'The killers are eating the flesh of the people they murder'
Night of the Living dead 8.5
I recently rewatched this seminal masterpiece which made George A. Romero synonymous with 'zombies', although that word is never used, they are simply called flesh-eaters.I had seen this before a couple of years ago and, as with so many others, my first thought after watching it was that I will let it sit a while then watch it again in the future to make sure it was really as good as I thought. I loved it.
The story; a brother and sister are attacked by a man, the brother is killed, and the man chases the sister until she finds refuge. She and a small group, mostly strangers, barricade themselves in a house to avoid the marauding monsters who are attacking and eating anybody they come across. There is no explanation of why this is happening, then there's the question of their safety from eachother in the house. Eventually there are 7 hauled up (a family of 3, a couple, the sister and a man), and tempers begin to frey among the men, who disagree on the best strategy. So, as with some other films of the sort, notably Danny Boyle's 28 days later, the monsters themselves aren't always the only, or even most pressing threat.
Some of the performances would be a touch shallow and extroverted by today's standards but Romero's direction is top notch. He uses lots of techniques that are now horror filmmaking staples. Cliches in the writing like the characters running into the nearest empty, shadowy, silent house (safer in terms of protection, but few exit routes - something the aformentioned men argue about) and shots such as stuffed animal heads on the walls shown with that quick cut style from below. Low budget horror often uses camera angles to enhance visuals cheaply, including rotating shots that prompt us to expect something to appear in frame, effective close ups of faces that make us feel as we should back away slightly and alot of shots of the flesh-eaters are at an odd angle making then more jarring. Low budget also usually means minor stunts are done for real, making the action more believable anyway. It is very tight, very economic, no frills. Overall there is a hint of an Expressionist feeling in the direction, perhaps largely down to the use of light and dark to compose memorable images (I couldn't help but be put in mind of the fabulous Night of the Hunter) There are often faces approaching out of, and lots of barely noticeable details in the shadow, keeping us literally and figuratively in the dark through many scenes. I'm not suggesting all of the above was invented by Romero in 1968, but like a few other classics that arrive every few years, it was instrumental in the evolution of horror by adding to and developing the canon of greats.
The only info of the outside world is through the radio and TV. They and we as the audience hear radio bulletins or see TV reports a few times throughout the film, hearing how things are moving on, which is very clever writing. It guarantees we have precisely the same information as the characters so we have maximum empathy with them. And since they mostly don't know eachother, they have to vocalise their thoughts so we understand their thought processes and again, we are right there with them. Despite the updates, the film, which is largely set inside the house, never loses it's claustrophobic, self contained feeling, which is critical to the overall effect.
Talking of the radio reports, I just have to mention the reference to this in an all time great scene from David Lynch's wonderful Wild at Heart. Lula and Sailor are listening to a grisly radio report about corpses being devoured and she says, 'holy shit it's night of the living fucking dead... Sailor Ripley you get me some music on that radio this instant I mean it'. They then pull over and find some heavy rock station instead, and just have to dance in a faux King Fu fashoin before embracing romantically. It is the best scene of the film and one of my favourites of any. I love making these connections from different films, it is one of the joys for me.
Then comes what is for me the best, most artistic moment of the film. About 10 mins from the end, when the mum goes down into the basement, following seconds after her dying husband, to check on the daughter who has been resting, and who was biten before the film started (of course we all know what that means). What she finds and what happens makes one of the best scenes of any horror film. I was stunned by it, it is 60 seconds so shocking I can only imagine how audiences must have reacted in 1968. This short scene is worth a full essay itself, and maybe one day I will oblige, but for now, and briefly; the sick daughter has turned into a flesh eater, is munching on a raw chunk of dad, and proceeds to stab her mum. It is clearly inspired by one of the most famous scenes in all of film history, the Psycho shower scene where the knife, or in this case trowel, is not seen actually stabbing her mum, but strongly suggested. The other worldly sound design of the screams make things even more memorable, I had to rewind it a couple of times to take it all in. There is another wonderfully dark, almost dismissed moment of a misguided gunshot as the very final act of the story, but the basement scene is the standout moment of an otherwise very high quality film. To be fair, it would be the standout moment of most films; it's that good.
As the credits play we see still photographs of the killed flesh-eaters - as if taken by a reporter at the time, which lends it a true story feeling (not dissimilar to a technique used in perhaps my favourite all time horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) This may sound ridiculous but since there is never an explanation of where the flesh eaters come from, or the cause of the change, there isn't really anything entirely unbelievable here. To try and crowbar in something about a chemical warfare situation or uncontrolled lab subjects or alike into the plot (as many others do) would only dilute the impact instead of enhancing it.
This was released in the same year as Rosemary's Baby, and it is hard to imagine 2 more different experiences of scaring an audience, but they are both supremely effective, excellent examples of the genre. Since, Romero, and imitators, have tried to recapture the simple majesty of this formula but as so often is the case, the original still stands alone at the top of the pile.
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