Night of the Living Dead Review

Scare Value Hall of Fame – 2022

Night of the Living Dead review.

George A. Romero’s legendary first entry into zombie horror provided a template for the genre. But Night of the Living Dead is much more than that. An expertly crafted horror experience steeped in biting commentary. Night of the Living Dead was a small, independent production that became a cultural phenomenon.

Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.

Night of the Living Dead

Directed by George A. Romero

Screenplay by John Russo and George A. Romero

Starring Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman

Night of the Living Dead Review

For as much as Barbara’s brother Johnny was being a dick…he was also right. They were coming to get you, Barbara. As we’d learn over the course of six George A. Romero directed zombie movies spanning over 40 years…they were coming to get everyone.

You can argue that Romero made better movies than Night of the Living Dead…but you can’t argue that he ever made a more important one. This is a revolutionary horror film. It launched the wildly popular and everlasting zombie sub-genre into the stratosphere.

A zombie outbreak in rural Pennsylvania locks Barbara (Judith O’Dea), Ben (Duane Jones) in an apparently abandoned farmhouse. After barricading themselves in they discover a group of people hiding in the basement. News reports are their only connection to the outside world and their only source of information as to what is going on. Tensions rise as the group tries to survive the night…and each other.

So much of what Romero does here has been copied, remade and ripped off that it can be easy to lose sight of how original Night of the Living Dead is. The monsters on the outside might be keeping people contained…but the fear, mistrust and hate of the people inside provides the true danger. We see these archetypes over and over in horror.

Ben is immediately takes on the role of leader. Barbara is in shock over the death of her brother in the film’s iconic, cemetery set, opening sequence. Ben kills zombies, boards up the house and tries to keep Barbara calm. Basement hider Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) is a loud obnoxious angry man who challenges every decision. We learn a short time after meeting him that Harry has a wife and sick daughter in the basement, which explains some of his actions. You want to forgive him some if he’s trying to protect his family…but his wife’s reaction to him kind of lets you know he’s always been an ass.

Romero’s zombies are seen throughout horror too. They walk (more of a shamble really), can understand their surroundings and even use tools to a limited extent, can’t talk, fear fire and eat flesh. They are killed by destroying the brain. These traits form a base that will be tweaked as time goes on by this series and others. There’s been a long running battle between those who prefer slow zombies and those who want their zombies to run. We’ve seen enough good and bad in both that the debate shouldn’t be about how the zombies move and more about how the director moves them. With Romero…walking zombies rule the earth.

The final half hour of Night of the Living Dead is where most of the action takes place. A mad dash to fill a truck with gas while chasing zombies away with fire leads to a predictably explosive result. Harry and Ben finally have it out. Harry doesn’t open the door as zombies are bearing down on Ben. Again, you can kind of understand Harry’s point of view here. His family is inside…and the zombies are on the other side of the door. It’s not heroic but heroes die in these movies.

We get to see the zombies feeding on the bodies of the couple that dies in the explosion. It’s tame by today’s standards but must have been wild sitting in a theater in 1968. Night of the Living Dead came out just before the MPAA put their ratings code into place so anyone and everyone was walking into screenings.

When Harry makes his move for Ben’s gun, and loses it back to him immediately, Ben shoots him. It’s a questionable move for the hero of the movie…but, honestly, we’re trying to survive a zombie apocalypse here and Harry had shown himself to be more trouble than he’s worth. Harry aimed the gun at Ben first, after all. It’s a choice made in service of the story. Harry stumbles to the basement to die beside his daughter. His daughter, of course, is now a zombie.

In perhaps the best scene in Night of the Living Dead…the child is found eating her father’s arm. She then kills her mother with a trowel. It’s an incredibly effective and chilling scene as the dead eyed little girl lays waste to her parents.

By this point all hell had broken loose upstairs. The zombies have breached the barricaded doors and windows. Ben and a, finally, active Barbara do their best to fend them off. Barbara meets her end when the zombified Johnny pulls her out into the dead of night. Now alone, Ben retreats to the basement and barricades the door. He makes quick work of the reanimated bodies of Harry and his wife.

This Night of the Living Dead review can’t go any further without discussing the social commentary element of the movie. Duane Jones is a black man playing the heroic lead in a horror movie. This was a new thing in 1968. This has resulted in a lot of discussion about the racial themes in Night of the Living Dead. Romero claims that all of it is unintentional. He cast Jones because he was the best actor for the part, and anything taken from the movie as a comment on race wasn’t his intent.

There are two sides to that argument. In the scene-to-scene action of the movie…Romero is pretty much correct. You can layer as much fear and resentment of a strong black man taking control of the situation in 1968 America as you want to…but it wasn’t intentionally there on the page. Does it add a lot of tension and perceived backstory to the conflict between Ben and Harry? Of course…how could it not. But it wasn’t intended.

What was intended, however, was to cast a black actor in a role that Romero had to know was a giant leap forward for the depiction of black characters in horror. That his race is never once brought up in the movie, or is ever an intentional plot device, only strengthens that side of the argument. This was an important moment in horror, and film, history. Ben is the most courageous, levelheaded, intelligent and resourceful character in Night of the Living Dead. Even if it was unintentional, by giving Ben all these characteristics but never once making his race one of them…Jones and Romero had shattered a horror movie glass ceiling.

Which brings us to the end. Ben survives the night. He is dead by a posse of townsfolk. They were patrolling the area and clearing out the zombies. We never know for sure if they just mistook him for a zombie…but Romero’s claim that the part wasn’t specifically written for a black man would lead you to believe that’s what it was. But again, unintentional or not, it gives the movie a giant added layer of commentary. To have a black hero survive the nightmare only to be unceremoniously shot down by an uncaring white mob…it’s a lot. But it exists in an area as gray as the black and white footage that makes up Night of the Living Dead. We can read into what we want…but we can’t be certain it was the creator’s intent.

Scare Value

The main thing you should take from this Night of the Living Dead review is that it was a game changer. In more ways than just popularizing the zombie movie. It’s as influential as any movie you can name. It stands the test of time. It can’t be watered down no matter how many of its situations and themes are recycled. George A. Romero had made a masterpiece on his first try. It wouldn’t be his last one.

5/5