(Farmhouses, rolling pastures, zombies tearing people apart - just your average drive in the country...)
CAST: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Russell Streiner, Keith Wayne, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schor.
DIRECTOR: George A. Romero
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and freaky black-and-white zombies right ahead...
Before a key moment in 1968, there weren't really any truly horrifying zombie films. Sure, there were the quasi-classics like WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) and I WALK WITH A ZOMBIE (1943), but those entries were more notable for being eerie and well, just plain weird. They might have been creepy enough to elicit a chill or two, but I wouldn't call them scary. Then came 1968, and a low-budget zombie film by an unknown director named George A. Romero was released - and the zombie genre would never be the same again. Actually, that's not sweeping enough: the entire horror genre would never be the same again.
The film was titled NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and had a deceptively simple plot: a satellite returning from a trip around Venus brings back with it some kind of radiation that revives the recently dead around the world. As you can imagine, we're talking hundred of thousands, if not millions, of corpses springing back to life. As if that isn't bad enough, these zombies have a hunger for human flesh. And as if that is truly not bad enough, anyone who dies - whether from a zombie bite or natural causes - will come back to life as - care to guess? - a zombie. Let's just say that swine flu ain't go nothing on this new pandemic.
The film opens with our heroine, Barbara (Judith O'Dea), driving to a rural cemetery with her brother, Johnny (Russell Streiner), to lay flowers on their mother's grave. The trip is tense, largely due to Johnny being (1) a developmentally-impaired dickhead who (2) delights in tormenting his sister by (3) cackling, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" Clearly, Johnny is either (1) a big horror movie fan, or (2) just insane. Either way, Barbara just does her best to ignore him. Then, in the distance, a stumbling man appears. "There's one of them, now!" cries Johnny the jack-ass. "He's coming to get you, Barbara!"
Johnny doesn't know just how right he is, because the stumbling man turns out to be the first of the zombies. It attacks Barbara, and Johnny decides to prove that he's only 98% of a cretin by trying to defend her. Unfortunately, being a 2% gentleman is not enough to defeat even just one zombie, so Johnny gets his ass killed. Ha-fucking-llelujah! Anyhow, Barbara manages to flee the cemetery, gunning for a farmhouse nearby. She reaches it, thinking she's found safety. Think again, dear.
Her peace of mind lasts for about, oh, two seconds when she realizes that (1) the stumbling zombie has followed her to the house, (2) he's brought some of his hungry friends, and (3) there are also a few zombies in the house itself. Obviously a pre-cursor to the kind of strong female lead that Sigourney Weaver would cement in ALIEN, Barbara freaks the fuck out and collapses on the floor - nearly pissing herself with fear.
Fortunately, Barbara is not the only human in the house. A strapping fella named Ben (Duane Jones) shows up and smacks some sense into her. Seeing that she's about as useful as a condom with a hole in it, Ben tosses her limp ass onto the couch and goes about clearing the house of zombies, himself. Then he starts barricading the windows and doors. Which is a good thing, because more and more zombies are arriving outside like someone just Twittered them invitations to a barbeque - with Ben and Barbara as the entrees.
Eventually, Barbara decides to stop being such a jelly-spined wuss and helps Ben a little with the barricading. Unfortunately, a bunch of other survivors hiding out in the basement abruptly announce their presence - and this scares the crap out of Barbara so much that she (you really didn't see this coming?) goes back to being a jelly-spined wuss. The group that was hiding out in the basement while Ben and Barb were going mano-a-mano with the walking puss-bags consist of: (1) Harry (Karl Hardman), your basic macho asshole husband; (2) his wife Helen (Marilyn Eastman), your basic nagging wife of a macho asshole husband - which may just explain why he's an asshole; (3) Karen (Kyra Schon), their daughter who got nibbled a little by a zombie and is now - hmmm - sick; (3) Chuck (Keith Wayne), your basic good ol' boy with a heart of gold; and (5) Judy (Judith Ridley), your basic good ol' girl with a head of mush.
This leads to a lot of bickering and in-fighting as the seven (well, more like six - because that little girl is even more useless than Barbara) would-be survivors decide how to deal with the crowds of zombies just aching to bust through the barricades. Who among them will survive? Will Ben continue to have to do all the hard work? Or will any of the others finally pitch in? Will Barbara provide a excuse for not getting her ass deservedly killed in the first five minutes? Or will we continue to be puzzled by her continued survival?
See for yourself. But don't see it alone.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Tense, terrifying, and unforgettable, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD turned not only the zombie genre on its head, but also the entire horror genre in general. Before this movie was released, even the best horror films (THE HAUNTING, PSYCHO, THE BIRDS) lacked a truly nightmarish edge that stayed with you. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD changed that and threw all the rules out the window - bringing the feel of true horror to the screen. So terrifyingly ground-breaking was this film that it spawned numerous clones around the world - especially in Italy (more on that when I review ZOMBIE on Thursday).
The cast is uniformly decent - with the standout being Duane Jones as Ben. Director George Romero was ahead of his time by casting an African-American actor as the lead. As written in the script, Ben was apparently supposed to be a Caucasian good ol' boy. Inverting that by casting an intense actor like Duane Jones, who just also happens to be African-American, gives the story added layers and texture. Jones makes Ben a truly sympathetic and admirable character whose survival we root for.
I wish I could say the same for Barbara. Don't get me wrong - Judith O'Dea is very convincing and does her best - but she's playing a very limited role. I understand that not every single female character in a film (especially a horror film) can be strong and composed, but a heroine (as Barbara ostensibly is) should have just a wee bit of backbone. Barbara doesn't. Every time she starts to show signs of gumption, she collapses back into a nervous wreck. The 1990 remake would make her character much stronger - which is pretty much the only thing it did right. Future Romero zombie films would also employ remarkably competent and self-assured female leads. For this first entry, though, we 're stuck with a royal wimp of heroine.
Bottom line: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD paved the way for edgier, more frightening horror films as we know them today. Without it, the genre would be very, very different indeed.
