by: Shaun Anderson
Posted on 12.31.09 in All Horror Films > Zombie
Release Date: 1968

Night of the Living Dead has, with some justification, become an important landmark in the history of the horror genre. It emerged at a very precipitous point, because the genre itself was suffering one of its periodic lulls. In many respects the 1960’s had been dominated by the pseudo-gothic universe of Hammer and the Poe inspired films of Roger Corman, their influence being felt throughout Europe and in some cases in Latin America. But by 1968, the challenges and difficulties of the real world had replaced the distant terrors of Hammer’s cobweb strewn vaults. The importance of this film lies in George A Romero’s strategy of combining the schlock aspects of exploitation/horror (the banal title of the film is a concession to this) with an aesthetic and stylistic presentation that was more attuned to the burgeoning cinema verite movement. By replicating the type of washed out, out of focus and grainy imagery Americans were watching on a nightly basis on the news, Romero made implicit the allegorical overture of his film and his attitude to how Vietnam was being covered on television. This is a counter-cultural film which opens with the limply blowing Stars and Stripes, a symbol that becomes dark and ironic as the posse of rednecks traverse the countryside picking off stray zombies one by one. The ease with which American citizens turn on each other in this film is a reflective device, offering a sober reminder of the students who lost their lives for simply expressing their democratic right to protest.

Perhaps too much allegorical interpretation has been laid at the doorstep of Romero’s startling debut picture. Within its narrative it also addresses, with no subtlety whatsoever, the question of race relations and the civil rights movement. The lynch mob imagery which populates the second half of the film creates a mood of nihilism uncommon for the horror genre, and the death of the black hero (an inspired casting move) at the conclusion offers only despair and desolation. The zombie disease is a disease of whiteness and part of the terror of this condition is the conformity and mindlessness it breeds. This is vision of a white Middle America controlled by a single impulse, the impulse in this case is to eat. But what it ultimately suggests is a pliable population – one that can be duped and controlled, and in the light of Watergate several years later this emerges as a prescient observation.

In other ways however this film is not that successful. The performances are generally dreadful. Its attitude to gender is far from progressive, offering us two women in extreme positions of culturak cliché. The one is romantic eye-candy, the other in a state of mute catatonia. Romero often finds himself relying all too frequently on Hitchcockian devices, and the sound design is amateurish. For the horror genre this film represented a major breakthrough in screen violence, offering us the sight of internal organs being eaten by blood crazed zombies. It is arguable whether this has ultimately been of benefit to the genre, especially in light of recent claims which suggest modern horror films are all gore and violence and nothing else. However these are minor grievances but ones that need to be aired to provide a little balance. Ultimately this film remains a white hot distillation of cultural anxieties in late 1960’s America, and led eventually to a franchise of five films, that each took a turn to address moments of ideological crisis in America’s history. This first entry remains the most interesting, both at the level of its political commitment, and at the level of its challenging fusion of documentary style aesthetics with the more exploitative aspects of the horror film.

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall: