Today I want to discuss a classic film, perhaps the parent of all zombie films (though the word zombie is not used once...).
Oh yeah, we're hitting this movie today. We're gonna talk about 'Night of the Living Dead'.
A group of people are trapped in a Pennsylvanian (of course) farmhouse that is brutally attacked by "ghouls", creatures of the undead.
Where to start with this?
Well, let's start with this - if you're the type who underestimates horror films (or zombie films in general), let's note that this film was chosen by the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (yeah, congress) for preservation in the National Film Registry.
I mean right there, that should show you that you should take this film pretty seriously. Especially if you look at the list of other films on the list - hate our government or love it, but if you look objectively, this is a list of good movies.
The first time I saw this, I kind of laughed it off at first. I thought it was cheesy. But just wait. You're gonna get hit by the second half of this, and suddenly BAM. It gets dark reeeeeeally quickly.
Let's also point out that - for 1968 - it was shocking to cast an African-American man as a lead. Perhaps this was to mirror the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, as some have suggested. (Especially when you consider the end of the film, as well.) (Others have suggested that events such as the Vietnam War were shown through this film, too.)
There were multiple scripts written for this (originally it started as a horror comedy), and Romero drew a lot of inspiration from the amazing book, 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson.
There was a bit of controversy when this was released - this was back before ratings (which pretty much came out right after this film, heh) and this was shown as a film that could easily be accessed by small children. Though we are definitely able to expose ourselves to violent imagery today, you have to remember that this wasn't as common back then - and a lot of children freaked out. Roger Ebert wrote a wonderful review in which he talked about this, and it's really eye-opening.
Finally, we'll wrap this up by briefly discussing my favourite thing in zombie movies - the unknown cause. The wonderful (and addicting) website tvtropes actually gives us a list of common zombie archetypes, and yet they don't really seem to discuss the unknown cause. (They quickly mention it in the flesh-eating section, but I think it should have its own section.)
I think the unknown cause is the scariest. If you don't know what caused them to appear, it's a lot harder to make them disappear, hmm? Though the film discusses the possibility of radioactivity, they don't know. And you're left to never know. Some may disregard this as "lazy writing", but I prefer being left to my own imagination.
You can actually watch it for free on YouTube (due to an unfortunate error back in the day, the film is actually in the public domain) in addition to streaming it on Netflix. Really, this is one of the easiest films to get access to, hurray! (And I mean, I doubt Romero's really hurtin' too much from this, though I'd be crying inside.)
Hope you all enjoyed this! If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to leave me a message below or send me an email!
xo, Kate
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