Some huge spoilers in here so be wary if you haven't seen this film.
Ever year I love to pick a true horror classic to watch at Halloween. Stuff like The Shining, Suspiria, The Haunting, Candyman, Friday The 13th (shut up i love it) and of course Halloween have been watched in the last few years.
This year's pick is Night Of The Living Dead.
I picked this one because it's director George A. Romero died earlier this year and it felt like a good time to rewatch this. I also picked it because it's a terrifying and intelligent horror movie.
I saw this for the first time when I was way too young to see it. Maybe around 12. My parents were pretty sound about letting us see films not suitable for us. And like all Irish parents they had no problem with violent films as long as there wasn't any ridin' in them. Sex was the big no-no. Dead cannibals eating intestines was grand but no boobs.The version Da rented out for us was the godawful colourised version Xtravision had in stock. If you haven't seen the film, it was made in 1968 for next to nothing and B&W film was used as a cost cutting exercise. The fake colours were horrific but it didn't take away from the power of the film. I was in tatters watching it. It gripped me 5 minutes in and didn't let go until the gut punch ending.
The film starts off with a brother (Johnny) and sister (Barbra) driving through the countryside to visit their father's grave. Bro is slagging sis and ripping the piss out of her like all real family members tend to do. At the graveyard they notice an old man staggering around the place and Barbra is on edge, something Johnny takes full advantage of to spook her out. Then rapidly things go bad. The old man attacks Barbra, and Johnny in an attempt to tackle him dies when he falls and clips his head on a grave stone. Right there, the fear kicks in. The bloke you assume is the hero of the film is dead within 5 minutes, his sister is left screaming and it has all happened in daylight. Daylight isn't supposed to be scary. What in the name of jaysus is going on? Straight away all preconceived notions are out the window. What you guessed would happen doesn't and you're left on edge for the rest of the film.
Barbra escapes and makes her way to an old rickety farmhouse. Around the house and in the surrounding fields are slow moving sick looking people like in the graveyard. Barbra is understandably petrified until she meets Ben who saves her from one of them. Barbra is in extreme shock over the death of her brother and the madness outside and falls into a state of distress. It's here Ben assumes the lead role. Ben is black. I'm mentioning this because this film was made in 1968 and black actor's didn't get tend to get lead roles in films at this time unless they were Sidney Poitier going to dinner with Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn. It was at this moment 60's audiences realised they were watching something ground breaking. The film doesn't make a big deal out of him being black either. He just is. Get over it.
After a while Ben discovers other survivors holed up in the basement. A teenage couple and a married couple and their daughter. The daughter is sick after she was bitten by one of the people outside. They find a TV and finally find out what's causing the madness outside. A newsreader tells them "It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder." It's here we see the birth of a cinematic monster that has endured for the past 50 years and is still popular as hell due to the likes of The Walking Dead, iZombie, Z nation etc. The flesh eating zombie. There were zombies in films before but nothing like this. They were generally harmless and used as slaves in Hammer Horror films or old voodoo films of the 1930's. Here was something new and vicious and different to the vampires and aliens and Frankenstein's monsters that horror fans were used too. All bets were off now. And now the film starts breaking taboo's.
In an attempt to escape the house the teenage couple try to refuel a lorry to escape. Panic and confusion leads to a fuel spill, leading to a fire leading to bye bye teenage couple. Hungry zombies stream in and rip their bodies to bits. It's pretty tame by today's standards but audiences of the day were horrified. This was a type of violence only til that point seen on news reports coming in from Vietnam. People went to the cinema to escape reality and have fun, not be horrified. This was new and appalling. Next the little girl in the basement dies. This was not on at all! Kids in films were not supposed to die. Kids were always saved. But then as that shocker subsides we see the little girl not only come back to life, but come back to life and kill and eat her mother. The was wholly new territory for horror movies. A child killing a parent. And if that wasn't enough the shellshocked Barbra is then killed by her now zombified brother Johnny who she saw die in the graveyard at the start of the film. The first audiences to see this film must have felt like they were getting kicked in the head.
But something even more seismic occurs during the above madness too. Harry, the father of the child in the basement panics and locks Ben out of the house as zombies attack from every angle. Ben gets back into the house and beats Harry before shooting and killing him in self defence. A black man beating and killing a white man onscreen. Nothing like this had ever been shown before. This just didn't happen. The film's distributors even avoided showing this film in many of the more conservative states in America for fear of what would happen when audiences saw it. In the space of 20 minutes the film shattered numerous taboo's and cemented it's place in cinematic history.
The next morning Ben wakes up and surveys the scene. He's the only survivor of the night. He hears a noise outside and sees a posse out killing what's left on the horde outside. He peeps out the window and it's here that the Night makes it's ultimate statement. Ben is shot in the head and killed. He's been mistaken for a zombie and he gets dumped into a blazing fire with the rest of the bodies. The hero of the film, gone in an instant. No warning, no foreshadowing, just unceremoniously killed. The subtext is clear. Black People do not matter to White America. They are just more fuel for fire. When this film was released Martin Luther King was only 6 months in his grave. Another Black hero shot in the head. A scene grimly repeated on a near weekly basis in America in the 50 years since this film was released. Ben's death turns the film from grim to nihilistic. If the hero can die so easily what's the point? It's here the film's story goes from scary to profoundly disturbing. A true "horror" movie.
Night Of The Living Dead is brilliant. It was also George A. Romero's debut feature film too. Imagine having this as your first feature. It had such an impact that it shadowed his entire career. A seemingly simple but deeply layered film that had a awful lot to say about the state of the 1960's America. Had it just been another scary movie with nothing to say it probably would have been ignored but that fact that it had the balls to break new ground and be critical of the establishment means it's still fondly remembered and talked about nearly 50 years later. When you watch it you get the best of both worlds. A cracking horror story and you get to watch history being made before your eyes too.
An honest to god masterpiece and one I can't wait to rewatch tonight.
