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.
Sixty 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 thanjust 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 likable 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 perceptive 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 brother Johnny die. You keep expectingBen 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 ombies. You learn that bullets can take them down but only with a head shot. A TV reporter asks one of the men withguns 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 b 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 bycomparing 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