Friday, August 1, 2014

491. Night of the Living Dead

Night of The Living Dead
1968
Directed by George Romero










Zombies film have never exactly scared me, but they are still one of my favorite sub genres of horror.  The dialogue and special effects can be silly or serious and ultimately effective either way.

Siblings Johnny and Barbra are on their way to pay respects to their father's grave.   Just as Johnny is about to scare Barbra as a prank, the two of them are attacked by zombies. Barbra lives and must band together with other survivors in order to figure out how to live through the onslaught of murderous monsters.

The true greatness of this film stems from the interactions between the humans rather than the attacks from the zombies.  It kind of reminded me of Hitchcock's Lifeboat or Ford's Stagecoach: a group of people having to abandon their prejudices and trust issues in order to survive.  The difference here is that the chances of ever getting back to normal are slim to none.

This is probably the best zombie film I ever seen.  Great dialogue and hey, entertaining action to boot.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

One of the most successful independent films of all time.

First movie filmed in Pittsburgh. My home town. Yay!

Trailer:

6 comments:

  1. Errrrrmmm...Well,how do you follow a comment like that?

    Moving swiftly on to the film in question.....

    I've never been as wowed by this one as much as I felt I should be..
    Pause.
    That sounds more negative than it is supposed to do. Sorry. it's a 'not bad little film' that strongly earns it's place in The Book if, for nothing else, it's strange mixture of cheese and message movie.

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    Replies
    1. Haha yeah I don't know what that was. Maybe he heard about our atheism...

      I wouldn't watch this one again I don't think, but I agree that it deserves its place in the book.

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  2. I see you have decided to remove the rant!

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  3. I liked this one a lot more than I thought I would and I definitely agree with your that it is the interaction between the people caught in the house that makes the movie. For a small B-movie this is really good stuff.

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  4. For the first hour or so I thought this was terrible. The editing, the sound, the continuity, the camera work were awful. Did no one notice? But I was getting into it a bit as the tension set in. Then I realised that I was watching a colourised version and that it was supposed to be black and white. That switch suited it much better and I enjoyed it more to the end.

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