Night of the Living Dead (1968)

[slayrrr666]

“Night of the Living Dead” is a somewhat overrated film but is still a classic of the genre.

**SPOILERS**

Traveling to a cemetery, Barbara, (Judith O’Dea) is savagely attacked, and seeking an escape, she comes across an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. After a while, Ben, (Duane Jones) comes to her aid, and together they decide to stay in the house for protection. Later that day, from the basement emerges Harry Cooper, (Karl Hardman) his wife Helen, (Marilyn Eastman) and local kids Tom, (Keith Wayne) and his girlfriend Judy, (Judith Riley) and they decide to formulate battle plans against the threat outside. When it’s finally decided that zombies are the ones outside, having arisen from the ground due to a radiation leakage from a returning space rocket, the house is boarded up but they still come after them on numerous occasions. After trying many different ways of getting out, they resort to increasingly dangerous ideas and attempts to get out alive.

The Good News: While overrated, this is still one of the better entries in the genre that has a lot going for it. One of the main things is that there’s one of the greatest mounting dread style of film ever done. This one here has a fantastic time building up the tension and gradually making it so that the villains here are built up into a credible menacing force. By doing it with one of the simplest of tactics, gradually getting more and more numbers for each attack, since there’s nothing more unnerving than being attacked by a greater-growing enemy, and here this exploits that masterfully. In the beginning it’s obvious there’s only a couple outside amongst the group, but by nightfall there’s a whole horde out there and it’s done by introducing a couple new ones during each attack, making it obvious that their numbers are growing and it affects them accordingly. Of course, it would all be moot if the attacks weren’t good, and here they are really glorious. It’s hard to pick a stand-out one, since there’s a lot of great ones that should be rewarded, but this one doesn’t have a stand-out as they all are. The initial clearing of the house is fun, the journey to the gas pump is thrilling and ends in glorious irony, and the sequence where they break through the barrier into the house and must both repel the attack and replenish the defenses is one of the classic battles in the film among the many, since it manages to both keep the film entertaining and interesting by having a lot of action on-screen all the time as well as keeping the film suspenseful since it shows that there’s stronger attacks each time and are trying to keep the intruders out with less-successful measures each time. That is a fantastic ability, and by incorporating it in here, this one keeps the film running along and interesting all the time. The final half of the film is where it’s best parts are at, since it features all the defenses breaking down, general pandemonium as everything happens at once and there’s a general feeling of excitement and intrigue as to what’s going to happen, especially once the zombies finally get into the house. It’s also helped along by one of the greatest endings in the entire genre, being both logically, cruelly ironic and just flat-out surprising all rolled into one gigantic barrel, and it’s all the better for it. The last big punch here is the outright-classic pacing. The film wastes no time in getting things going and rarely pauses, not wasting time on numerous story threads or subplots. The action is always centered on the group of people trapped in the farmhouse, with only brief glimpses at the outside world achieved through their television set and radio. This is a masterful touch, as it really puts the audience in the house with the characters. The viewer knows nothing more than they do, will only learn what they learn when they learn it and no more. This really heightens the sense of claustrophobia that comes with being trapped. These here are the film’s best points.

The Bad News: This here had some problems with it that lower it’s rating slightly. The biggest flaw here is that the middle portion of the film is that there’s nothing in here all that impressive about the film. After the attacks subside and they’re safely inside the house, it begins a long series of scenes that are simply everyone yelling at one another for the duration of the time, and it’s hard to stay interested in a film when that’s all that’s happening. The yelling is over the most moronic things as well, which makes it harder to make it through these scenes since we get nothing else in here other than those sorts of scenes, and it gets grating after a while. There’s also some qualms about the idiotic decisions made, especially about the daughter. It’s known by all the characters that a bite or scratch turns the victim into a creature, yet this one decides that the best place for rehabilitation is inside the house, with no medical treatment for the condition in reach of everyone around them. There’s also smaller problems, mostly based around the zombies. A long way has come in the design of the creatures, and these primitive-looking ones could be seen as a down-grade by some. The last one is the black-and-white photography, but its nothing major. These here are the film’s few problems.

The Final Verdict: Somewhat overrated due to certain areas of the film, but still good enough to be one of the better films out there in the genre. Still quintessential viewing for all horror film or zombie genre fans, while it’s hard to think of who won’t enjoy this one.

Rated R: Violence and Language

[Quorthon]

Wow, you listed the black and white as a bad point? It works brilliantly to create the stark, harsh atmosphere.

And I think you missed the point when you said that the middle is just filled with arguing. You missed the perspective. It's a tense situation, a scary situation. People will lose their marbles and they will bicker about the littlest, stupidest, most nonsensical things. In fact, the arguing among the people directly influenced the plot and outcome of the film. Human cohesion plummetted. Chaos took over. The bickering adds to the tension. In fact, it's one of the reasons the film works so well. Any other way, they'd have very likely been able to survive the night, despite growing numbers of zombies. This way, though, they dropped their defenses against the zombies as they increased their defenses against each other.

Still one of my favorite films. There isn't a single thing about it I don't like.

[Heineken Skywalker]

Sept 3, 2009 2:37:46 GMT -5 Quorthon said:

Wow, you listed the black and white as a bad point? It works brilliantly to create the stark, harsh atmosphere.

And I think you missed the point when you said that the middle is just filled with arguing. You missed the perspective. It's a tense situation, a scary situation. People will lose their marbles and they will bicker about the littlest, stupidest, most nonsensical things. In fact, the arguing among the people directly influenced the plot and outcome of the film. Human cohesion plummetted. Chaos took over. The bickering adds to the tension. In fact, it's one of the reasons the film works so well. Any other way, they'd have very likely been able to survive the night, despite growing numbers of zombies. This way, though, they dropped their defenses against the zombies as they increased their defenses against each other.

Still one of my favorite films. There isn't a single thing about it I don't like.

Yes, what Q said. The film probably wouldn't work as well in color, as the B&W actually adds to the realism imho. I'll never know for sure as I refuse to watch colorized films.
And the arguing is important to the story as it shows society, albeit on a much smaller scale, falling apart. You can just bet that kind of petty arguing is going on all over the world, making it that much easier for the zombies to get at their victims.
Welcome back Q!

[slayrrr666]

Frankly, the petty arguing, though I do concede that it is a major part of life and would be common-place in such a situation, just isn't all that interesting to watch. I don't find it all that entertaining, draining all the energy and momentum out of the brilliant opening and it hardly ever catches up.

And call me spoiled, but I need to see what color in zombie films. That dark brown, earth-rotted skin, that dark red blood, the blackened bodies, I need to see that, and frankly, the tension is pretty much undone by the first flaw anyway.

[Quorthon]

Sept 3, 2009 8:21:10 GMT -5 Heineken Skywalker said:

Yes, what Q said. The film probably wouldn't work as well in color, as the B&W actually adds to the realism imho. I'll never know for sure as I refuse to watch colorized films.
And the arguing is important to the story as it shows society, albeit on a much smaller scale, falling apart. You can just bet that kind of petty arguing is going on all over the world, making it that much easier for the zombies to get at their victims.
Welcome back Q!

Hey thanks.

I'm still in Iraq and... well not that it really belongs in here, but my life has taken drastic turns for the worse so, I don't know, I think I'm trying to keep my mind distracted.

Romero was originally going to film in color, and looking back, I'm glad it cost too much to do so. This film, done in color, especially cheap late-60's color, probably would've aged poorly. I can't picture it looking even remotely as good as it does in black and white. It works on so many levels with the light and shadow, and the chocolate syrup used as blood looks just phenominal. That's the other thing Slayrrr should consider--this film is from 1968. Blood effects in films were often terrible back then. They didn't have the versatile and beautiful kero syrup that we have now. You can see proof in how bad the blood and gore would've looked just by following Romero's follow-up films such as Martin and the original Dawn of the Dead.

I love the original Dawn, but even I face the fact that the blood in the film often looks pretty unrealistic and lame for large chunks of the movie. Same goes for Martin where the blood effects just aren't very good.

I can't even picture how annoying it would be to try to watch this classic in some kind of ass-ugly colorized version. Slayrrr, did you watch it in actual black and white, or did you watch the colorized version you have pictured up yonder?

[slayrrr666]

I've got both versions, Q. I have the newly-released Special Edition that came out a few months ago and the colorized one, and I just chose the colorized logo for the review simply because that was the biggest one I could find for the film. It had nothing to do with what you're suggesting, just that was the biggest picture of one of the film's DVD covers that I could find. I was in a rush and didn't want to have to go through 50,000 pages of pictures that mostly didn't have anything to do with the film and instead just chose that one.

And frankly, I don't review a film under the guidelines that you're suggesting. I don't see the point in reviewing a film based on what it should be like, or what could be thrown into it from a technical stand-point. Storywise, I'm a little more lenient, but when it comes to a technical stand-point, it has to be what the film presents in front of me.

That was a pet peeve of mine to read reviews that would go off on tangents for pages at a time that had nothing to do with the film itself and would go on for ages about it's influence, it's legacy, useless backstage trivia or the one that annoyed me and made me want to kill the reviewer, stating what they were doing when they first watched the film. I don't give a shit about that stuff, tell me about the movie at hand! That's what I do, I talk about the movie at hand, as none of the reviews I've ever posted have ever talked about any of those points above and instead talked about what I like in a film.

[Quorthon]

Sept 28, 2009 10:30:28 GMT -5 slayrrr666 said:

And frankly, I don't review a film under the guidelines that you're suggesting. I don't see the point in reviewing a film based on what it should be like, or what could be thrown into it from a technical stand-point. Storywise, I'm a little more lenient, but when it comes to a technical stand-point, it has to be what the film presents in front of me.

Saying the black & white photography is one of the problems does come off as a suggestion that the film could be better if it was in color. Since you have both, do you prefer that colorized version? I don't own it and I haven't seen it. I don't think I could ever bring myself to buy such a thing. I'm generally against "Colorization Theater" (to use a line from The Simpsons).

Funny, I also have a special edition of the original NotLD, which I purchased something like 7 years ago. That's the problem with some of these older films, and especially any that ended up in the public domain like this film did--every DVD is a new special edition. The one I bought has two audio commentaries, George Romero on one of them, and has his blessings. For a public domain picture, I figured any release with the approval of the maker is the way to go.

[slayrrr666]

The colorized one is fine if you haven't seen the original and don't have special attachment to the film (like I do) but for those that don't, it's better than the 30th Anniversary version that came out a few years ago, I'll tell you that. It's what you would expect it to be, the film in color. I wouldn't write a review or anything on it, but to have it in the collection isn't a bad thing at all.

Here's the cover of the one I have:

[Quorthon]

Pretty much every picture and icon on this board fails to show up on the computers they have here. So, while I can see the "color" image you have in the title, I can't see the one you just posted. Sorry!

[slayrrr666]

Then I'll describe it for you:

It's black and red, with the silhouettes of a series of corpses rising from the ground and shambling toward the camera on the upper one-third of the picture, while in large white lettering above that reads "Original Film Restored and Remastered" while the bottom two-thirds has the title in red letters against a black background as well as George's autograph just below it.

Here, hopefully this'll help:
www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/nightof40th.php