With the taste of human flesh in their mouths, the zombies head for the house and start breaking in. Mom retreats to the cellar, where she is promptly killed by her daughter with a trowel, in a brutal scene that was quite shocking for me and the other kids to witness. The fact that she was snacking on her dead dad before she kills her mom was also another taboo broken. Barbra, in yet another taboo-breaking scene, is pulled through the door to her doom by her now undead brother. The one person she apparently relied on for her protection and security.
And Ben, who did not want to retreat to the basement, now has no other option. He locks himself in, and has to shoot mom and dad as they become hungry undead themselves. Society and it's precepts fall apart as the zombies fill the house, looking for their next living victim.
When morning comes, Ben is still alive, but in an ironic twist of faith, his rescuers, the all-white militia patrolling the woods to kill zombies, kills him with a bullet to the head in the mistaken belief that he is a zombie. So no one survives; not even the upwardly mobile and educated Ben. That was a real downer.
I left the theatre that evening shaken, and no longer secure in the commonplace. George Romero had brought ghastly horror home, both figuratively and literally, and the course of future horror films would follow the same path, to the dismay of parents and censors in the decades since then, and probably for the decades to come.
Night of the Living Dead stands as a classic horror film because it deals with social and cultural themes as they existed in 1968, and more importantly, as they still exist today.
Quick, pretend we're undead. Perhaps the zombies and would-be rescuers will not notice us and go bother somebody else. One can only hope.
Article comments
1 - Steve C.
Fantastic article, man. I stumbled across this film on a local cable-access channel back in high school. I knew of it, but I didn't know much about it, and a friend of mine and I had been making fun of the night's previous offering (the sad-sack would-be-satirical late-wave slasher Cutting Class). We figured we'd stay up and continue having our fun. Cut to a couple of hours later, with both of us shaken to our cores, unable to do much more than just say, "Whoa. Dude." Still my favorite horror film of all time, this.
2 - Iloz Zoc
Thanks Steve. After hearing about the NOTLD 3D version coming out in November, I had to revisit the original. The shock value from the grainy black and white footage is intense. Romero created quite a statement of terror on a shoestring budget. My favorite scenes are the newscasts. Those are priceless, and pretty realistic. And to think the copyright got screwed up so the film fell into the public domain. Ouch.
3 - Michael J. West
Scared you in 1968? Shit, scared me in 1996.
4 - gonzo marx
excellent Review , as always, my shambling Friend...
a few quick bits
the convincing blood , sripping down the stairs with such a nauseating sound, was hershey's chocolate syrup from a can... one of the benefits, Romero said, of using black and white...
this was done, cuz the flick was shot REAL cheap...think Clerks kind of cheap...
all those zombies were actual townsfolk from the little Pennsylvania town where it was shot...
as for historical Import, this film gave Romero his leg up... from her,e i think his next was the original "the Hills have Eyes"... which "invented" the slasher flick , imho, in the same way that NotLD changed forever the boundaries of the monster movie...
especially that "dirty larry, crazy mary" kind of sudden killing of the Hero when he finds the "light at the end of the tunnel" was actually a metaphorical "oncoming train"
thanks for the good Read...
/golfclap
Excelsior?
5 - Iloz Zoc
Thanks Gonzo, and thanks for the syrup tidbit. Now I'll always think of NOTLD while making chocolate milk. The sound work in th film, along with the music was very effective. I really hate squishy, plopping sounds. The sounds of the zombie in the house chewing, as Barbra approached the door were disgusting.
It's amazing how a limited budget can inspire or intimidate a director and production crew. In this case, just about everything gels.
Even last night, while I was watching it on my laptop , I still got jumpy and had to look around a few times to make sure everything was okay. Man.
6 - Mat Brewster
Another great review. I remember watching this on the TV as a kid with my mom telling about being scared to death watching it at the drive-in when it first came out. Scared the crap out of me, too.
This, along with To Kill a Mockingbird, made me realize that film wasn't just something for entertainment, but could be real art too.
7 - Victor Lana
Great review. You capture so much about what makes this movie a winner.
This is one of my all-time favorite movies. I have watched it on Halloween every year since I bought it (about ten years ago). Before that I used to go see it at midnight shows in a theater here in New York and that was a wild scene.
I think this movie is fantastic for all the things that might be considered wrong with it: the choppy music, the stilted dialogue, the bargain basement special effects. Just a great ride from beginning to end.
8 - Iloz Zoc
Matt, hey now that's a great film, To Kill a Mockingbird. The long walk home at the film's climax is a beautifully eerie bit of filming. Art and entertainment: now that's definitely worth the price.
I really enjoyed reading your Goonies review. The 80s did produce some fine films.
9 - Iloz Zoc
Victor, going to a midnight showing of NOTLD must have been wild indeed. Man, I would love to see it with a bunch of Stooges shorts, or an Ed Wood film. That would be a hoot.
10 - Mat Brewster
Thanks. I must give you and Aaron Fleming a bit of kudos for getting me to write a full review after your comments on my small one.
The opening credits to Kill a Mockingbird really opened my eyes to beauty if film, its absolutely marvelous. The rest of the film is of course fabulous as well including the walk home and Boo Radley. There are few finer moments in film than when Scout sees him standing behind the door and says 'hi boo.'
But Night of the living Dead, yeah that's great stuff too.