Franchises: Romero's Dead Series. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

For my first review, I figured I'd start with a true classic of the horror genre, one that, as a fan, I would always hear about, especially when I began going through the various "big" films of the genre. I never really saw Night of the Living Dead for the first time until I was well in my teens, which is amazing considering how readily available the film is due to its public domain status. However, before I really saw it for the first time, I did happen to catch a bit of it on a cable movie channel one morning before school (high school, that is), although, as I learned later, what I saw was the awful 30th anniversary edition, where new scenes were spliced into the film, scenes that don't hold up next to or match the original footage at all. Not knowing this piece of information, though, I think it's needless to say that, when I finally saw the whole film years later, I couldn't figure why some scenes that I'd caught that first time appeared to be missing. Regardless, when I finally saw the film from beginning to end, I was absolutely blown away by it. The bleak atmosphere and almost humorless tone really impressed me, as well as the fact that, even though the film was black and white and looked like one of the old 1930's films, it had rather graphic violence and some instances of swearing. The opening in the cemetery surprised me because of how the main plot suddenly starts with no explanation as to what's happening: you're going along like normal, watching this brother and sister visit their father's grave, when suddenly a zombie (or ghoul, as they're called in the film), which you saw in the distance before and didn't think anything about, comes out of nowhere, attacks and kills Johnny (Russ Streiner), and then gets after Barbra (Judith O'Dea). That's one way to establish a mood and tone.

As anybody who's a fan of the genre knows, George Romero created this masterpiece in the tumultuous year of 1968, with money he cobbled together from friends and from his own little production company, which he'd co-founded along with Streiner and John Russo, the latter of whom would co-write the film with him, in order to make commercials and industrial films. The reason the movie came about was simply because they grew tired of doing commercials and decided that they wanted to make a horror film, which they felt the film industry was hungry for. From that notion and the way he and everyone else pressed on with filming for six months, despite the difficulties they ran into due to the very small budget and what they had to work with at their location, it's small wonder why Romero is such an inspiration to aspiring directors. He's truly the model of an independent filmmaker, a guy who just goes out and makes his movies, in spit of the obstacles he runs into, and it paid off big time with this movie as it's what launched his career and placed him in the pantheon of true masters of horror.

One of the remarkable things about the movie is the use of its claustrophobic location. The whole thing takes place inside one small farmhouse that the characters have to barricade themselves inside and then fight off the zombies as long as they can. You'd think it would become boring since it's so isolated and cooped up, but the way Romero paces the film and never lets the tension die down keeps you interested. Not only is it the constant attacks by the zombies that gives the film its tension but also just the simple fear of being trapped in that farmhouse and waiting for help to come, if any, a feeling that is compounded when they hear on the radio and TV that what they're going through is one small part of something that's happening all over the country, and perhaps the entire world. It gives you a major feeling of doom and hopelessness, that there's no way to survive, even if you make it to dawn. I have a feeling that, if I was in that situation, I'd probably just give up and blow my brains out!

The zombies themselves are nothing special: just a bunch of fairly normal-looking people, some of them nude, walking around slowly and coming across as pretty weak. You could easily get away from them by just running, something that's expounded upon in the remake, which means that their power is in their numbers, as you come to realize as more and more gather outside the house. There are some zombies that are memorable in their own ways, particularly the first one who kills Johnny (Bill Hinzman) and when little Karen Cooper becomes one, but for the most part, they all blend together. Given the low budget and the fact that it was made in the 60's, they really couldn't afford to or even had the means to create very convincing makeup effects, especially since this was before Tom Savini began working with Romero (although, you do get some occasionally fairly effective makeup effects, like the stitches and rotting flesh on one zombie's face and the half-eaten woman Barbra and Ben find atop the stairs), but that really wasn't the point of the film. The characters and the atmosphere were what counted.

Speaking of which, I like the characters overall as well, with my favorite, of course, being Ben, played very well by Duane Jones. He's a guy who we learn virtually nothing about, save for his first name (his last name is never revealed), but it doesn't matter, because he just comes in, takes charge, comes up with different ways to deal with the zombies, and, overall, looks out for everybody. He's the kind of leader you'd want in a situation like that. The other most memorable cast member is the resident asshole, Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman). This guy is just a dickhead, one who absolutely refuses to listen to anyone, will only follow his own ideas while criticizing everyone else's, and tries to force his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), to go along with his ideas. He really proves himself to be a bastard when he won't let Ben back into the house after their escape goes up in flames and later on when he grabs ahold of Ben's gun and threatens to shoot him, which results in him ultimately getting shot when Ben gets it back. Ironically, though, his constant assertion that the cellar is the safest place turns out to be right when Ben ultimately barricades himself down there when everybody else is dead and is able to survive the night that way. Speaking of Helen, she's definitely a lot more reasonable than her husband, whom she all but admits she despises (a feeling that's clearly mutual), and does what she can to try to help with the situation. The one thing she and her husband agree on is that they care about their daughter, Karen (Kyra Schon), who remains in the cellar the entire film due to a bite she received from one of the zombies, which ultimately turns her into one at the end, leading her to munch on her father's dead body and to kill her mother with a trowel in order to do the same to her.

If I have one big complaint about the film, it would have to be the character of Barbra. I know it was typical of the time for women to react this way in movies but, while I think she's okay at the beginning, once she sinks into catatonia, I find her to be more than a little annoying, doing nothing but sitting and moaning, as well as acting like a delirious child a few times throughout the course of the film. She finally snaps out of it near the end but, by that time, it's too late. Judith O'Dea has tried to explain her character's actions by saying that, after what happened to her, she had to go to another place and think about what to do, or something like that, which I don't buy at all She seems like a nice person but honestly, when she talks about it, it seems like she's trying to put in a lot of subtext that's not there and make up for the fact that she doesn't do much in the film.

The characters in this film who feel the most typical, coming across like those you'd see in a 50's monster movie, are the teenage couple, Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley). There's not much to their characters and neither one of them are the best actors but they're still worth mentioning, especially Tom, who comes across like a nice guy who'll do anything he can to help. He tries to act as the mediator between Ben and Cooper, attempting to get them both on the same page, but when it becomes clear that Cooper isn't willing to listen, he then tries to do anything he can to help Ben, including helping him refuel his truck so they can get to a nearby rescue center. There isn't much to say about Judy, as she's little more than the typical worrying girlfriend who doesn't want her boyfriend to go outside where it's dangerous and ultimately proves to be a hindrance when she heads out after him to try to help. In fact, they both end up ruining this chance to escape, as Tom spills gasoline on Ben's torch, which sets the truck on fire, and when Judy tries to get out, her jacket gets caught on the door handle behind her, forcing Tom to help her and resulting in them both getting killed when the truck explodes. Their remains are immediately eaten by the zombies afterward.

Other memorable characters in the cast include producer Russ Streiner's brief but memorable performance as Johnny, Barbra's teasing and fairly cynical brother. Long before I saw the movie, I knew of his line, "They're coming to get you, Barbra," as well as the exchanges between the two of them afterward, because of the clip that was playing on the television in Halloween II. The fact that he dies so early on, as well as that he reappears as a zombie at the very end, is another way this movie broke the established rules of the genre at the time because, before then, he would have ended up being the movie's lead and the take charge hero. In fact, if this had been made by anyone else at any other time, he would have probably been Barbra's boyfriend rather than her brother, further cementing the need for him to be the star. After him and everyone else, the remaining two characters worth mentioning are Sheriff McClelland (George Kosana) and the reporter who interviews him near the end (Bill Cardille). The latter is notable mainly because he's played by a local horror host who was quite popular in Pittsburgh at that time and whose daughter would go on to star in Day of the Dead; the character himself, though, is pretty straightforward as a reporter who's just doing his job. McClelland, however, is much more memorable, one for his lines, "Yeah, they're dead. They're... all messed up," and, "That's another one for the fire," as well as for his gun-ho attitude in taking out the zombies with his posse, which, as effective as it appears to be, ultimately results in Ben getting killed and burnt on a bonfire with a bunch of other corpses. And after this example of how trigger-happy they are, you can't help but wonder if that was the only mistake like that they did make.

Going back to the idea of subtext, there is, of course, the perceived political statement that many feel the film is making, which, given that it was made at such a turbulent time in American history and had a black actor in the lead, it's understandable how that notion comes about. Some have seen the shooting death of Ben at the end as a reflection of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, both of which were fresh in the minds of Americans at the time, and others have pointed to the fact that he's killed by a group of rednecks rather than the zombies, the main threat of the film, as another example of a political statement. In fact, Romero himself often likes to tell the story about how after they had finished the film and were driving it up to Pittsburgh to see if anyone would show it when they heard on the radio that King had been assassinated. Romero has said that no political subtext was intended and viewers just sort of found it after the fact, although he has admitted that the film was meant to represent the extreme tensions of the time and, indeed, some have drawn parallels between it and the situation in Vietnam (those shots with helicopters flying over the zombies as they're gunned down in fields do bring to mind war footage from over there) as well as the disillusionment with government and the media. Myself, I do see something in how the characters won't stop fighting and that, if they would just work together, they could overcome what's happening. But, when people go into deeper detail about the meanings of the film, I don't be begrudge them about it but I do personally think they're looking a little too much into it. At the end of the day, Romero and company just wanted to make a little horror film that would get their foot in the door. Romero would, however, begin to purposely put political statements and social satire into his films afterward, which I think would eventually hurt his later movies but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

As Romero would continue to do for many of his early films, the score for the film is composed of a bunch of library music from various sources and it's pretty obvious given how the music often differs in style from moment to moment. As a result, the music has always been a little hit and miss for me. I do think the eerie piece during the opening (which was taken from an episode of Ben Casey), the music that plays during the attack in the cemetery and the zombie chasing Barbra down the road (from The Hideous Sun Demon), and some unsettling, atmospheric music in the house that gives a sense of doom and that things are only going to get worse as the night goes on, are all very effective and fit the film. I also like this loud, low-pitched music sting that you start hearing near the end of the film when the lights go out and when Cooper and Helen become zombies, a nasty-sounding piece when the zombies are eating Tom and Judy's burnt remains, and the freakish music during the ending credits as Ben's body is carried outside and burned, which hammers home the nihilistic, hopeless feel of it all. However, other pieces of music, most of which come from the movie, Teenagers from Outer Space, are a little too overdone and bombastic and really feel like they don't fit. It also doesn't help that you can really tell that it wasn't composed specifically for the film.

In my opinion, Night of the Living Dead is one of the best horror films ever made, one that I think I would even put in my top 100 or so films of all time, not just horror films. Despite a couple of faults, like the character of Barbra and some of the pieces of music not feeling right, I have no problems with it: it's creepy, well directed and paced, well acted, and, ultimately, created a whole new subgenre. There'd been zombie movies before (White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie being the most well known) but this pretty much created the flesh-eating ones that we know today. Romero is very modest and doesn't think this film is anything special (he even seems to not like to talk about it since he and the entire crew would get screwed out of royalties when they made the copyright mistake that plunged the film into public domain) but he really should be proud of this film. Not every director can say that they have a real milestone on their track record.