Horror Movie Friday: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Writers: George A. Romero, John A. Russo

Director: George A. Romero

Released: 1968

Labels: Zombie

Night of the Living Dead is generally considered to be the original Zombie movie (although director George A Romero at the time referred to them as 'ghouls'). It was the first movie to feature the re-animated dead, hungry for the livings flesh and so redefined the use of the term 'Zombie' (previously in movies it had been used to describe those living but under a voodoo spell) This movie spawned a few sequels and remakes that were orchestrated by Romero but it inspired a whole truck load of future directors and producers to rework the Zombie movie blueprint that he laid out.

The plot is straightforward, a mismatched group of people hole up in an isolated farmhouse and try to survive the night from the increasingly persistent wave of Zombies that try to eat them, it's a plotline that has been reproduced a million times and still works! (the simplest ideas are often the best).

Romero co-wrote the script with John Russo as a three-part story. Part one became Night of the Living Dead. Sequels Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985) were adapted from the two remaining parts.

Romero himself has stated that his original inspiration for the movie was Richard Mathesons book 'I Am Legend' which itself has been made into three major motion pictures (The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and the 2007 release I Am Legend).

He explained..

“I thought I Am Legend was about revolution. I said if you’re going to do something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. I mean, Richard starts his book with one man left; everybody in the world has become a vampire. I said we got to start at the beginning and tweak it up a little bit. I couldn’t use vampires because he did, so I wanted something that would be an earth-shaking change. Something that was forever, something that was really at the heart of it. I said, so what if the dead stop staying dead? ... And the stories are about how people respond or fail to respond to this. That’s really all [the zombies] ever represented to me. In Richard’s book, in the original I Am Legend, that’s what I thought that book was about. There’s this global change and there’s one guy holding out saying, wait a minute, I’m still a human. He’s wrong. Go ahead. Join them. You’ll live forever! In a certain sense he’s wrong but on the other hand, you’ve got to respect him for taking that position.”

The male lead 'Ben' was played by a black actor (Duane Jones) and in 1968 that was potentially a controversial casting decision but Romero simply states that Jones gave the best audition. In fact the film as a whole is rife with themes that were considered taboo for its time (not least cannibalism) and many reviewers speculate as to Romero's social commentary and political leanings evident in the movie. The original screenplay had the Zombies hung lynching-style at the end but this did not make the final cut because of the racial tensions at the time, it did however, make it into Tom Savini's faithful 1990 re-make which was produced by Romero.

We love Zombie flicks at HMF and therefore we LOVE Night of the Living Dead. Don't expect a happy ending from this movie but do expect to be chilled and enthralled and please realize that you are watching the birth of a whole genre of horror, a genre that is ever expanding, occasionally brilliant, oftentimes ludicrous but never, ever dull.