Night of the Living Dead (1968) review

(9/10)

The zombie movie that awakened a nation.

PLOT:Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and her brother are going to their father's grave to place flowers on it; however, when they get there, a man is roaming the graveyard and her brother jokes with her saying it's going to get her. Ironically, the man attackes her, but her brother fights him and is left on the ground. She runs to a nearby farmhouse where she meets an African-American named Ben (Duane Jones) and the family that lives there, including stubborn father Harry (Karl Hardman) and eccentric Tom (Keith Wayne). They find out by TV that these things are cannibalistic corpses brought back by radiation from a satellite shot down by the army. Now they must keep them out of the house and stay alive until they acn reach a rescue station. It's a great set-up for a zombie movie, and is executed as well is it can be.



ACTING:Excellent. O'Dea and Jones steal the show as the show real fear, panic, and overall emotion. An honorable mention is Marilyn Eastman as Helen, the mom. I could see her fear when she was attacked.

SCORE:Very scary and at times hypnotic.

EFFECTS:There's just a few scenes with blood and gore, but the ones with it don't go as far as to overuse the blood. They make the effects realistic and necessary.



OTHER CONTENT:I appreciate this film for how, at the time being, it was a groundbreaking spot in horror entertainment. Zombie films had not been invented until 1968 when this came out. It does still unnerve in today's times, with its shocking ending, wandering corpses, the idea itself, and the best scene with the little girl and her mother However, it's just a bland film compared to today's zombie film. So much has been done with the zombie subgenre that this film is just seen as a bland zombie film no different from the others. Time wasn't the best to this due to many other sequels and additions. Either way, it's still a classic, distrubing zombie film that started it all. Congrats, Mr. Romero, you started something big.

OVERALL,an awesome horror film with a well-executed zombie plot, excellent acting, hypnotic and scary score, realistic effects, and the power to still unnerve today, but time wasn't real good to it.