Night of the Living Dead (1968) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline: If it doesn't scare you, you're already dead!

Still today Night Of The Living Dead is one of the most gruesome and terrifying films ever made.

Guaranteed to frighten you out of your wits, this is the story of seven people barricaded inside a farmhouse while an army of flesh-eating zombies roams the counrtyside.

An unrelenting shockfest that becomes a real cult classic. Don't watch it alone.

Please note: Many of these classics were produced in the early years of filmmaking. This means that the primitive audio recording technique will be more noticeable and so will glitches in the picture. These movies have been rescued from the film vaults in most cases and have not been restored. They are valuable as historical record, but won't push the envelope of the digital medium.

When unexpected radiation raises the dead, a microcosm of Average America has to battle flesh-eating zombies in George A. Romero's landmark cheapie horror film. Siblings Johnny (Russ Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) whine and pout their way through a graveside visit in a small Pennsylvania town, but it all takes a turn for the worse when a zombie kills Johnny. Barbara flees to an isolated farmhouse where a group of people are already holed up. Bickering and panic ensue as the group tries to figure out how best to escape, while hoards of undead converge on the house; news reports reveal that fire wards them off, while a local sheriff-led posse discovers that if you "kill the brain, you kill the ghoul." After a night of immolation and parricide, one survivor is left in the house.... Romero's grainy black-and-white cinematography and casting of locals emphasize the terror lurking in ordinary life; as in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), Romero's victims are not attacked because they did anything wrong, and the randomness makes the attacks all the more horrifying. Nothing holds the key to salvation, either, whether it's family, love, or law. Topping off the existential dread is Romero's then-extreme use of gore, as zombies nibble on limbs and viscera. Initially distributed by a Manhattan theater chain owner, Night, made for about 100,000 dollars, was dismissed as exploitation, but after a 1969 re-release, it began to attract favorable attention for scarily tapping into Vietnam-era uncertainty and nihilistic anxiety. By 1979, it had grossed over 12 million, inspired a cycle of apocalyptic splatter films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and set the standard for finding horror in the mundane. However cheesy the film may look, few horror movies reach a conclusion as desolately unsettling.

Storyline: Barbra and Johnny visit their father's grave in a remote cemetery when they are suddenly set upon by zombies. Barbra manages to get away and takes refuge in what seems to be an abandoned farm house. She is soon joined by Ben who stopped at the house in need of gas. Beset by the walking dead all around them Ben does his best to secure the doors and windows. The news reports are grim however with creatures returning to life everywhere. Barbra and Ben are surprised when they realize there are 5 people hiding out in the basement: Harry, Helen and Judy Cooper; and a young couple, Tom and Judy. Dissensions sets in almost immediately with Harry Cooper wanting to be in charge. As their situation deteriorates, their chances of surviving the night lessen minute by minute. Written by garykmcd

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, September 29, 2017 There actually was a time in entertainment history when zombies weren't beating down every door, when they weren't infesting every theater and ambling across every television screen. There was a time when the mere thought, never mind the sight, of the undead coming after those still fortunate...or unfortunate...enough to be alive was one that yielded genuine terror for both the audience, watching through tiny slits between the fingers covering their faces, and the characters, forced to flee in terror, batten down the hatches, and hope with every fiber of their likely soon-to-be-devoured essence that they could somehow survive the night. Night of the Living Dead didn't change cinema immediately, overnight, but it did usher in a new era of flesh-eating reanimated corpses, building on a handful of previous "zombie" films and forever changing the genre's landscape and core essence into what it is today. It asked a lot of questions -- it would be another decade before "when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth," -- and didn't answer them all to satisfaction, but then again that's sort of the point. Perhaps the only thing more scary than the cretures' relentless hunger is the possibilities of their origins, the how's and the why's and the very real concern that it could happen and whether anything could prevent their rise or prevent the fall of man, and not only in the physical sense.

In the first Dead film, the series that would make Pittsburgh, PA-based filmmaker George A Romero a household name, audiences are introduced to the frightening proposition of friends and neighbors and total strangers reanimating from the dead with only one goal: violently devouring anyone in their way. Their prey: a small band of survivors who have no idea what is going on, other than that their lives are in grave and immediate danger. The film gradually introduces sporadic information as the characters piece together the clues as they are fed inconclusive but terrifying radio and, eventually, television reports. Indeed, much of the fear comes not from direct contact with the zombies but rather in their frantic preparations to fend them off from inside a house and, even more terrifying, their inability to always keep their cool during the in-fighting that inevitably results, particularly as most characters deem it safer to stay in the house's main area while one stubborn man insists on keeping his family locked in the basement with no means of escape. The film certainly finds some horror and scares in its action but, in another way in which the film would influence the genre, it's often the living who make things more perilous for themselves that puts them in greater danger.

Of course, the film is downright tame by today's standards, more visually than psychologically but even with a few scattered "grisly" moments the picture has nothing on what AMC airs every week or what can be found by scouring the annals of the Zombie genre that has materialized since. But for its time, it's visuals and edgy narrative structure were hotly debated and derided by many. The film nevertheless found a rather wide audience and became a success even as an independent release. Today it's a film heralded for genre innovation, expert construction under limited financial constraints, and of course a launching pad for a genre and the man who made it. Romero would follow the film a decade later with Dawn of the Dead, a film perhaps not quite as fundamentally influential but certainly better in every way, larger by every measure, and the film for which the director is best known. It's much more expansive in comparison, and more socially biting, too, never mind amping up the gore factor many times over. Yet Night remains, arguably, the quintessential Zombie film. It's more limited scope, greater sense of urgency and confusion, and tighter focus on deteriorating conditions inside the house amongst the survivors brings the story together in a way that the more sprawling sequels could not achieve. Yes, Dawn is a better film, but Night is a better experience.

The film makes the most of its limited resources, including relatively cheap (but still convincing) makeup and effects, little-known actors in lead roles, and simple sets, primarily a real cemetery and a house ticketed for demolition. Performances are solid, if not a bit crude. The cast is tasked with playing against the movie's limited resources but also, perhaps more challenging, the novelty of its story and the violence it depicts, the latter in particular something, for the time, was closer to uncharted territory than it was run-of-the-mill. Both Judith O'Dea and Duane Jones are strong in their parts, each more or less opposites in how they react to the crumbling world around them and the hopelessness of the situation in which they find themselves. O'Dea's Barbra finds herself emotionally compromised and physically inept as the trauma at the cemetery sinks in and the hopelessness of the situation becomes clear. On the other hand, Jones' Ben is a fighter and a survivor. He's certainly scared -- who wouldn't be -- but he's able to compartmentalize and push forward, to finish the tasks at hand and keep a clear head through the horror. The two make for an interesting juxtaposition and are, while certainly each an extreme on the zombie survival spectrum, two characters that give clear-cut viewpoints on what's happening in the film and individuals with whom the audience can easily relate.

Night of the Living Dead certainly offered the first real glimpse into the nightmarish world of zombies, and it's interesting to watch the movie now in hindsight through the prism of a world where shows like The Walking Dead exist, not to mention a slew of other Romero zombie films as well as a cornucopia of other like-minded (and even Romero remakes) pictures that have so deeply saturated the marketplace. But none of them, with the sole exception of Romero's own Dawn of the Dead, can claim to be so influential, so genre-defining as Night of the Living Dead. A trailblazer in every sense of the term and more than any other the film responsible for carving out one of the most popular niche genres of all time, the film is rightly heralded a classic today, even as it was, in some corners, panned upon its release. Unfortunately, the film has not received the treatment it deserves on Blu-ray. Mill Creek's presentation struggles through tattered picture quality and an unsatisfying soundtrack. No extras are included. Rumors persist of a superior Criterion release coming down the line, and with that studio's track record, as well as some gorgeous screenshots out in the wild, that release, should it materialize, is bound to be the film's definitive home video release. Until then, this makes for a decent substitute, but it's hardly the end-all, be-all of Night of the Living Dead releases.

Trivia:________

[V2.5-A2.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box

--- JOYA ---


º º