Before all of the zombie games, movies, and TV shows that we see today, there was a movie known as White Zombie. It was creepy and interesting, and no one gives a damn about it anymore. This is probably because this is the more related to the voodoo zombies that were more of slaves to the one who brought them back to life instead of being mindless hoards that eat people. However, we were able to get a movie that help launched zombies into the mainstream and has become a true classic for horror movie fans. And that movie is George A. Romero’s first of the Dead franchise, Night of the Living Dead.
The movie takes place in a small rural part of Pennsylvania, where the dead start to walk and attack the living. The movie follows Barbara, who arrives to visit her father’s grave when zombies attack and kill her brother, and is brought into a small farmhouse with the help of a man named Ben, and here, they try to survive the attack from the undead, as well as try to stay sane. You also get a couple of other survivors, but we all know that if you aren’t getting the starring role in a horror movie, especially a zombie movie, you’re most likely going to be killed. So as you can see, the Dead series started out with Night of the Living Dead, followed by Day, Dawn, and Land of the Dead (Why “Land” though?). Things only seemed to get worse for humanity as the movies continued on. But if you can see a movie where there are this many zombies on screen, than it must get REALLY bad if this is the least deadliest event. But it’s still a damn good movie.
I have to say, this is one of the goriest movies I have seen for the 1960s. Zombies going around and tearing people apart to eat them, people blowing up in a car and getting set on fire, and a person getting stabbed to death with a garden trowel. I didn’t think it was possible for a movie to be this violent in the 60s, but George A. Romero was able to find a way. Sure, looking at his later films, which was full of violence and gore, it’s not hard to believe that he would have this level of violence in his movie, but the 60s were a much stricter time for what you could show in a movie. Nowadays, we can get away with MUCH more violent stuff, but it’s great to see that a movie from the 60s was able to get away with that kind of stuff… But it was probably not seen by a lot of people back in the day. People were easy to upset back then…… Wait, they get upset easily today too……… Huh…..
A thing about the movie that I, and many others, liked about it is how the zombies were never really called zombies. No, instead, the survivors in the movie just called them the undead. Romero wanted to create a new set of monsters from scratch, based on the classic monsters of ghouls, monsters that came out at night to dig up the graves of people and eat their corpses to satisfy their hunger. Calling them undead was a huge part of the Dead franchise and has stayed that way ever since, even being parodied in some classic comedy movies like Shaun of the Dead. I bet Romero wasn’t expecting that this new creation of zombies would pave the way for him in creating what we now see as some of the most iconic monsters in movie history. Today, we see zombies as slow, lumbering, flesh-eating corpses that are covered in blood and grow in numbers. They created the iconic look for zombies, and it looks like it will continue to keep the classic look until the end of time. Good work on doing that, Romero. Good work on also creating one of the most over saturated genres in Hollywood (But your movies are still good, so it’s okay).
Okay, now I gotta talk about the ending of this movie, so I am going to warn you all right now, this part is completely a spoiler. Than again, who really cares if I spoil a movie from 1968… Well, the entirety of the internet, so……. Anyway, the ending. So at the end of the movie, everyone has been killed by zombies, including Barbara. Ben is the only one left, until he hears gunfire. As it turns out, a group of survivors have been travelling across the country, killing zombies and trying to find survivors. Ben gets up, without any warning, and before he knows it, he is shot in the head by the survivors and killed, ending the movie with him being set on fire by the survivors, along with the first zombie that was shown at the beginning of the movie. So, I have heard a lot about this ending from across the internet. Some that I have heard is that this was meant to be satirical, showing racism in the 60s and that he was shot for the color of his skin. Romero’s Dead franchise is known for having social commentary, so it’s not hard to believe. It could also be that Ben has gone completely crazy and makes himself visible to the survivors so they can shoot and kill him, so he doesn’t have to live with the guilt of having every survivor under his care die. There’s multiple possibilities as to what the ending could be, and they're all incredible in their own way.
Honestly, I can’t describe enough of how great this film is. There’s just too much good for me to talk about in this movie. It manages to be scary, talk about some touchy subjects, have a new kind of disturbing monsters, and have a cast of characters that weren’t more braindead than the monsters they were up against. The film has become a true classic, among the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and everything else. It may not from the same decade as those movies, but they were all influential in their own way, and that is what I think makes Night of the Living Dead. I say it’s worth checking out. The film is public domain, so you can find it anywhere online for free. And all I can say is, if it’s that easy to find, you should definitely give it a watch. Take care.
Up next on October Movie Marathon: Goddamn zombie babies.
The movie takes place in a small rural part of Pennsylvania, where the dead start to walk and attack the living. The movie follows Barbara, who arrives to visit her father’s grave when zombies attack and kill her brother, and is brought into a small farmhouse with the help of a man named Ben, and here, they try to survive the attack from the undead, as well as try to stay sane. You also get a couple of other survivors, but we all know that if you aren’t getting the starring role in a horror movie, especially a zombie movie, you’re most likely going to be killed. So as you can see, the Dead series started out with Night of the Living Dead, followed by Day, Dawn, and Land of the Dead (Why “Land” though?). Things only seemed to get worse for humanity as the movies continued on. But if you can see a movie where there are this many zombies on screen, than it must get REALLY bad if this is the least deadliest event. But it’s still a damn good movie.
I have to say, this is one of the goriest movies I have seen for the 1960s. Zombies going around and tearing people apart to eat them, people blowing up in a car and getting set on fire, and a person getting stabbed to death with a garden trowel. I didn’t think it was possible for a movie to be this violent in the 60s, but George A. Romero was able to find a way. Sure, looking at his later films, which was full of violence and gore, it’s not hard to believe that he would have this level of violence in his movie, but the 60s were a much stricter time for what you could show in a movie. Nowadays, we can get away with MUCH more violent stuff, but it’s great to see that a movie from the 60s was able to get away with that kind of stuff… But it was probably not seen by a lot of people back in the day. People were easy to upset back then…… Wait, they get upset easily today too……… Huh…..
A thing about the movie that I, and many others, liked about it is how the zombies were never really called zombies. No, instead, the survivors in the movie just called them the undead. Romero wanted to create a new set of monsters from scratch, based on the classic monsters of ghouls, monsters that came out at night to dig up the graves of people and eat their corpses to satisfy their hunger. Calling them undead was a huge part of the Dead franchise and has stayed that way ever since, even being parodied in some classic comedy movies like Shaun of the Dead. I bet Romero wasn’t expecting that this new creation of zombies would pave the way for him in creating what we now see as some of the most iconic monsters in movie history. Today, we see zombies as slow, lumbering, flesh-eating corpses that are covered in blood and grow in numbers. They created the iconic look for zombies, and it looks like it will continue to keep the classic look until the end of time. Good work on doing that, Romero. Good work on also creating one of the most over saturated genres in Hollywood (But your movies are still good, so it’s okay).
Okay, now I gotta talk about the ending of this movie, so I am going to warn you all right now, this part is completely a spoiler. Than again, who really cares if I spoil a movie from 1968… Well, the entirety of the internet, so……. Anyway, the ending. So at the end of the movie, everyone has been killed by zombies, including Barbara. Ben is the only one left, until he hears gunfire. As it turns out, a group of survivors have been travelling across the country, killing zombies and trying to find survivors. Ben gets up, without any warning, and before he knows it, he is shot in the head by the survivors and killed, ending the movie with him being set on fire by the survivors, along with the first zombie that was shown at the beginning of the movie. So, I have heard a lot about this ending from across the internet. Some that I have heard is that this was meant to be satirical, showing racism in the 60s and that he was shot for the color of his skin. Romero’s Dead franchise is known for having social commentary, so it’s not hard to believe. It could also be that Ben has gone completely crazy and makes himself visible to the survivors so they can shoot and kill him, so he doesn’t have to live with the guilt of having every survivor under his care die. There’s multiple possibilities as to what the ending could be, and they're all incredible in their own way.
Honestly, I can’t describe enough of how great this film is. There’s just too much good for me to talk about in this movie. It manages to be scary, talk about some touchy subjects, have a new kind of disturbing monsters, and have a cast of characters that weren’t more braindead than the monsters they were up against. The film has become a true classic, among the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and everything else. It may not from the same decade as those movies, but they were all influential in their own way, and that is what I think makes Night of the Living Dead. I say it’s worth checking out. The film is public domain, so you can find it anywhere online for free. And all I can say is, if it’s that easy to find, you should definitely give it a watch. Take care.
Up next on October Movie Marathon: Goddamn zombie babies.