'Night of the Living Dead' (1968)

I've been staying well clear of 'big, thick' reads these last few months, just because my reading isn't going too badly right now and the last thing I want is to trip up, over a 'big read', and have to find something to get me back into the groove again. You know how it is.

And then I flicked through a few pages of George Romero and Daniel Kraus' 'The Living Dead' and the next thing I knew, I'm over two hundred pages in and I'm flying. I'm officially declaring this week, a great week for reading ;o)

I'll tell you more about 'The Living Dead' in a review that I'm hoping won't be too far away. In the meantime, what I will say is that I was reading through Daniel Kraus' afterword and came across a chronological order of the films, starting with the first mention of the outbreak ('Night of the Living Dead') and leading to the grim conclusion of 'Day of the Dead'. It looks like this...

'Night of the Living Dead' (1968) – The first zombies appear.

'Diary of the Dead' (2007) – Takes place at the same time as 'Night' but Kraus says there's contextual evidence that 'Night' happened first, I'll take his word for it.

'Survival of the Dead' (2009) – Six days after the dead walk for the first time.

'Dawn of the Dead' (1979) – Three weeks after 'Night'

'Land of the Dead' (2005) – Three years after the beginning of the plague.

'Day of the Dead' (1985) – The original script begins with a title reading, 'Five years... since the dead first walked'.

I'd been toying with the idea of a 'Romero Re-Watch' for a while but kept getting put off by the length of 'Dawn of the Dead' as well as the fact that I'd inevitably have to watch 'Survival of the Dead'; not a bad film but very much the weakest of the six. The idea of watching them in chronological order, charting the demise of humanity as it were, appealed to me though and so, here I am. I'm aiming for a movie a week, lets see how we go...

My college library had a row of VCR/TV combinations and a whole load of films that I watched under the pretense that it was all for my American Studies degree. The librarians knew but anyway... This is where I first saw 'Night of the Living Dead' and where my quest to watch all the zombie films began.

I won't go into the plot here because, well... We all know the story don't we? 'Night of the Living Dead' is basically a 'how not to survive the zombie apocalypse' movie. If there's a mistake to be made, you can guarantee that our band of survivors are lining up to make it. I mean, shooting the lock off the petrol pump... And Ben did that, the 'brains' of the group. The biggest mistake of all though is that no-one can agree on how to get through the night. If they'd decided on one thing, just one, and then all stuck to it, you know that the movie would have ended very differently. Zombies aren't difficult to outwit, the only danger is when you spend so long arguing that they surround the house you're in and you suddenly find that you've run out of options. Romero isn't just making a really scary movie (although he does, more on that in a bit), he's also bemoaning our innate ability to just not get on with each other. The 'ghouls' (that's what they're called here, we know what they are though) may be the ones that eat us but we're doing the equivalent of lining up and offering our throats for the first bite. You'd have thought that we'd learn but just wait until we get to 'Day of the Dead'...

In the midst of all this, I find it very easy to forget that 'Night of the Living Dead' is a properly scary movie at the same time. I've got a habit of looking for what I think Romero is saying at the expense of what is happening in front of me...

It is a scary movie though, a peaceful opening is suddenly turned upside down and for the rest of the movie, the tension is cranked up to unbearable levels as the characters are thrown into various situations and slowly realise that this is not an isolated incident. This is especially true when you realise that there's no way out and the tension is still getting higher and higher... Watching Barbra just completely lose it really highlights how good Romero is at jump scares on a budget. He's not working with a lot here but he really knows how to get the best out of what he has with moments that still make me jump. Especially with Ben dying right at the very end. And that's the sad thing about this movie, a black guy can make it through the whole film and still be at the mercy of a white guy with an itchy trigger finger.

Last night's viewing of 'Night' also got me thinking about the score. It's a great score that really drives the mood of the film but what struck me is how that music hearkens back to older horror movies but is doing its job in a movie that is starting to tread new ground. In that respect then, the score feels very much like a bridge between the old and the new, much like the film does itself in its black and white way.

The plot may be a little too straightforward (no matter what happens, someone will ruin everyone's chances of survival) but there is so much happening in 'Night of the Living Dead' that it really doesn't matter. I'm always really surprised at how watchable 'Night' is and this viewing was no different. A great way to start my 'Romero Re-Watch', 'Diary of the Dead' is up next.