‘Night of the Living Dead’ Re-review

“A desperate defence devolves into division in George Romero’s genre-defining horror parable.”

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” – Johnny, just before one of them gets him.

With the total collapse of society imminent due to an unprecedented pandemic I decided to review something that would take our minds off the depressing news. So, this week I’m reviewing Night of the Living Dead, a film about the total collapse of society due to an unprecedented pandemic.

Taking place in Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, the film opens with Barbara and her brother arriving at a cemetery to lay a wreath at their grandfather’s grave. Attacked by an aggressive stranger, Barbara flees to an abandoned house where she is swiftly joined by a number of other survivors. With the living dead hammering at the doors, tension breaks out in the group over whether to stay and fight or seek shelter in the cellar.

The zombie film is pretty ubiquitous in horror fiction by this point, so much so that Night of the Living Dead, the originator of the genre seems pretty tame in comparison to the likes of The Walking Dead, 28 Weeks Later, or Rec. There’s little gore in the film, nobody gets torn apart, and the violence on display barely registers today despite the controversy it caused at the time.

What Night really succeeds in doing is creating an atmosphere of dread and nihilistic inevitability, so that when we finally do see some gore it’s so much more impactful. 50 years later it still stands, despite some slightly dodgy ghoul make-up in the same scene. The doom-laden soundtrack does an excellent job of contributing to this.

The first 15 minutes of the film are nail biting, as are the groups attempts to escape and the final assault on the house by the “Ghouls”, as the film terms them. For sure, the film can’t keep this pace up for the entirety of the film. 

There is a noticeable sag twenty-five minutes in as Ben and Barbara relate their encounters with the dead to each other while fortifying the house. The only thing really keeping this sequence interesting is Judith O’dea’s hysterical performance as a deranged Barbara. It’s not the only period the film struggles to maintain tension-there’s more padding here than is strictly necessary- but when the film works it really works, such as the final assault on the house by the ghouls.

Things swiftly pick up again with the emergence of the belligerent Mr Cooper, his family and a local couple who have been hiding in the cellar. He and Ben, another survivor Barbara has found shelter within the house, quickly take a dislike to each other and their conflict drives a lot of the film. Night’s climax adds another, depressing dimension to this climax, but adds more complexity to an already layered film.

Much has been made of how the survivors in the house represent a microcosm of the divided society of the 1960’s. Many of the points raised about the film in the 60’s still resonates today, however. The racial anxieties that underpin the Cooper-Ben conflict are still relevant today in the age of Black Lives Matter, the Windrush scandal, and Donald Trump. 

Honestly, you could probably remake this film today without changing any of the political subtext and it would fit it nicely as an examination of how polarised society is, especially with the way the response to the coronavirus has split along political and cultural lines.

That being said, modern audiences are likely to have to squint a little bit to ignore the flagrantly sexist treatment of Night’s female characters. None of the three women in this film come out well, save for Helen, who is enjoyable to watch purely for her contempt for her stubborn husband. 

Barbara is mostly useless and abandons her brother, the much more interesting Johnny, to a ghoul in the first 10 minutes and Judy is patronisingly referred to as “Useless” by her boyfriend Tom, in a description that’s pretty accurate to be fair, given her role in the groups attempt to escape by gassing up Ben’s truck.

Overall, Night Of The Living Dead’s reputation as one of the greatest zombie films is well earned. Barring some moments when the tension can’t quite be maintained and some occasions when the make-up looks a bit cheap, Night fires on all cylinders, delivering a gritty parable of a divided society more interesting in squabbling amongst itself than dealing with the ghouls assaulting them. Some people may be put off by the fact it’s in black and white but if you can look past this minor detail, you’re in for a film with a horror atmosphere that rivals even the scariest of its modern successors.

Verdict 4/5

• Violence to women is obviously a serious issue, but I can’t help but find Ben slapping a hysterical Barbara very darkly funny.
• The scene where the ghouls munch on two unfortunate characters is genuinely horrific and stands up with anything The Walking Dead have ever done.
• It’s honestly impossible to overstate this films influence. It codified the Zombie genre and every single film since that features the cannibalistic shufflers owes a debt to it.

Night of the Living Dead is available on Amazon Prime.

Next Time: I promise I’m changing tack for next week. I’m thinking a romantic comedy, and I’m pretty sure I know which one.