There is no zombie film as beloved as George Romero's 1968 masterpiece Night of the Living Dead...well, bigger fans list his follow up, Dawn of the Dead, to be the best, but you have to start somewhere. Without this film Romero would have been busy reading horror mags to this day so thankfully he got the nerves to make this ultra-low budget horror film in an era where gore and shock violence were a thing of smut peddlers.

The film opens with a brother and sister (Johnny and Barbara) going to visit the grave of their mother, but when a ghoulish looking man attacks them, the brother is incapacitated so Barbara takes it upon herself to run away from the man. In doing so she gets in a wee little car accident before finding an abandoned farm house.

In a catatonic state she survives there for a few hours until nighttime where a big black guy named Ben stops by and takes care of some of the weirdoes prowling around. With his help, the house gets secured and now they must wait out this plague that the news reports are undead that have been springing up all over the country due to a radiation leak from space. The basic question is: will they survive the night (along with the other survivors in the basement) and on what circumstances does your humanity go back seat to stay alive?

This is classic horror cinema and one of the very best of the genre. It pits these characters into many situations that are truly terrifying as they aren't just hanging around a boarded-up house waiting. There aren't many scenes where things jump out at you, but the tension inside the domestic space is almost as powerful as the freaky outside with all the creeps wandering around.

What may bother some viewers concerning this film is that the "zombies" aren't really called "zombies". Sure, they lumber around, but they don't necessarily go by the same rules set up in later installments of the series. Call it "Evolution of the Dead", but this movie's zombie portrayals are much different and don't really get interesting (as far as gore is concerned) until the third act where a much better variety of them are show in full makeup.

Romero's cinematography is grainy and centered on the claustrophobia of the house amidst being trapped with zombies on the outside. While a color transfer is available on my DVD (as well as a very entertaining Mike Nelson Mystery Science Theatre 3000 commentary), this movie was meant to be seen in black and white and is solidly black and white with the shadowy gore effects being even more disgusting.

While the gore may not be as impressive to the seasoned Saw or Hostel fan or what have you, this was shocking in this time period. The nods to Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement (the hero of this film is a black guy--unheard of in horror cinema at that time), and sexual tension are in abundance. What's interesting is that someone mentioned in my horror film class that this movie was debasing of women as they are pretty useless the whole movie, but if you think that one just realized her brother is dead, another has to worry about her family, and the other actually commits a ballsy move--then the debate is really strung up.

The only thing that hinders my viewing experience each time I see this film again and again are the multitudes of mistakes here such as the largest one where they are watching a news broadcast at night, but which is taking place during the day. These and others like it are constant eye sores, and while they are a bit annoying to me, it doesn't really hurt this film's rating as the film is still extremely entertaining.

It's taken me a long time for review this film as it's been at the top of my review list for a while. This is one of those timeless horror films that set up a lot of the current zombie craze that people are going through. Would somebody have taken zombies to the extremes that Romero did back in 1968?

Maybe, but he has a style that has kept going for this long--his next installment, Survival of the Dead, is due quite out quite soon and while most may argue that he's lost his mind due to the last couple of films in his franchise (Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead), I still say that he's got a heart where it counts. This movie, for sure, demonstrates not only his promise as a filmmaker, but a solid array of ideas that keeps this movie fresh each time I watch it.

© Jason Haskins, 2009

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older