Night of the Living Dead

     Is reviewing the National Film Registry right? Well... the television said it was the right thing to do.

     So... Night of the Living Dead. I've been putting this one off, because to my ever-lasting nerd shame, I really, really hate zombie movies. Even though what we now call zombies are more properly termed "ghouls" (like they're called in this film) or "revenants". But the term zombie stuck, and now we've got a bonanza of the damn things chowing down on grizzled survivors, shrieking women, or trying their luck on eating wacky character types in the Zom-Rom-Com. But it really all started here, since the only earlier zombie film I know of is the obscure Bela Lugosi flick "Zombies on Broadway" (highly disappointing - while there are traditional Voudon zombies, they only show up on Broadway in the last scene). And this film didn't just make zombies a mainstream scare factory, it ushered in just how graphic a horror movie could get with its content!

     The film stars Duane Jones, Bill Cardille, and contains various other people. Duane Jones is really the only one to turn in anything resembling a performance, while Bill Cardille had actually been a reporter. The others... well, they help show just how low the budget was! They kind of lurch through the picture like extras in a high school play, occasionally reaching the level of first-time community theater performers. The camera effects are generally amateurish, with cuts especially being handled generally badly, and the camera choosing weird things to focus on (my favorite being the mincing zombie with the bob cut - she looks more concerned about dirtying her shoes than finding brains). But there is a certain effectiveness in the general lot of the film being amateur hour... especially since it was mixed with some very well-thought out practical effects and some amazing make-up work. The generally bad acting can feel a lot like random people facing this completely beyond the pale situation, and when the camera is focusing on the practical effects, it gives loving detail to the guts and gore.

     There's also the revolutionary casting of Duane Jones as the hero in a horror picture, and interestingly, the last to die. While everyone involved in the picture swears it was just because Duane Jones gave a really good audition, a black man keeping his head in a horrible supernatural situation, let alone being generally heroic, was pretty much unheard of. Here I'm thinking of the myriad of media from the era showing various black people being terrified of "haints", as an extra little nail of them being inferior to whites because they're so full of silly superstition! Ha! I take George Romero's word that he wasn't trying to do anything revolutionary with racial politics in film, but unconsciously achieving something is still an achievement. Even if that revolution was short-lived enough that "The Black Guy Dies First" is a standard horror trope.

     As you might surmise, my feelings on this film are mixed. It ushered in the era of everything I hate about horror films. I hate bloodfests and gore. I hate zombies. As a piece of entertainment that I was expected to find pleasing in some way, I hated this movie. But from the detached portion of me that is trying to engage these films on the level of "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance", I have to admit this movie had all three.