De levende døde
The birth of
the modern zombie. No less will do.
“Night of
the Living Dead” is more than a cult classic, it is the mother of all zombie
movies, the starting point of a franchise and an entry into modern pop culture
few other movies can match. Finally, I got to watch it as well.
This, my
final movie for 1968, was one I had been looking forward to see for a long time
and one that I thought I knew a lot about, yet as it turned out, all I knew was
its legacy, but practically nothing of the actual movie.
“Night of
the Living Dead” is a true low budget movie. As I understood it, even the
actors had to pitch in with financing the movie and all sorts of short cuts
were made to reduce costs. It shows, but actually in a good way. It forced the
producers to be creative and to emphasize story and dialogue for gory effects,
something many of its descendants could have benefitted from. The acting is
surprisingly good for its budget, especially Duane Jones as Ben and Judith O’Dea
as Barbra, were convincing in roles that were key to how the movie would work.
I have watched some horrid results of cutting a low budget, but “Night of the
Living Dead” managed to avoid most of those flaws.
By far most
of the movie takes place inside what looks like an abandoned house. Barbra is
on the run from the zombies that has already taken her brother and seeks
shelter in the house. Soon after Ben arrives at the house, also seeking shelter
as his car is out of gas. Their responses to the zombie attack are complete
opposites. Ben is calm and resourceful and, using whatever is at hand starts
turning the house into a fortress. Barbra on the other hand goes into shock and
becomes catatonic. As frustrated Ben is with her, he also has enough
understanding to let her alone.
As it turns
out the house is not as abandoned as it first appeared. In the midst of the
zombie siege people start coming up from the basement. Harry and Helen Cooper with
their sick daughter Karen as well as the young couple Tom and Judy has sought
shelter in the basement and are lured out by the noises Ben is making. Harry (producer
Karl Hardman) is a particularly annoying character who is opposed to everything
Ben is suggesting. Tom is more cooperative, but a scheme to fuel his truck goes…
horribly wrong.
In fact,
all except Ben eventually become zombie food and Ben, well, zombies are not the
only dangerous creatures.
“Night of
the Living Dead” is a very dark movie. There are practically no light moments.
The lookout for the group in the house is bleak and most of what they do is
futile. As such it feeds into the apocalyptic genre, where the evil we are
facing is just too big to fight. This is a tradition that hearkens back to “Invasion
of the Body Snatchers” and is almost tradition today. Not having to aim for a
happy ending gives horror movies that extra dimension and here it is exploited
to the full. What I also liked about the movie is that some of the real demons
are not flesh-eating zombies, but normal people under stress. There is a lot of
group dynamic going on here and that is pretty cool.
Still we
cannot avoid discussing the zombies. I have seen a lot of zombies in movies,
like gazillions of zombies, so it would take a lot to convince me, yet, despite
the poor budget the zombies work pretty well. Ironically, part of the reason for
that is that many of them look like ordinary people in sleep walk. It is the
ordinariness that makes them scary. Children, women, grandfathers banging the
doors and walls and munching warm flesh. They are not alien, but people like
you and me. Uh, that freaks me out.
“Night of
the Living Dead” is a must see. Not just for its impact on pop culture and not just
for horror movie fans, but because it is simply a good movie. Some of those
participants who had to help financing it must be pretty pleased. The movie
earned its budget over 250 times!
And thus
ended 1968. On to 1969.