Theatre of the Dead #1 - Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Director: George A. Romero


Review:

In this little series "Theatre of the Dead" we shall go through some important movies in the zombie sub-genre to give myself a direction on what movie to watch. There maybe zombie movies that I will not mention maybe because I didnt know about them, or couldnt get my hands on, or I do not consider those to be zombie movies. By zombie I refer to the common understanding of the term, without rigourously give a definition here. I generally do not consider mind-controlled people zombies, so White Zombie (1932), which tells a story that a witch doctor hypnoize people to work for him, is not in my sense a zombie movie. Therefore in that sense, we will start with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), which is regarded as the first zombie movie in many sources.

The story tells Barbara who went to a cemetry with his brother Johnny to visit their father's grave. A zombie just came attack them. Johnny hit a rock and died, and Barbara fleed to an apparently abandoned house. Later another guy Ben came to seek shelter, help Barbara to calm down and barricade the house against the zombies who started gathering outside. Its turns out a couple Tom and Judy, and a family Harry, Helen and their sick daughter was hiding in the house cellar. The two groups of people had an argument of whether they should stay in the barricaded house, or locked down in the cellar, while the zombies soon massed a large number.

First group of "modern" zombie in movie history

Barbara is basically a useless character that was too fragile, and in the whole movie she have done nothing but stands around like a lobotomized mental patient. The only usage she's in the movie is to scream. Ben argues that the people should stay on the ground floor, since they can still get out if things get out of hand. We agree with him since he seems to be a nice guy, and we watch him helped Barbara calmed himself and gives order in barricading the house. We dismiss Harry, who suggests to lock themselves in the cellar and defend that one only door, because we know he was still hiding in the cellar even if he heard screaming and cares only to save himself. The irony is all the casulties in this movie we could blame on Ben's decision. If you agree with Ben all along, you may consider youself fail in surviving a zombie apocalyse.

People couldnt help but get into argument on who's the boss.

Zombies are not from some ancient folklore, and almost all perceptions we have with zombies come from this movie. The rules are followed, imitated, modified but never trully broken. So zombies are dead people coming back to life. They have low intelligence, and know nothing other than eating, and they hungry for human flesh. They would not stop regardless the wounds on their body and can only be killed when the brain is destroyed. And one important point is that a human will become a zombie if bitten by them.

This film is also a landmark on movie gore. Shot in B&W may not just for the low budget.

The rule of "Chekhov's Gun" tells us if in a play, there is a loaded gun hanging on the wall, it will be fired later in the play. If zombies can infect others through bites, they will. Therefore there will always be at least one member of the cast be infected, and his companions struggling to kill him. In this movie it is that sick daughter, who was actually bitten and became a zombie. Their parent could not kill their own daughter, and could only watch the daugter killed and ate themselves. For countless zombie movies that follow this rule, it was this first time the rule was done that is most disturbing for me.

A little zombie coming to cut you open and eat your guts.

The Night of the Living Dead was remaked in 1990, in which the remake is almost the same movie, down right to the dialogues, which I must say it is a waste of film. The remake makes more use of the character Barbara, and changes to a happier ending but nothing really differs too much. But this original masterpiece was shot in Black-and-White, which may turn some people down. The remake maybe a substitute for them to know about the plot.