In the uncertain days of 1968 a
new, low-budget independently-made zombie movie was
released. Reviewers (the few who bothered) mostly wrote it
off as violent junk. It was soon forgotten.
But in a few years, people began
hearing about a strange movie with cannibals/cannibal
zombies. The movie sounded like it went to places few others
dared to go. Especially at that time. A little
girl eats her mother. That’s one of the all-time
cultural taboos, I remember my sister saying.
Especially on campuses, this movie picked up momentum
as a midnight feature. Of course, it turned out to be that
same 1968 movie.
Night of the Living Dead deserved the
acclaim. It delivered the goods. Although the actors
were unknowns, they held their own. The action sequences
kept you squirming and jumping. The plot, simple as it was,
was highly absorbing. And the idea of everyday, ordinary
folks trying their best to break into your house and eat you (for
reasons you barely understood) was about as disturbing as you
could get.
Forty or so years later, it’s
easier to sit back and make sense of how this movie fit into the
culture then. A war was heating up that divided the country
like none other before. A president decided not to run
again. Recent diaries of Lyndon Johnson show a man who saw
his country headed into quicksand (Vietnam), yet going straight
into war because he simply didn’t know what else to
do. A new president was elected, largely for saying he had a
secret plan to end the war. (Actually he would keep the war
going another four years, then announce a peace settlement the
week before the next presidential election).
Every summer starting with 1964
had seen violence in the Afro-American sections of big
cities. Drugs, especially the psychedelics such as LSD, STP,
mescaline and psilocybin were changing people’s lives. The
“changes” formed a spectrum from a beautiful new vision, as some
described the psychedelics to, in other people’s minds the
ultimate nightmare. (How many people had heard the urban
legend about the babysitter telling the baby’s mother: “ …
and the turkey is in the oven…” told as a true story?)
That sense of the
unknown swooping down on us was exactly what this movie
delivered. Being attacked and killed by a grizzly bear might
make sense. But a bland middle-American guy suddenly going
berserk in a peaceful cemetery and killing your brother for no
reason at all—nobody was ready for this. Suddenly
your world has changed, and you’re doing your best to take action
you never dreamed was necessary.
This is the situation Johnny and
Barbara, an ordinary 20-something brother and sister from Western
Pennsylvania find themselves in one late Sunday afternoon.
Johnny is killed right away. Barbara escapes into a
country home, and waits for someone to save her.
.
Johnny and Barbara–their world about to change
forever
But there’s no Steve McQueen, John Wayne, Sean
Connery or any other 1968 heroes around here. There’s the old lady of the house, already chewed up more than a
bit. And another lone survivor trying desperately to
clear his head enough from the insanity in order to protect
himself.]
The first of many zombies
Ben, this other survivor uses all his
common-sense and imagination to protect the house and the people
who have run there for safety. He’s got plenty
to deal with; an army of zombies soon surround the house. In
moments they are doing all they can to break in. Soon, Ben
and Barbara find out that these zombies are actually eating the
flesh of the people they kill. And unlike the many Westerns
that American audiences grew up on, there doesn’t seem to be any
cavalry on the way to rescue them. They are in this alone.
Iconic image for the 60’s; living dead surround the house, then move in for the
kill
No doubt the violence alone made this movie
memorable in 1968. But what made it more than
just a crude, sensational shocker were some memorable
characters. Ben is clearly a courageous man, doing his best
to deal with overwhelming events. Tom and Judy, a likeable
young couple, try hard to use their ingenuity and strength to
figure out the right escape plan.
Then there is Harry and his family.
Harry is played by Karl Hardman.
Hardman, like Russell Streiner (Johnny) was one of the principal
filmmakers/movers behind this movie. You may have thought
Harry was a kind of sit-com character, grouchy on the outside, but
warm on the inside when you got to know him. He’s not.
He is a selfish bully in an unhappy marriage who does not know how
to change. The movie may be black and white but this is not
your standard primetime TV comedy. His daughter has already
been bitten by a zombie. No one can figure out what medicine
she needs; not that any is likely to be there anyway.
Tom and Judy do their best to work with
Ben to come up with an escape plan. Harry is in it only for
himself, and is only concerned for his family. Helen,
Harry’s wife, is left in the middle between them as they debate
the possible ways of staying alive in the house.
The story breaks away again and again
from expectations for a Hollywood picture. The escape plan
figured out by Ben, Tom and Judy fails with gruesome
results. And it is nobody’s fault or nobody’s
backstabbing that causes it to fail. It fails because…as one
writer put it, gasoline can spill and then get ignited when things
don’t go exactly right.
Also, Barbara never gets over the
shock of seeing her bother Johnny die. You keep expecting
Ben to slap her or find another way to “snap her out of it,” but
he is never able to do this. Perhaps the filmmakers took the
safe route in this; Ben is Afro-American, Barbara is white, and
any close relationship between them was too much of a risk in
1968. But equally likely—someone like Barbara was simply
not going to bounce back from all the horror going on
around her.
Even worse, Kyra, the bitten girl, dies,
turns into a zombie and goes right after Helen and Harry.
Both of them (with good reason) are too devastated to save
themselves. (Kyra Schon, the actress playing this
girl, later had her own website, including a favorite tattoo of
her in zombie make-up and some kind words about Duane Jones,
who played Ben.)
Perhaps the least hopeful sign is
when a crowd with guns finally shows up and destroys the army of
zombies. You learn that bullets can take them down but only
with a head shot. A TV reporter asks one of the men with
guns about dealing with the zombies. His answer (no irony
intended): “Yeah, they’re dead…they’re
all messed-up.” Not exactly reassuring. The
movie ends with a look at the zombies being burned. The
ugliness feels like it’s spilling right off the movie screen till
it is all around us.
Night of the Living
Dead
worked well as a straight-ahead action movie. Although most of the actors had limited experience, they were
convincing. With a few exceptions, the dialogue worked
well too. According to director Romero, friends and
neighbors of the filmmakers who played the zombies were given all
the beer they wanted and making the movie turned out to be
enjoyable. They too were convincing—they certainly did
not look Hollywood or even like wannabes of any
kind. Their ordinary looks worked in their favor.
Like
Psycho, The Exorcist, and in other ways,
Deliverance, Night of the Living Dead had a
strong resonance in the USA and many European countries at the
time. All of these movies changed the film-going experience
in a big way. You can get a general idea of these changes by
comparing each of these movies to blockbusters at that time, then
looking at those that came soon after.
Things would never be the
same. Despite the low budget I consider this movie one of
the 10 best of its kind. I hope I can do it justice by
pointing out some of its effects on those that came later.
Another iconic image–average American girl, turned cannibal
zombie