October Horror (31 Days Of Horror Movie Reviews) Day Twenty: Night Of The Living Dead (1968) I’ll be the first to admit that there’s very little left to say about this movie that hasn’t been said before. And yet to go through the month of October without a mention of this seminal horror classic seems dishonorable for any longtime terror fan. The story is simple, the setting sets the bar for inciting claustrophobia with a viewing audience, and the pace is fairly relentless. And yet, this film is probably in danger of becoming lost to newer generations of horror fans, partly because with its black and white hyper-low budget craftsmanship and its stable of unknown actors, it (to today’s viewers, anyway) can feel a bit dated. And if you’re trying to point out to the average teenage Walking Dead fan that this movie is where it really all started, they’ll be either unable or unwilling to disconnect from modern budgets and effects long enough to give it a chance. Man, look at what they’ll be missing: Romero directed this one from the gut, and you can feel it. You can sense the experimentation with every shot or angle, and you can almost feel him solving problems or setting up tricky shots on the fly. Even his casting of Duane Jones in the lead role of Ben (an African American man as the hero!) was unheard of in those days. As if that wasn’t enough, Romero had the balls to give the movie a brutally downbeat ending that can also be seen as a blatant political and racial statement that few other horror filmmakers of the ear would have ever attempted. As for the film itself, it’s groundbreaking and subversive in its extremes, and casts a bright light on subject matter that most other movies of that decade shied away from. There are gory moments, scenes of what can be considered cannibalism, patricide and threats of racial violence. But behind it all (although the word is never used in the movie), what you’re seeing when you watch this movie is the birth of the zombie sub-genre. It’s not the first ZOMBIE movie, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the first in which the dead rise up to devour the living. Thank you, George A. Romero. We owe you big-time for this one. youtube/watch?v=ob8vZhSjES8
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:00:40 +0000
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