Night of the Living Dead (1968) Review

I am going to preface this review by saying that I was not a person that grew up with Night of the Living Dead. It wasn't a film that my family owned, I never saw it as a child and it was not a film that my Dad introduced me to like he did with so many others.
However I did see it in my adolescent years, when I was perhaps at the age of 12 I watched it on my own, in the dark, with the surround sound turned all the way up and I.. hated it, I thought it was awful and until recently I never wanted to see it again.

Then I did watch it again. I must have been ill the first time I saw this masterpiece because it is so well crafted and has a story that's so exciting and tense I don't understand how it can be viewed as anything else other than a masterpiece.

The plot centres around a viral outbreak that allows the recently deceased to come back to life and seek the flesh of the living. There is little to no explanation about how the outbreak starts and I feel it adds suspense and mystery to the plot. We focus on the characters Barbara and Johnny going to pay tribute to there father when a zombie happens upon them fighting and killing Johnny whilst Barbara escapes into a nearby country house. From there she meets Ben, a lone black man trying to survive who assists Barbara and the many other people that are lurking in the house.

Often being noted for the birth of the modern day zombie, Night of the Living Dead really is a treat. Being released in 1968 on the extremely low budget of $114,000 its remarkable to see how well this film stands the test of time, sure some of the acting by Duane Jones (Ben) and Judith O'Dea (Barbara) is a little over the top, and the zombies themselves don't quite look as dead as one might hope there are still some points of merit. For the film credited with starting the modern day zombie genre is surprisingly scary and tense. From the opening zombie chase, in which Barbara is chased through the countryside by an unrelenting undead assailant, to the harrowing howls and moans of the ghouls bunching up outside. The radio reports that are constantly aired throughout the film add a realistic tone to the outlandish feel of the rest of the film and help to ground it in reality.

The director of his low budget independent film is George A Romero, a relatively unknown director at the time of this films release, he chose to shoot this film in black and white even though colour was available and he was pressured by many studios to change the ending of his film and add a love story sub-plot, and the fact  that he was unwilling to do so and decided to produce the film without studio backing so that he could get it to be exactly the way that he wanted proved that Romero was dedicated to his craft.

The eerie tone of this film, coupled with the great storytelling and the great special effects and interesting characters make for an outstanding cinematic experience. This is a grisly film for 1968, and allowing a black man to take centre stage and become the hero was quite controversial for the time, and it is to the films credit that it is able to handle these types of social issues so well. With social commentary fixating on the Vietnam war and the recent threats of nuclear war, the way in which these issues are handled is expertly done.

Night of the Living Dead is a timeless horror movie, and one which I think shows the true end of the classical horror period, being one of the last black and white horror movies and bridging the gap between the old universal monster movies of the 40's and 50's and paving the way for more gory and bloodthirsty horror movies such as the Exorcist in 1973 and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974, its a true gem of cinema history and one I think that all should see.