Night of the Living Dead: 1968

I've been waiting a long time to review this..

   "Residents" of an abandoned house are bombarded by waves of zombies during an epidemic caused by radiation.     

   Ahhh, the zombie apocalypse.  There's nothing more annoying than having a balding idiot yell at you, and have to fight zombies too.  yes, it is a frustratingly frightening experience; trying to survive a zombie outbreak.  With nothing to separate you from them other than a couple of windows, and a door.  This movie is a very good example of having a cult following.  In this review, not only will I be looking at this movie, but why the zombie film genre, "...won't stay dead!!"  

   Actually, let's tackle that first, "why can't we leave zombies alone?"  What is it about them that gives use a satisfying feeling.  Well, I think that I have the answer.  I think that it's because killing a zombie is the closest thing to killing a living human.  We've always had that one guy (or girl) that you just want to bash with a kerosene covered, flaming club.  We are sickly satisfied with killing our own kind.  We understand our kind the best, which can be a reason why most of the time, they are the ones who get on our nerves.  Besides, they're already dead.  They can't feel pain anyway.  So what if you give it to em' ninja style, or go all Rambo on their @#!*% ?  They were gonna eat you anyway!  And that's why we just love zombies.

   "Night of the Living Dead" was in no doubt, the definition of a horror film.  You have suspense, action, desperation, irony, reality clashing with myth, madness, and gore.  With this film the action starts up right away.  You meet two character's that go down to the cemetery to pay respects, and then WAMMO!  THERE COMING TO GET YOU BARBARA...And then right there, they do!  You get all of the exposition in one scene.  The rest is just survival.  However, Barbara doesn't do that much with helping survive the outbreak.  She just sits on the couch...falling slowly into endless cavern of her own mind.  spiraling into an uncontrollable journey of MASS HYSTERIA!!!!!  So, no, she didn't really do anything. 

   This film moves around the basis between the constant struggle of vulnerability and invulnerability.  Some of the occupants of the abandoned house wanted to go into the cellar, while other wanted to stay on the top floor.  While on the top floor, the windows and doors are boarded up, but in the cellar there happened to be a zombie (infected daughter), so it would seem as though the cellar would be the best option...but ya'know...it wasn't.  I'm not too sure though, I think it's a debatable subject.  Anyway, these are surprisingly smart zombies!  One has the ability to think, "Hmmm.  I can't seem to get through the window...well, what if I picked this brick up...and somehow used it's weight to my advantage and force it through the air.  With the correct trajectory, I may be able to break the window so that I can get to the tasty human.."  Or something like that.

   However, there is one thing that has been bugging me.  There is a scene where the zombies pick flesh off of two humans from a burning truck.  They were eating the flesh like good generic zombies and I started to forget which year this film was made in.  This was more like a movie made after 2000!  I don't think many people then were ready to take on a movie like this.  It was in this way that, "Night of the Living Dead" was revolutionary towards the world of cinematic horror.  However, there are some movies made by George A. Romero that might go a little too far with this idea to say the least.  But I suppose after this movie he was like, "Hey...I'm pretty good at this zombie stuff..."  An next thing you know stuff by him starts popping up all over the place.  If you're good at something, you might as well make millions doing it.

   In Conclusion:  "Night of the Living Dead" was wonderful.  I loved every minuet of it. With stressful camera angles, fantastic lighting, and it probably being the goriest film of it's time, this film has launched the biggest cult following of zombie films ever.  What I like allot about it is that although there is some gruesome imaging, it does not go overboard with it.  There are so many other aspects about this movie that can still put you at edge of your seat, without holding a barf bag or a million dollar budget.  This film is great for Halloween, and I recommend this to anyone who enjoy's a terrifically made horror film.  If you're have trouble deciding what your first zombie flick should be, do yourself a favor and go watch this one instead of whatever it was you were thinking of before.  And if you've never heard of this film, then climb out of the hole you've been living in and watch it at the bottom of this review.  Thank you!

Verdict:

I give this film 10 little girl zombies out of 10

Note:  A new series is coming out for next couple of reviews!  This time I'm going to venture into the horror films of french film maker Georges Méliès!

Next Review:  Le Monstre 1903