Review of Night of the Living Dead (1968) by Dustin P — 31 Oct 2013

Zombies have never been more popular than they are now and we have Night Of The Living Dead to thank for that. While not the first zombie movie, it is the first that defined zombies as living dead flesh eaters. Previous movies depicted zombies as people under voodoo spells.

What I like about the story is that it's never revealed what causes the zombies to rise up. Sure, they mention a theory involving a space probe returning from Venus being deliberately exploded in the Earth's atmosphere when radiation was detected. However, they never reveal whether that is true or not. I think it's scarier not knowing the actual cause.

One of the most charming aspects about this film is that it looks older than it actually happens to be. To put it in perspective, Night Of The Living Dead was released in 1968 - the same year as 2001: A Space Odyssey. If one were to view those films side-by-side, you would probably think they weren't made in the same decade; let alone the same year.

It's not exactly a technical masterpiece in terms of editing. Often there are scenes that are supposed to take place at night but were clearly shot during daytime and vice versa. There's also a very noticeable jump cut during a conversation between Harry and Helen in the basement.

The makeup effects are very subtle. Part of this is likely due to having a low budget, but also because they establish that these are the recently deceased. These are not rotting corpses that climbed out of their grave. Tom Savini had originally signed on to do the makeup effects, but had to pull out when he was called to duty by the US Army to serve as a combat photographer in Vietnam. On one hand, I can't help but wonder how Savini would have done the zombie makeup. On the other hand, perhaps being a witness to real horrors of The Vietnam War helped him become such an amazing horror makeup effects artist.

Many people think there is a commentary about racism hidden in this movie. While I can see where people get that impression, it's my understanding that George A. Romero didn't intend that. When he and John A. Russo were writing the story, they didn't plan on making the character black. They simply hired the best actor for the part of Ben. Duane Jones (Ben) thought that the movie should promote that fact that it was one of the first movies with a black lead actor, but Romero thought it was better that they didn't (a decision he's apparently had some second thoughts about).

One of the most beautiful things about this film is that it's in the public domain, so it's very easy to find and watch for free. This is due to a copyright error. Originally, the film was supposed to be called Night Of Anubis (the Egyptian god associated with the afterlife), but it was decided to change the title because not many people understood what it was referencing. The title was then changed to Night Of The Flesh Eaters. When it was discovered that there was already a film with "Flesh Eaters" in the title, the filmmakers decided to change the title again to avoid being confused with that movie. The title was finally changed to Night Of The Living Dead. However, when they made the new title frames for Night Of The Dead, the film distributor forgot to put the copyright notice on it.

I don't want to spoil anything, but if you're looking for a film where the heroes walk off into the sunset after vanquishing the living dead, this is not the film for you. The tone of Night Of The Living Dead is very somber from the beginning to the very end. I saw this when I was younger and was upset with the way it ended. Now that I've watched it a few more times, I can appreciate just how gutsy the writers were.

Without question, this is a classic. It has been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. It's a film that should be appreciated not only by horror fans, but film fans in general. It's a perfect demonstration that you don't need a large budget to make a great film - just some creativity and originality. It will continue to live on through new fans who will discover it's infectious storytelling...much like a zombie.