says blankly, "kill the brain and you kill the ghoul." Cool! An interviewer questioning a sheriff heading a zombie kill posse asks if the ghouls are slow moving. "Yeah they’re dead," he replies "They’re all messed up."
Ultimately, Romero puts the zombie plague off on an exploded NASA Venus probe that has contaminated the atmosphere. While such an explanation points to Richard Matheson’s story "I Am Legend" and its vampire plague, Romero’s film still seems startlingly original. In Romero’s world, there is no salvation, no happy payoff for traditional heroics, and nothing happens the way you think it should. By the film’s still shockingly effective ending, you realize that not only has Romero re-written the book on zombies, he’s re-written the rules for the whole genre.
It remains a creepy film 30 years later; the black and white photography has more than its share of eerily poetic moments, as well as ghastly ones (the zombies feasting on the innards of Tom and Judy after a disastrous attempt to gas up a truck) and some moments of genuine, spine-freezing horror (little Kyra Schon wielding a garden trowel is unforgettable). The tape of this film I rented, from Elite/Anchor Bay, is nothing short of miraculous. If, like me, you are accustomed to old public domain prints of this film shown on television and at revival houses, this tape is a revelation. Made from a 35 mm negative, the film finally is rid of its blurry and grainy reputation. In truth, it’s a beautifully photographed film that has lost little of its power over the years.
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Nick Burton lives in Newport Beach, California. His fiction has appeared in many small press and web publications, including: Chronicles Of Fiction, Pauper, and of course Pif.