Review of Night of the Living Dead (1968) by Lorenzo V — 13 Apr 2012

"They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!".

The radiation from a fallen satellite might have caused the recently deceased to rise from the grave and seek the living to use as food. This is the situation that a group of people penned up in an old farmhouse must deal with.

REVIEW.

Night of the Living Dead wasn't the first film to ever use the idea of an apocalypse; The Last Man on Earth did almost the same thing four years earlier - but it was Romero's film that popularised it, and this film is pretty much responsible for every zombie film ever made post-1968. Through excellent black and white cinematography, a claustrophobic atmosphere and some shocking scenes of zombie slaughter; Night of the Living Dead is an out and out horror classic. This film upset many people upon it's release in 1968, and despite being over four decades old - the film has lost none of it's nastiness. The plot is very simple, and it follows the idea of the dead returning to life and feasting upon the living. We follow a farmhouse full of people trying to evade the carnage. There is never any solid explanation given about why the dead are returning to life - only an idea about radiation from space. This actually helps the film, though, because there is never an attempt to save humanity or discover why it is happening; we just follow the people in trouble, and that immensely adds to the horror.

Romero constantly makes sure that the audience is aware that we're following a group of people without much hope. The scene is always isolated, and the sparing use of radio and television gives the protagonists their only window into the wider world. Romero's use of the camera enforces the isolation in the farmhouse. He uses a lot of close-up's and angled shots, which adequately show the closed space. One of the things that this low budget zombie flick will always be remembered for is the fact that it was the first horror film to feature an African-American. This casting is just one example of Romero's lust for rule breaking, and there are many moments of zombie carnage in the film that seem to be there just to upset the more conservative groups. These scenes also serve the film in it's bid to be frightening, and when combined with the hopeless, downbeat aura of the film; it's all very horrific. Many of the 'zombie rules' were created in this film, and the build up to the ending that sees two of the main characters killed is absolute pure brilliance. On the whole; horror cinema wouldn't be the same without this film. The fact that it's aged so well is no coincidence.