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Directed By
George A. Romero
Written By:
John A. Russo, George A. Romero
Cast:
Duane Jones, Russell Streiner, John A. Russo, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon, George A. Romero, John Simpson, Bill Chilly, Billy Cardille, Bill Hinzman, John Simpson, Vincent Survinski
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
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Movie Review by Veronica 
February 9th, 2009
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Mine and the worlds' first zombie movie
So I don't normally like scary movies because I'm still capable of getting scared at the movies. I actually turned off the movie Scream when I watched it for the first time. Embarassing, I know. I loved this movie! I also loved the fact that my first real zombie movie was the worlds' first real zombie movie. When I saw the trailers for the "___ of the dead" remakes they looked stupid, scary and I was into stupid high school dramas then.
In college I began to garner a real appreciation for black and white movies, mostly motivated by my love of Casablanca. That's the first thing I noticed and loved about this film. It had been over a year since I had seen a b/w movie and I had forgotten how much I loved them and what made them so special for me. In the first few minutes, I remembered it all.
The first 30 minutes of the film had very little dialogue but was not only so moving, but also expressed so much through pure artistic cinematography. So much can be accomplished by things like shadows moving along the walls, eerie music and staging.
The film begins with a pair of siblings traveling over 3 hours to lay a wreath at their fathers' grave. As they are returning to their car, the brother begins teasing his sister, Barbara, claiming that a strange man at the far end of the cemetary was "coming to get her". As the sister approaches the man to apologize for her brothers' rudeness, the man grabs at her; her brother lunges into action protecting her, and hitting his head on a gravestone, perishes.
Barbara tries to escape in the car, but since her brother had the keys she rolls down a hill until she crashes, and runs into the woods, finally finding a seemingly abandoned house. She hides in there and soon another man, Ben, runs towards the house also trying to find refuge. She is in shock at having seen a partially devoured dead person at the top of the stairs and the man begins to board the house alone. Soon they discover that there was a cellar attached to the house where others were hiding.
After a debate and altercation as to whether it was safer to hide in the house or the cellar, they begin to formulate a plan to refuel the abandoned vehicle Ben had found. During their attempt to get to the gas pump to refuel the vehicle, the truck ignites and Tom and Judy, two of the people who had been hiding in the cellar, die. Ben makes it back to the house but Harry (the man who had disagreed earlier on the best place to hide) locks him out. He finally regains entry and begins to formulate a new plan.
During this whole debacle they are listening to the radio and subsequently watching the television for reports. The television reports that the recently dead who have come back to life can only be killed by a shot to the head or incineration. Since Harry's daughter expired, she came back as a zombie and attacked her father, then her mother, who had entered the cellar, also fell victim to her daughter. Now only Barbara and Ben remained, attempting to keep the now hundreds of zombies from invading the home.
Upon breeching the home, one of the first Zombies in is Barbaras' brother. Her mentally unstable state caused her to believe that he was still well and could help her and she ran to him for help. He of course pulled her out into the swarm of zombies and she became a feast for the waiting crowd. Ben sought refuge in the cellar and was able to hide there until the rescue party reached him.
As they approached the house the rescuers shot all the zombies in the field and upon arrival at the home, saw Ben inside and shot him once through the forehead.
I'm still not certain on my feelings on the end of the movie. It's age allows it to defy the now customary standards that good must always prevail. Although good does prevail in this movie (the zombies representing the bad in this case) it is still unsettling that Ben, the only survivor that we have come to admire, perishes.
And although this movie is not meant to be a jumpy frightening movie, but rather cause an unsettling emotion in the viewer that can later be perpetuated; there was a scene where Ben and the other men travel from one area of the house to the next to continue securing it and a pair of zombie hands come through the window and boards. I not only physically jumped in my seat but actually screamed "ahh" and was quite amused that despite its lack of intention to do so, it caused me to become instantly frightened.
All in all this movie definately accomplished what it aimed to do and in a very novel and artistic manner.
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 | Tim
Feb 9, 2009 5:56 PM
also wrote a review of Night of the Living Dead 
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| Its weird to me because I have not watched this film in a long time and had forgotten how different "zombies" were when they first were portrayed on film. So slow...so dumb... now they are totally different. I cant wait for you to see more ..... |
 | CowboyJunkie
Feb 9, 2009 7:27 PM
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So - Do you think that the shooting, at the end of this flick, of the only black actor/character in this entire flick (and he wasn't a zombie), was a clear statement of racial prejudice back in the 60's?
I do. I believe that if he were white, Director Romero would've never killed him off. |
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Feb 9, 2009 10:46 PM
Feb 10, 2009 9:06 PM
Feb 12, 2009 1:19 AM
Thanks for your input to my question about possible racial prejudice in this flick.
Feb 14, 2009 9:49 AM