"Night of the Living Dead" and The Joy of Research

Released: 1968

Director: George A. Romero

Writers: John A. Russo and George A. Romero

Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon

“Yeah, they’re dead. They’re all messed up.”

When I came up with the idea for this blog, I thought that Dawn of the Dead would be the first film I discussed.  It’s not only a great F’dup Flick, it’s also one of my favorite films.  But as I gathered my thoughts, I came to the realization that, like the movies themselves, Night must come first.

I first saw Night of the Living Dead on TV, as part of the WABC 11:30 Saturday Night Movie some time in the early 1970s.  I was probably about 10 or 11 years old.

I’d long ago won the battle for a later bedtime on Saturday nights, so that I could stay up and watch monster movies (Godzilla, being my first victory).  This was likely a concession on the part of my mother so that the rest of my family wouldn’t be forced to watch these kinds of films with me. 

I knew nothing about Night before the broadcast, but it did have “dead” in the title.  So, with the rest of the family off to bed, I tuned in and hoped for the best.

 

The first thing I remember about this broadcast was that the station made a special point of reminding viewers at commercial breaks that the events being depicted were fictional.

How odd.  I’d never heard a disclaimer like that before (and only rarely since).   So, already I had the feeling that there was something unique about this film.  Later, I figured out that the station must have taken this precaution due to the faux radio and TV reports incorporated throughout the film.  After all, we didn’t want another “The War of the Worlds” broadcast now, did we?

The second thing I remember is that I fell asleep!

No, I wasn’t bored.  The flick starts off great with Johnny and Barbara’s ambush in the graveyard.  And Ben’s monologue, about his escape from the zombies at the dinner, is so vividly told that I was convinced, for years afterwards, that I’d actually seen the zombies racing after that burning fuel truck.

It was just late and I was a kid.

Before I fell asleep, my mother came over and asked what I was watching.  I filled her in and she sat down to watch it with me.  And then I nodded off…

The next morning, I asked my mother how the film ended.  This was not an unusual occurrence.  Normally, she recounted the events, in a slightly dismissive tone, as if these films were so predictable that she could have written them.  On this morning, however, her mood turned serious.  “What was that film?  It scared the crap out of me!”

A film so terrifying that it scared my mom?!  And I missed it?!!

Immediately, an obsession was born.   I MUST see the rest of this film!

In those days of pre-home video, seeing a film more than once meant waiting for it to air again on broadcast TV.  Dutifully, I checked TV Guide’s weekly movies list every issue, but I never saw it listed again.  

My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Unable to actually watch the film, I decided to read everything I could about it.  This consisted mainly of a capsule review in my beloved copy of Steven H. Scheuer's “Movies on TV” book and maybe a brief footnote in whatever books on current cinema I could find in the library.  In other words, not much.

As I was introduced to new research tools in school, I immediately tested how useful they were by looking-up Night of the Living Dead. 

The Periodical Contents Index (do these guides even exist any more?) led me to an essay by Roger Ebert in "Reader’s Digest". 

For years afterward, I disliked Ebert, based on that single article, as I had misunderstood his self-described “review of the audience reaction” to be a condemnation of a film that was just TOO scary.

So, both “Reader’s Digest” and my mother were declaring this film the scariest movie ever made…and I MISSED IT!

My research into Night eventually led me to “Film Comment” magazine, and, in particular, the concept of the “Return of the Repressed” in an article by critic Robin Wood. (Vol. 14, No. 4 - July/August 1978). 

Oh, how I wish I could link to this groundbreaking article!  Alas, the piece is nowhere to be found online (but I’ll keep looking).

Not to overstate its importance, or anything, but that article struck me like Col. Kurtz’s “diamond bullet straight through my forehead.” 

For the first time I'd ever seen, a serious critic was treating these movies seriously, presenting the case that they reflected the turbulence of the era.  Wood later expanded upon these ideas in his books, but never again would he present the main points in such simple and straightforward language. If you are a fan of horror, you owe it to yourself to seek it out that article.

As I researched Night, I learned of Romero’s other flicks – Season of the Witch, There's Always Vanilla, The Crazies, and Martin – all of which sounded interesting and all of which were equally impossible to see. 

I also discovered other filmmakers in the horror genre, all creating a body of work that sounded darkly fascinating: David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, Bob Clark.  Of course, there was no way to see their films, either (though Bob Clark became a happy exception, to be covered in another post).  

A whole new world of cult and disreputable cinema existed out there...and no one in my hometown had even heard of it.

Finally, one summer day when I was about 17 or 18 years old, I heard a radio ad for a midnight show of Night: “Complete and unedited”. 

I could not believe my luck!

And so, come Saturday night, a group of friends and I headed to a theater a few towns over for my long anticipated, second chance screening of Night, together with a packed house and a six pack of beer.  

The screening went down pretty much exactly as Ebert described all those years before, sans the teary-eyed toddlers. 

The film starts out creepy but fun in the early going, then settles in for some slow-boil interpersonal conflict.  But nothing prepares you for the final 30 minutes, when the film drags you straight down to hell.

From the moment the group decides to make a break from the farmhouse, the film delivers on its premise in a way that most horror films never do. 

The young lovers die first, burned to a crisp.  As if that’s not shocking enough, the zombies then descend and eat their burnt flesh, in gory detail.  Whoa!

Ben retreats back to the house and kills Mr. Cooper, after the coward locks him out. Johnny returns, as one of the dead, and pulls his sister Barbara, screaming, into a pack of the zombies.  Turns out that HE was coming to get you, Barbara.

In the most chilling sequence in the film, the sickly little girl in the basement, turns ghoul and kills her mother with a garden spade, before eating her.  The lighting, the shot selection, the distorted audio, the sheer awfulness of a child becoming a thing that sees only food when she looks at her mother, is one of the most terrifying sequences in horror. 

Ah, but in the end, the sun rises and the forces of good sweep down to rid the area of zombies.  Ben comes out of hiding, revealing that he survived the ordeal. Order is restored.

Except that the instrument of said order is some ignorant good ol’ boy, who promptly mistakes Ben for a zombie and shoots him in the head!

The film closes with a series of newspaper-like photographs depicting Ben’s lifeless body as it is dragged by meat hooks – meat hooks! – to a bonfire, where he is unceremoniously burned along with the rest of the dead.  The End.

What.  The.  Fuck!

Everyone died.  Everyone.  The smart, the cowardly, the lovers, the parents.   And these weren’t noble deaths.  These people did not go gentle into that good night.  They raged, raged against the dying of the light.  Fighting, clawing, betraying one another, until no one was left standing.

It was the bleakest ending I’d ever seen.  And yet it rang true in some post-‘60s hangover sort of way.  This was some heavy shit.

In many ways, falling asleep during that film shaped my taste in movies forever. Unlike you lazy bit torrent junkies today, I couldn’t just download the film to my phone and finish it on lunch break the next day.   I had to wait.

And wait and wait and wait...  As I waited for Night to return, I kept the light burning by reading as much as I could about it.   

What I uncovered was an alternate reality, an underground cult of filmmakers, fans and critics who recognized that horror could be so much more than just cheap scares.  It could be ABOUT stuff.

I couldn't say exactly WHAT, right then and there, but I knew for certain that, whatever it was, everyone else wanted to ignore it.

In effect, these films weren’t just about the return of the repressed, they WERE the return of the repressed.  To seek them out was to go down the rabbit-hole along with them.  As the meta-trailer might scream: "Finding them was a test of will.  Seeing them, an act of defiance!"

It was all so life-imitates-art perfect.  I was hooked!

P.S.: for an in-depth examination of the many themes at play within Night of the Living Dead, I highly recommend this BFI Film Classics book by Ben Hervey 


Footnotes:

1. The pictures on this page are screengrabs from the Elite Entertainment Millennium Edition DVD, now out of print.  The photos are heavily compressed and do not represent the actual PQ of this release.  If you are an Amazon prime member you can watch this movie for free here.

An F'dup Introduction

“How do these movies get made?"

Here’s the thing:

I love movies.  All kinds of movies. 

Casablanca is one of my favorite films.  Babe makes me go a big rubbery one (the pig movie, not the John Goodman one).  I could debate into the wee hours why I believe that The Conversation is better than either of the more celebrated The Godfather movies that it was made betwixt.

However, in addition to romances, classics, and family films, I also happen to love horror and exploitation movies. 

Gasp!

I know, I know...   Whenever I happen to mention one of my more offbeat likes, people wrinkle their noses and ask, “Why would you watch THAT?” 

The fact that I like all of those other kinds of films seems to make them even more disappointed, as if I should know better.

Having amassed a sizable DVD and Blu-ray collection over the past 15 years, I’ve discovered a rather unexpected personal tic.  Although I consider Stanley Kubrick a genius, I find myself re-visiting Bob Clark’s Black Christmas more often than any of my Kubrick discs.

This is not a comment on Clockwork Orange or Full Metal Jacket, and I’m certainly not going to argue that Bob Clark is somehow a better filmmaker than Kubrick (well, not unless I’ve had a few beers and you’ve pissed me off by dismissing Deathdream as trash). 

For some reason, I seem to hold imperfect movies a little more dear than the perfect ones.

The fact that these movies where NOT made as grand artistic gestures, yet still managed to hit upon something that transcended the genre, makes them more interesting.

So, here’s my attempt to explain why these films are important TO ME and perhaps in doing so, why you might find them interesting, as well. 

These aren’t reviews – there are a great many other sites for that, many of which I read myself – just thoughts that struck me about a particular film.

Here’s the second thing: 

Everyone who has studied film criticism knows that movies are contextual.

In a good film, every piece is a microcosm of the entire movie.  It is no coincidence that Night of the Living Dead opens with a brother and sister discussing traditional burial rituals, as they drive to a cemetery, to place flowers on the grave of their long-deceased father.

It sets the mood, establishes a relationship between characters, and subconsciously gets us thinking about our own relationship with the dead.  

All so that the filmmakers can turn the world on its head and force us to realize that they really are coming to get you, Barbara!

Movie watching is contextual, as well. 

What we carry into a movie – how much we liked the trailer, our thoughts on the poster, the reviews we’ve read, what’s on our mind that day, the situation of the screening itself – all play a role in how we react to a film.

Tim Lucas wrote an incredible thought-experiment about a movie that he DIDN’T see when it first came out.  In his review of the mondo film, Sweden, Heaven and Hell, he not only captures his thoughts on the film, upon finally watching a gray market DVD-R many years later, but he also imagines what he MIGHT have felt had he gone to see the film when it first opened at a drive-in near his home those many years before. 

Much like Black Christmas, I can’t stop thinking about Tim’s piece.

So, in addition to discussing each film, I’m going to explain a little about the circumstances of how I came to see each in the first place.

Here’s the final thing: 

A very wise genre filmmaker once advised that for a horror film to be successful, the audience must first fear the director.  Ultimately, this is why I love watching all of these disreputable films. 

They break the rules.

Typically, you go into movies like these not trusting anyone.  The trailer lied to you by cramming every single action moment from the flick – and sometimes other flicks! – into ninety explosive seconds.  The poster featured some hot chick or amazing monster that likely isn’t even in the film.  The director and cast probably had no idea how to make a movie.  And yet… and yet…

Occasionally, the filmmakers, intentionally or not, stumble upon something that so shatters your expectations that it becomes profound.

One last story about one of my favorite movie-going experiences. 

After paying to see some utterly uninteresting film one Friday night, a friend and I decided to sneak over to see another film, as payback.  We ended up seeing a midnight show of Stuart Little. 

Kids flick.  Late show… Not surprisingly, we were the only ones in the theater.

As with every movie, I walked in hoping to like Stuart Little.  The book is whimsical.  Michael J. Fox is funny.  The mix of animation and live action looked good…

Whatever…none of it worked for me on that night.

About 45 minutes into the screening, some gangbangers crashed the same theater.  They were pretty rowdy, but I couldn’t exactly complain; I wasn’t supposed to be there either!

Anyway, their dates must have wanted to see the flick, and they eventually settled down.  So, there we were.  Six people who didn't belong there, quietly watching a mediocre kids film, at 1 in the morning.

As the film nears the end of Act II, the evil cat, Snowbell, tries to reclaim his place as the most beloved pet in the Little household.  He waits for the Littles to leave, then pulls Stuart aside.   Lying through his teeth, Snowbell explains that everyone would be better off if Stuart just left.  As a final stab in the back, he tells Stuart:  “They never really loved you.”  Stuart is crushed. 

We all sat in silence for a few seconds, letting this betrayal sink in.  Then, one of the gangbangers blurted out:  “That is FUCKED UP!”

And that’s the moment when a so-so movie became a most memorable screening.

Don’t you wish more movies made you want to shout that?

Footnotes:

1. The quote at the top of the post is from Robert Harmon, director of The Hitcher, in reference to an article that appeared in the "L.A. Times" at the time of that film’s release. More about that article to come.