Review #140: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Cast/Notable Credits:
George Romero (Director)
Duane Jones (Ben)
Judith O’Dea (Barbara)
Karl Hardman (Harry Cooper)
Marilyn Eastman (Helen Cooper)
Keith Wayne (Tom)
Judith Ridley (Judy)

Trailer:

Plot:

“They’re coming to get you, Barbra!”

Yes, they are coming to get you…and you…and you, because that’s what zombies do. We have to thank George Romero for that. Romero brought us the world of zombies (or at least popularized them in the way we know them) in his black and white 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead.

Night of the Living Dead is the movie that created a whole new genre in the horror industry. There are slasher movies, there are suspense movies, there are monster movies, and then there are zombie movies. So how did it all start?

Two siblings (Barbra and Johnny) visiting their father’s grave at a rural Pennsylvania cemetery come across an unusual being…a zombie. But they don’t know that yet. A pale faced man appearing to be human is also wondering around in the cemetery, but then he quickly attacks Barbra. Johnny comes to her aide and fights with the man. After a struggle, Johnny falls on the corner of a gravestone knocking him dead…or unconscious. Barbra flees the graveyard towards Johnny’s car.

Unable to start the car (no keys), she knocks it out of gear and the cars coasts downhill, out of the cemetery and into a tree. Women drivers! Just kidding:) Barbra abandons the car and heads toward a nearby farmhouse. She finds the house empty (outside a few corpses) and takes refuge as other pale faced beings (zombies) become attracted to the house and gather outside. They have only one thing on their mind: human flesh…Barbra.

A little bit later, a pickup truck arrives at the house and its occupant, Ben, emerges from it and fights off zombies while making his way to the house. Ben and Barbra boards up the house and barricades themselves in as more and more zombies gather outside of the house. Speaking of boarding up houses, I always love seeing this in movies. Whoever boards up doors and windows has no sense when it comes to wood shop.

To say the least, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and Bob Villa would be disappointed in Ben’s job of boarding up the house. The job looked something like a project a retard that would have done if given a box of Lincoln Logs. “Ah…let’s put a board here and…here. That would look purty. Maybe another one here.” No wonder the zombies always burst through at the end.

Barbra has a hysterical breakdown and gets knocked the “F” out by Ben. Ben then finds the radio and they listen to the radio for updates on this anomaly. The radio reports explain as best as they can what is happening, but just like the media, they have no idea what’s going on. Apparently similar events have been occurring around the east coast.

Pretty soon afterwards, an additional group of survivors emerge from the house’s cellar. The group includes Mr. & Mrs. Cooper and their daughter, Karen and a teenage couple, Tom and Judy. All of them had come to the farmhouse to hide. Each had their own separate stories on how they came to be. Karen was bitten by one of the attackers earlier and has fallen ill as she lays sick on a table in the cellar. My gut feeling says that she isn’t gonna make it.

Ben finds a television upstairs and with the help of Tom, they drag it down stairs and get it working. Mess with the rabbit ears! Wow…rabbit ears. And we’re just a few months away from having completely digital T.V.

The survivors huddle around the television listening to reports on what is going on. I guess we learned early on that T.V. has ALL the answers. I can’t wait until we find a horror movie based on the internet! Wait a second…hmm…I think they did do one…I think it was the Mangler 2 or 3. Whatever.

The T.V. reports explain that the deceased have been coming back to life and feeding upon the flesh of the living. T.V. and radio reports refer to the dead as “ghouls” and reports that the epidemic has engulfed most of the eastern seaboard and other parts of the U.S. The first initial case may have stemmed from an incident two days earlier in Texas.

Scientific experts believe the reanimation of corpses are stemming from radiation brought back from a recent space probe returning from Venus. Not Mars…for once. Or Uranus. He he. But Venus. Isn’t Venus the Greek God of beauty?

The scientists have figured it out that a heavy blow or gunshot to the head will kill a ghoul (zombie). The T.V. also reports that local “rescue stations” have been set up for survivors, and groups of posses are patrolling the countryside hunting down the ghouls (zombies).

With zombies knocking on the doors and windows, the group faces the dilemma of their next course of action…run, hide, or die.

Villain:

Zombie…zombies…zombies! Or ghouls…ghouls…ghouls! Okay, I’m going to stop calling them that. Zombie…zombies…zombies! One of the best villains ever! The more the merrier! Night of the Living Dead kicked off a new era in villains by creating a villain out of something that is already dead. How do you kill something that is already dead? Shoot em’ in the head…of course.

So what is a zombie? Many films have their own version or take of what a zombie is, but the most common denominator is that a zombie is a dead person brought back to life with the craving of flesh. Once bitten by a zombie, there is only one path to go down…turning into a zombie. The zombie “virus” is transmitted through bites (at least in 99% of cases in movies) from zombies to living beings.

Zombies typically display no intelligence (though some cases incorporate this at a low level) as they live to fulfill one purpose…to eat off of living flesh. Perhaps this is because the human brain has decayed and is only restricted to motor functions. In most cases, zombies don’t talk, but if they do, it usually mutters, “BRAINS”. I don't know about you, but that doesn't look very appetizing to me.

Outside of philosophical differences on what a zombie can or cannot do, the biggest discrepancy is in the zombie’s speed. For years, it has been understood that a zombie is a slow, lumbering dead corpse. A zombie would typically sneak up on someone or use mass numbers to overwhelm people. It was not typically quick until recent years.

The zombies in Night of the Living Dead are the typical slow moving, flesh craving dead person. Although I do want to point out that the first zombie in the film (one in the cemetery) moved pretty quick despite the myths and typecasts of Romero’s zombies.

Cast:

Duane Jones (Ben) leads the cast of relatively unknowns in this independent film. Jones also has the distinction to be the first African American to have a starring role in a horror film. For me, Ben is one of the two only likeable characters in the film. Ben is smart and quick to take charge in his fight for survival…and he’s got a mean right hook! Ben knocks two dumb *ss, bickering mother f*ckers out! Ben don’t stand for any sh*t!

One of the characters that I hated the most was…drum roll…Barbra. Yeah that’s right. The main b*tch. Judith O’Dea plays the character Barbra. Let me say, “Oh my God. She was annoying as hell.” Whine, cry and sniffle. Boo hoo. Barbra has a meltdown thirty minutes into the film and takes a Ben right hook and she’s done. She goes into some catatonic state and says like ten words after that. That part was pretty cool. She wasn’t the typical heroine that you would expect in a horror movie.

Karl Hardman plays Harry Cooper, a.k.a. the Dick of the bunch. From the get-go he clearly is the village idiot craving power. Harry’s a control freak, but yet he hasn’t got the balls to do anything. Always with him is a pessimistic view and no real game plan for survival. Harry appears afraid of the black man as he constantly battles Ben’s ideas and eventually gives way to him. Also a victim of Ben’s right hook. It was like a game of Tyson's "Punch Out".

The last character of any real significant value is Tom, played by Keith Wayne. Tom is a young naïve teenager who means good will, but is a “tool” in the end. His dialect in the movie makes him sound like a character straight out of the Leave It To Beaver show. “Golly. Swell. That would be super!” Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating…or not.

SFX/Gore:

Night of the Living Dead was made back in the mid 60’s, so what do you expect in this category? The film is in Black & White, which has its own classic eerie feel to it. Chocolate syrup was used as a substitute for fake blood. That’s awesome! By the way, the kid in the photo looks like my cousin's third grade photo. Maybe he was a zombie. As you can tell, the effects are pretty primitive, but it doesn’t mean the film held back in not being disgusting.

Most of the film’s budget was probably blown on the effects during the daring…yet laughable…escape attempt by Tom and Judy. Now I hate to bash a classic film, but this series of events are just too incredibly silly to watch.

During this sequence, the plan for the bunch is to take a pickup truck (already low on gas) and fill it up with gas so the survivors can drive to the nearest town (rescue station). There is a gasoline pump at the barn of the farmhouse, but it was locked. Tom finds a set of keys in the cellar of the house, and they believe that they unlock the gas pump.

Ben and Tom decided to make a daring rush through the zombies outside and make a break for the pickup and then barn. At this point in the film, they have already figured out that zombies hate fire or bright light. So Ben equips himself with a rifle and a fire torch as he and Tom breaks for the pickup. At the last second, Judy decides to go with them. Ah. Young lovers.

Tom and Judy gets in the pickup as Ben fights off some zombies and hops in the back of the pickup and they make the short drive over to the gas pump. This is where things get kind of comical. Tom fiddles around with the keys to the lock and eventually gives up, the key doesn’t work.

Ben comes in and sets the torch on the ground by the truck, pushes Tom aside and shoots the padlock with the rifle. Timeout. Are you f*ckin’ kidding me? You’re gonna shoot at a padlock protecting a gas pump with the hopes of blowing off the lock. Really? I get paranoid about the whole static shock thing every time I go and fill up with gas, and this guy is taking a shot at a f*ckin’ gas pump with a rifle!

On to dumb *ss move #2. Ben has just set a FLAMING torch down on the ground in between the pump and truck. This guy’s asking for it. Okay, a miracle happens and Ben shoots off the padlock cleanly in the first shot. Tom then grabs the nozzle and flings it and the gas around like a garden hose watering plants.

Guess what happens next? You got it. You don’t have to be a chemistry major to figure out that gas and fire equals bad. Tom’s gas pump watering show and Ben’s brilliant idea of leaving a torch next to the pickup truck leads to the truck catching on fire.

What’s the next logical thing to do? If you answered hop back in the burning truck with your girlfriend still inside to drive it away to safety, then you’re on par with the film. Tom hops back into the pickup truck and drives it away. A few seconds later, Tom and Judy are…to quote Bon Jovi, “Going down in the blaze of glory!”

TNA:

Don’t expect much from this category. I guess Judy was pretty hot in her hay day (SHARK FACTOR). Barbara…well I couldn’t stand her. On a positive note, there is a zombie chick that shows her naked behind. Whoop dee doo!

T.Gun’s Take:

NOTLD is one of the classic horror movies of all time. It’s pretty easy to pick apart things in the film, but sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the film for its achievements based on a historical perspective. After all the film was the first of its kind, the mother of all zombie films.

Despite some minor flaws in the film, it still remains pretty sound. Romero uses eerie music and great sound effects to optimize the film’s tense moments and create a good dark atmosphere. This is one of my favorite aspects of the film. I’m a sucker for eerie music used in the right way.

Romero does an excellent job in his films to focus on the characters of the film. Any idiot can cook up a disaster story about zombies taking over the world. What Romero does, is make the audience care about the characters. It's not all blood and guts for him...its all about the people.

The bookends of the film are the zombie attacks, but the middle is filled with great character development and stories. Romero has a great knack for creating characters, back stories and bringing them to life on screen.

In NOTLD, Romero uses the farmhouse as an opportunity to bring a cast of colorful characters together. Barbra is the damsel in distress, Ben (Duane Jones pictured left) is the strong leader, Mr. Cooper is the antagonist, and Tom is the good willed follower, and the others are the supporting characters in the film. Despite my hatred for Barbra's character, her role in the film is actually very important. I didn't like her, but Romero made an effort for me to feel for her character, just like all the other characters.

Romero's films all tend to having an underlining message to the audience in them. For NOTLD, I think the message is teamwork. In order for humans to survive in his films, they seemed to be put in situations that the characters need to rely upon one another in order to survive. Once a wheel comes off the teamwork wagon, things start to unravel and people tend to die.

The situation the group of characters face in the film is a very dangerous predicament. In the aftermath of the movie, you can look back and basically hypothesize that if they showed patience and worked together, they probably would have survived as a group.

The set up of the film is great Romero keeps the audience in the dark to what is happening. The film starts off with siblings visiting their father’s grave and before you know it, the girl is hiding in an isolated farmhouse from her attackers. It is like, “What the hell’s going on?” And that’s great about it. Before you can catch your breath, a lot has happened with no back story or explanation to how we got to that point.

I believe that Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a film that everyone has heard of, but not everyone has seen…and that’s a shame. I bet if a poll was taken, people that have actually heard of the movie vs. ones that have seen it differ tremendously.

Why do I say that? Probably because if it weren’t true, there would be more love for this film. When greatest horror films get brought up in lists and topics of conversation, all the big names like Halloween, Psycho, Friday, and Nightmare get mentioned, but very little props is given to this flick. Even its sequel, Dawn gets more love than this film. All horror movie lovers need to watch this flick. Period. Then there probably would be more respect for the film.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Filmed opened on October 1, 1968
-Chocolate syrup was used as blood
-The film’s events take place on April 30, 1967
-The word “zombie” is never used in the film
-Loose copyright laws (original distributor neglected to do) makes the film the most downloaded movie on the internet
-Cemetery scene filmed in Evans City cemetery, Pennsylvania