Movie Review: Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Now I realize this isn’t in the Monster Mania lineup and that’s for one basic reason: this movie includes multiple monsters. Plural. Generally, the point of the Monster Mania is be focused around one central monster in a movie, or any other form of media. This movie is singular in the fact that it ushered in the entire zombie genre single-handedly and brought about the desensitization of gore and other morbid factors. It featured one of the earlier instances of an African-American protagonist, the plot was mentioned left and right by critics and fans alike about how quickly it moved and how the first zombie was presented within minutes. Did I mention the gore and such already? It freaked out to many people at the time that it’s hard to think, in today’s standard, just how they did this till you watch it yourself. It was before the rating system so the accessibility was virtually there for everyone. Even little kids were going to see it with their parents expecting basic, down the middle William Castle style horror, but instead received pure terror. Reports from theaters had stated multiple full-houses frozen in pure, solid suspense. It was George A. Romero’s first, and his best. He started a genre and made a staunch example of it right off the bat.
This one is for you, George.
Now there always seems to be some, new additions to every growing legacy of the information and backstory that surrounds this movie so I’ll try to keep to the most basic facts as possible.
Released in 1968 just before the implementation of the Film Rating System, it was able to be viewed by a much younger audience during a matinee showing.
Purposely filmed in black and white although the ability of color was readily available.
The movie was an independent release with a budget of $114,000, but is known for having grossed more than 150 times it budget amount, around $30 Million international.
The directorial film debut for George A. Romero, it helped spawn the Living Dead film series that included, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead.
Selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry, showing again the horror can remain a cinematic mainstay, leading to a prominent legacy that’s still ever present to this day.
Considered also to be one of the goriest movies of its time, it featured many scenes of graphic and intense murder, death, devouring and straight up group eatings.
The film opens to a pan shot of a cemetery in the signature black and white all the while a Pontiac climbs the gravel pathway into the cemetery. This establishes the basis to the settings and atmosphere for the rest of the movie, the camera movement, the shots through the gravestones.
When the car parks, Johnny, and his sister, Barbra get out of the car carrying a bundle of flowers and speaking of their mother’s insistence of them to drive many hours out of the way just to deliver flowers and then immediately drive home.
While teasing Barbra about a childhood memory, Johnny jokingly references to Barbra that a nearby man is “coming to get her” only to have the man approach and attack her. This is the epitome scene for the whole movie. Demonstrating how the story moved within mere minutes of it starting, almost halfway starting. You kind of don’t realize that it begins when it does.
While trying to save Barbra, Johnny pulls the zombie off of her but during the struggle, Johnny gets knocked, head first, into a gravestone, killing him. The zombie then gets up and keeps going after Barbra. (The pic directly above this one is the zombie looking up at Barbra after killing Johnny)
Barbra manages to escape and run to the car and lock the doors. The zombie is intent, persistent and fiendishly brash, slamming his fists wildly against the windows before smashing it with a rock and reaching in, leading to Barbra running out of the car.
She runs towards a nearby house and runs inside. While exploring the home, she discovers a severely eaten body at the top of the stairs and, while in shock, runs back outside only to be confronted by more zombies. Ben (portrayed by Duane Jones in a peculiar act of casting, as one of the earliest African-American protagonists in American Film history) arrives at the house and, with his help, Barbra is able to get back inside and away from the other zombies.
While inside, Ben attempts to speak to Barbra but doesn’t get many answers due to her slowly going into shock and stupor. He begins to board up the windows when he finds a married couple, Harry and Helen and their daughter, Karen in the cellar having escaped there when the zombies had overturned their vehicle earlier.
After hearing an emergency broadcast reporting a mass of brutal murders in the area, a teenage couple of Tom and Judy arrive at the house as well.
This begins a somewhat, two-sided grouping amongst the survivors, when Harry suggests that everyone head to the cellar but Ben deems it a deathtrap and finishes boarding up the house with Tom.
Ben eventually finds a TV and they watch a broadcast reporting the string of murders all over the nation and that Government officials aren’t very sure of the cause, but believe the strongest theory is that a recent Venus probe that returned into the atmosphere and detonated, releasing nuclear radiation, is most likely what happened.
Ben decides that they need to get medical supplies for Karen, whose condition is worsening. He and Tom take Ben’s truck and head to a nearby fuel pump and refuel the truck, while Judy follows, worried about Tom. Tom accidentally spreads fuel all over the truck and sets the pump ablaze. While attempting to drive away, the truck explodes, killing Tom and Judy. They’re remains are immediately surrounded and devoured by the zombies.
Ben runs back to the house but finds that Harry has locked the door and isn’t going to let him back in. He eventually finds his way back in and beats Harry for locking him out.
They catch another emergency broadcast stating that only a shot or heavy blow to the head can kill the zombies and that there are groups of survivors patrolling nearby areas killing zombies. Harry gets the gun from Ben when the lights go out and the zombies begin to break through the barricades, but Ben manages to get the gun back and shoot Harry, resulting in him wandering down to the cellar and collapsing next to Karen, who is now dead from her conditions.
Barbra, after recognizing Johnny in the group of zombies, attempts to speak to him but winds up getting pulled into the group and eaten.
Helen stumbles to the cellar during the confusion and finds Karen eating Harry, which frightens and shocks her. Karen stabs Helen multiple times with a trowel, killing her.
Karen attempts to go after Ben but is fought off, and Ben runs down to the cellar where Harry and Helen are reanimating into zombies only to be easily taken out by Ben and his rifle.
Ben eventually gets some sleep but when he awakens, its the patrolling survivors, but they mistake Ben for a zombies and shoot him in the head. The survivors take all the zombies and burn them in the yard.
There’s so much about Night of the Living Dead that makes it such a great movie. The legacy that its left behind for all these decades has been staggering. In just shy of 5 decades, we’ve had literally thousands of movies made in the same vein as Night of the Living Dead that would never have existed in any way, if not for Night of the Living Dead. This movie quite literally made a genre. There were arguably zombie movies before Night of the Living Dead but nothing was taken to the same level as Night. Its like with Bela Lugosi and Dracula: Yeah hes the best Dracula and such, but the terror behind Dracula and the whole atmosphere of him had developed for many years before Lugosi’s transcending performance. With Night of the Living Dead, there wasn’t really a pre existing atmosphere that revolved around Zombie movies. No certain cliches or characteristics, necessarily, that were staunchly needed to follow. This gave writers George A. Romero and John Russo a lot of breathing room in terms of creating this movie and they wound up creating the archetype for an entire horror movie genre, and easily the most popular and highest incomed. It might not have massive, lavish sets, or multiple settings but it still worked with what it felt it had to work with: a cemetery. Is there anything else you need for a movie about the dead rising? I also need to remind that this was an independent movie on top of it, that makes the artistic scale of this move a little more.
One of my absolute favorite movies and one of the cinematic masterpieces recognized forever. A pioneer to its craft and the father of a still-growing franchise.
