Night of the Living Dead
This is the first time I’ve watched George A. Romero’s original zombie movie minus RiffTrax! in a long time. For all its low-budget trappings, for all its rough around the edges performances, “Night of the Living Dead” still puts us in a sense of existential dread. Like “Carnival of Souls” earlier in the decade, this film makes the most of its limitations, and focuses on the psychological terror of the narrative. It is such a simple idea, and yet, it endures because Romero understood how to accomplish what he wanted in this film.
We begin by following a brother and sister to a cemetery. Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) have driven six hours to put a small wreath on their father’s grave for their mother. Johnny is blase about the ritual, but Barbra understands why they do it. After Johnny begins to spook her out, reminder her of a prank he pulled on her many years ago, an older man is walking the cemetery. He isn’t responding to them, though, but he does attack them. Barbra gets to the car and drives away, and gets to an abandoned house. She is stunned into silence. She’s joined in the house by Ben (Duane Jones), a young Black man who starts to fortify the house, and tries to get her to speak. As more of the undead make it to the house, we learn there is a couple and a family hiding in the basement. The real terror begins there.
Romero and co-writer John A. Russo know that great horror often comes with a social conscience. Here, we see issues of white supremacy come up in the back-and-forth between Ben and Harry (the blowhard husband and father played by Karl Hardman) when the latter doesn’t trust his judgement, and feels like he needs to talk over everyone to get heard. There’s misogyny in the way that Barbra’s trauma is not always respected by the men in this situation. And then, there is the haunting final image, where a collection of white men- sheriffs and others whom are hunting the zombies dead- ask no questions as to whether the Black man in the house is alive or not, they just kill him. If that’s not a lynching on screen, I don’t know what is.
The zombies, such as they are, are not scary or intimidating, and to Romero’s credit, they recognize that- due to the film being in black-and-white- they don’t need to do much in terms of makeup to make the actors playing zombies look creepy. Even at that, the images do still get under our skin. Romero builds set pieces effortlessly, even if it’s just as simple as Ben going around, trying to board up the windows and doors. The musical score is sparse, but effective when it needs to be. And the tropes it helped introduce- or worked into- are effective. This film remains a benchmark for a reason.
