They're coming to get you Barbara

If I say the name of the movie I can almost guarantee that most of you know what it is. Night of the Living Dead has been the most referred to zombie movie of all time. It changed the way we look at zombies and it formed the genre as a whole. Voodoo zombies quickly became a thing of the past and the new flesh eating zombie became the face of the word.

The funny thing about us calling them zombies when we refer to this movie is that George A. Romero himself never said the word even once throughout the entire movie. He thought of them as something much simpler. Dead humans that came back to life. They were people family and friends, and they were real people first and foremost. The word zombie just seems to make people think of nameless savage walking dead creatures with no identities that randomly kill whatever is in front of them for the fun or whatever else the reason. But Romero looked at them as being real people who had loved ones that cared for them and that they were forced into this new life of eating purely because of instinct.

Now getting to the actual movie. Yes we will actually talk about the movie itself eventually during its review. Surprise surprise! :) I will be talking mostly about the characters and the situations and how they relate to reality rather than fantasy.

The first thing we see is that they are far away from any large civilized area. There would be a house every now and then I can safely assume, but there are no large towns for a good distance and no help could come to them if they were in need. So the first message I saw when I just start up the movie is simple yet clear. They are alone. Call me evil but whenever I see that in a movie I get really happy and cheerful because I know something very bad will happen to everyone there. I get the same feeling from the Friday the 13'th movies.

What we may call cheesy acting actually comes across as very accurate if we were in the same situation. Who among us wouldn't be mentally crushed if we saw a close family member die and the killer running for us. At the beginning we see what happens to her brother and how it affects her through the movie. She can't even put together any rational thoughts after it happened because it's something she never imagined could go wrong.

What we have here is a very down to earth telling of a disaster. And they tell it very effectively. The people are scared, there is an unstoppable force that takes them by surprise, and they deal with it the best they can. I wont say the end of the movie because I have it sitting at the bottom of today's blog.

What about the blood? Well it is of course a zombie movie and what would it be without blood. You are in luck because for a black and white movie this is a true blue gore fest. The woman sitting on top of the stairs with her face eaten away, the little girl stabbing her mother with a shovel, and even the feast after the explosion. It even does well by today's standards for blood in a movie. It was black and white so it may not scare people but it was ahead of its time still.

From this movie we got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and pretty much every Of The Dead movie since then. After Night of the Living Dead most zombie movies have been of a similar structure and plot.

It's a great movie, and this has been a long and drawn out review since I am watching it as I type.

Being a movie that is now open to public domain, I can post up Night of the Living Dead on here for you to enjoy. You can even watch it from youtube! If you love zombies and have not seen it then I strongly suggest you put aside an hour and a half and do so. Its a great movie for zombie lovers and you will not be disappointed.