15 Favorite Horror Films - #7

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

     I'm truthfully a bit burned out on zombies now.  Or the undead if you prefer that term.  They've been overused in the past ten years or so in various incarnations.  We've had fast zombies, slow zombies, zombies that eat animals, zombie animals, zombies brought about by contagions, zombie comedies, zombie tv shows, zombie self-help books, talking zombies...  They aren't scary anymore.  And they mean nothing.  That wasn't the case in 1968... or 1978... or 1985... even George Romero's fourth Dead movie in 2005!  They all had an axe to grind about the social condition of the United States.  Whether it be racism and the counterculture, consumerism, military strength under Reagan, or the post 9/11 world.  When it's gotten to the point where zombie films are actually about zombies like the bulk are now, the genre needs to take a break for a while.  I'm tired of even seeing the amount of juvenile and young adult books about middle school zombies.  

    There was a time when zombies were frightening.  Even before Romero's film, there was Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie, which came out in 1943.  It dealt with the supposed real zombies in the Caribbean... The voodoo kind.  It was still creepy though, as most Val Lewton-produced films were.    And there was of course the 1932 Bela Lugosi film White Zombie.   Back in those days, zombies were mindless bodies controlled by evil forces like wizards or magicians.  Then there was the adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, which was titled The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price.  Romero freely admits to ripping that one off.  Even two years before George Romero's legendary film, Hammer Productions released Plague of the Zombies.  That film has been considered to possibly have been an influence on Romero, as the zombies in that film fit more in with Romero's vision of re-animated corpses thinking only of feeding on human flesh.

     When Night of the Living Dead was originally released in October of 1968, people didn't know what they were getting into.  Horror was considered a kid-friendly experience.  The film premiered as a matinee in most places around the country, which meant teens and pre-teens were the primary audiences.  The MPAA didn't go into effect until November of that year, so there was no rating, even though the Hays Code had basically ended in 1967.  Critics bashed the film as most wanted the Supreme Court to establish censorship rules.  The devil himself, critic Vincent Canby called the film a junk movie that was really silly.  However, not all critics hated the film.  My favorite critic, Pauline Kael loved it.  She called it, "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made – and when you leave the theatre you may wish you could forget the whole horrible experience. . . . The film's grainy, banal seriousness works for it – gives it a crude realism".  Over the next decade it became the most successful independent film ever made.  And sadly, it went into the public domain.  (Look on youtube.  You can legally watch the whole film there, as it was never copyrighted.)

     What's so effective about the film?  Well, for starters, the use of  black and white film was a great idea.  By 1968, very very few films were shot in black and white still.  However, the use of it in this film gives it an old-time horror feel.  It doesn't feel like 1968.  People are dressed conservatively, it's set out in the country, it could be set anytime from 1945 to 1968.  Sure, it's dated now, but any film made before cell phones is.  Horror doesn't work a bit with cell phones.  The black and white photography makes the film more realistic.  In color, the undead makeup would most likely be laughable.  The tension would be cut in half.  The shadows wouldn't be quite as dark, which means that a ghoul couldn't just jump out at you from nowhere. 

     The film is mostly set in a Pennsylvania farmhouse.  After the first few minutes of the film, the action only goes outside the house a few times, and even then, only within a few yards of it.  I mean, there are ghouls out there, man!  (Ghouls are what the undead are called in this film.  They started calling them zombies in Dawn of the Dead.)  The sparse location of the film leads to a sense of claustrophobia, especially as the more annoying people end up showing up.  There's no help coming, no way to leave, and the farmhouse is being surrounded more and more.  The ghouls know where the food is. 

      This was also one of the first films to show a black character in the lead.  He takes charge, is the strong character, knows what he's doing.   Some feminists have complained about the weak female character of Barbara in the film, as she basically does nothing but sit in shock for most of the film.  Well, not all female characters can be Ripley from Aliens, people.  It's my opinion that these social critics should get out of the film critiquing business, as they suck at it.  We have a strong black character here in a time when America was trying to finally control it's racism, and that's good enough for me.  Speaking of racism, the film is supposedly some sort of veiled attempt at social commentary in and of itself.  Something about the old generation giving way to the new... and by force from the new!  I like to view it as just a horror film myself, but I can see where some get that.  It's got a strong black lead, constantly being told off by an old white guy who wants to control things himself.  However, I don't know how zombies fall into that mix.  I'm sure someone will tell me.

     I think the movie is still powerful and effective.  It may not scare many people (no one gets scared by films anymore... except me apparently) but it's entertaining, it's artful in a low-budget workingman kind of way, and it's actually still pretty gory.  It opened film up to more gore, showed people that horror wasn't just for kids, that it could be smart.  To me personally, it showed that even with a small budget you can make a very effective film if you put all your effort into it and have good friends to help you out.  Why is it one of my favorites?  Besides what I just wrote?  Well, it's a film I'd been afraid to watch since I first heard about it.  I finally saw it when I was 18.  I'd seen Dawn and Day of the Dead before I saw this one in it's entirety.  I'd even seen the surprisingly good remake from 1990 which was directed by Tom Savini (who did the effects for Dawn and Day) before this one!  And it still lived up to expectations.  I was actually surprised at how gory, creepy, and effective it still was.

   So board up your windows, lock the doors, get a gun (remember, only a shot to the head will kill em), and never forget...  "They're coming to get you, Barbara!"

* There are at least 6 copies of the whole film available to watch on Youtube.  Most look to be in great condition as well.  And it's completely legal that they are on there, as it's a public domain film.  So if you haven't seen the film, or want to see it again, there it is!