"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) Talkback (Spoilers)

[The Drizzle]

"They're coming to get you, Barbara."

Release Date: October 1st, 1968
Director: George A. Romero
Starring: Duana Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Bill Heinzman

Plot Summary: The original zombie movie still reigns supreme! The dead come back to life and eat the living in this low budget, black and white film. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.

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Related Threads:
-Night of the Living Dead (1990) Talkback (Spoilers)

[sidewinder]

Well, I’m posting in a pretty old thread. I know it seems odd, due to the creation date and number of replies, but that’s what gets me. Nobody has made a comment about the cinematic masterpiece Night of the Living Dead.

“They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!”

Now, I’m not much of a horror fan. At all. But this isn’t a horror film. It just uses the genre as a vehicle for the real message of the movie. In fact, the zombies aren’t even the real bad guys here: we are.

“That’s what this is all about to you, isn’t it? Being right.”

When the group gets holed up in the tiny farmhouse while the dead roam the countryside, Mr. Cooper doesn’t help Ben defend the house from zombies. Instead, he chooses to argue with Ben about how to defend themselves. Even when he knows deep down that Ben is right, he still puts his family in danger just so that he can be the big hero. He doesn’t care about protecting the group from zombies, he cares about being right.

“No! My brother is not dead!”

As soon as Barbara stumbles in to the farmhouse, she goes from shock, to paranoia, and to denial. She is initially too shocked by her brother’s death to help the group board up the house. Then, she is so paranoid that she won’t trust anyone, not even the caring Ben. Finally, she risks the group’s safety to go and “rescue” her brother, even though he is obviously dead. When she is finally shaken back to reality by seeing her brother as a zombie, it is much too late…

“Good shot! Throw him in the fire with the rest.”

At the end of the movie, Ben wakes up to find that the humans have overpowered the zombies. The remaining undead are being eliminated by the people, who are easily picking them off. As Ben goes out to join them, he is shot in the head by one of the zombie hunters. Nobody checked to see if it was a zombie or not, and because of the human’s carelessness, the bravest person in the world that night was killed.

“Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up.”

As Ben is dragged to a burning pile of corpses by meathooks in the infamous end credits, it becomes clear why this is the greatest “horror” film of all time. George A. Romero’s message was that we are our own worst enemy. Their refusal to work together was their undoing. The zombies had no souls. They had an excuse for their evil.

Oh, and if you didn’t read this, that’s okay. I didn’t either. ttly 2 long, imo.