Night Of The Living Dead 10 Things That Still Hold Up Today
Night Of The Living Dead: 10 Things That Still Hold Up Today
From the movie’s timeless themes to its fantastic makeup effects, these are various aspects about Night of the Living Dead that still hold up.
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Night of the Living Dead is a hugely influential horror film, helping to kickstart the zombie genre as everyone knows it today. There’s just a couple of problems. For one thing, it was released over fifty years ago, in 1968. As a result, some people may find it incredibly dated. It was also made by a rather inexperienced director for peanuts, its $115,000 budget equating to about $900,000 today. So not only is it old, but it’s cheap as well.
But George A. Romero was a masterful filmmaker, and he crafted a legendary film that still manages to hold up today – despite its age and cost-related issues.
The Zombie Design
Even after fifty years, the zombies of Night of the Living Dead look fantastic. Of course, they are incredibly tame by today’s standards, which often feature zombies in various states of decomposition/missing limbs/slathered in gore.
But it works exceptionally well for the movie, as it takes place at the beginning of the zombie outbreak. They wouldn’t have had time to decompose or get injured. Their design has been widely copied for decades, but they still remain startlingly effective.
The Racial Themes
Night of the Living Dead is a surprisingly realistic zombie movie, and that’s because it’s rooted in real world concepts. Romero reportedly hired African American Duane Jones because he was the best actor, but it left the movie with some undeniable racial themes.
Romero always had his pulse on the culture of his time, and his films are littered with scathing social commentary. The late ’60s were a time of great racial tensions, and those tensions are on full display and often commented on throughout Night of the Living Dead. Unfortunately, these themes are still very relevant.
The Theme Of Fractured Groups
The screenplay by John Russo and George A. Romero beautifully hit on the flaws in human nature. Forgoing a zombie invasion, Night of the Living Dead is about how groups of people – no matter how small – typically fail at coming together and successfully completing a task.
Rather than holding up inside the house and living harmoniously, in-fighting results in a horrible attack and everyone’s eventual deaths. The nature of the movie’s fractured group is a universal and timeless theme – especially in today’s day and age when it seems like people are more fractured than they’ve ever been.
(Some Of) The Acting
Night of the Living Dead isn’t a horror movie with an all-star cast, but they still get the job done. Some of the acting can seem lame by today’s standards, like Keith Wayne as Tom and Karl Hardman’s overly-theatrical performance as Harry Cooper.
But many of the performers are actually quite decent, including Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, and Marilyn Eastman. For a low budget movie from the ’60s, Night of the Living Dead is quite well acted, and modern viewers should have no problem buying these people as their characters.
The Opening Sequence
George A. Romero was an excellent director, and he knew how to scare audiences. The opening sequence of Night of the Living Dead – which sees Johnny scaring Barbra before getting attacked and killed by a zombie – is one of the best opening scenes in horror.
This scene remains horrifying to this day, and it’s thanks in large part to Bill Hinzman’s performance as the zombie. It’s one of the most memorable ghouls from the Dead series, and his chase with Barbra is a thrilling bit of cinema that still has the power to get the heart pumping.
Black And White Cinematography
The black and white images of Night of the Living Dead could go one of two ways. It could horrifically date the movie and make it look even older than 1968, or it could give it a timeless feel. Thankfully, it’s the latter.
The black and white gives the movie an eerie and grungy atmosphere – something that was woefully missing from the colorful Dawn of the Dead. Not only that, but it helps mask the ’60s fashion and interior design to a degree, which helps make it look far more modern than it actually is.
The Claustrophobic Atmosphere
Night of the Living Dead is a claustrophobic horror movie, taking place entirely within the confines of a farmhouse. Romero had a thing for claustrophobic settings (no doubt a result of his small budgets), with Dawn taking place in a mall and Day inside a military bunker.
The cinematography beautifully conveys the house’s cramped setting, and the acting perfectly highlights the growing tension between the group – a tension that comes about from their conflicting ideas and painfully close proximity.
The Violence
There’s no denying it – many people come to George A. Romero movies for the violence. Both Dawn and Day were enormously controversial owing to their graphic violence, but Night is rather tame in comparison. There is very little blood, and gore is kept to a minimum.
But what is there is still shockingly effective. Modern viewers can only imagine how brutal the violence must have looked back in 1968, as it still looks brutal today. A Romero zombie movie would not be complete without its signature violence, and Night certainly delivers on that front.
The Zombie Rules
Not much has changed about zombie lore in the last fifty years. Of course, it was Romero himself who introduced much of the rules. Night of the Living Dead will make for easy viewing with modern audiences, as most of them already know the “rules.”
Zombies are slow and shambling, and shots to the head are necessary to put them down for good. With that said, Night also contains a few twists – primarily, the concept that zombies can use tools (as evident by Cemetery Zombie using a rock and zombie Karen a trowel.
The Ending
The ending to Night of the Living Dead is iconic and will never not be powerful. For those who don’t remember, Ben survives the night (being the only survivor) and wakes up in the cellar to the sounds of an outside posse.
He goes to investigate, but the posse mistakes him for a zombie and he is shot and killed. It’s a gleefully nihilistic and depressing note to end the movie on, and it perfectly matches the film’s dreary tone. There is no hope to be found here.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/night-living-dead-things-still-hold-up-today/
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