Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Seven people trapped in a rural farmhouse while the reanimated dead try to get in. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. George Romero’s 1968 classic--and yes, this one IS a classic--NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD pretty much changed everything.
Made independently and shot on a budget of $114,000, this movie would go on to make nearly $15,000,000 in the US and over $30,000,000 internationally. It would make stars of its actors (although none would ever equal the notoriety of their Living Dead characters, they are certainly well-loved and revered in the genre), and usher in a whole new type of monster. Technically, though, the word “zombie” is never used, nor would it be the truth if it were. Reanimated dead who eat the living are in fact ghouls, and that word is used many times in this movie. But somehow it’s zombies that got all the glory (another misconception is that the idea of running zombies didn’t come about until Zack Snyder’s 2004 DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, but the ghoul who chased Barbra from the cemetery RAN after her, as well as searching the ground for a tool and using a rock to bash in her car window).
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD tells the story of Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and Ben (Duane Jones). Barbra is visiting her father’s grave with her brother Johnny when the latter is attacked and killed. Barbra makes her escape in the car, but runs into a tree and seeks refuge in an empty house. Still in shock, she meets Ben when his truck appears outside. Ben fortifies the house, boarding up the windows and doors and insuring Barbra they’ll be okay if they can just hold off until help comes. They find Cooper and his wife and daughter, plus Tom and Judy (lovers) are hiding in the basement, and together the six adults make a plan to escape to one of the many rescue stations they see listed on a television news report. It’s a simple plot, one used in too many other movies to count, and it works. But why does NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD stand so far above the others? I could go into the symbolism and social commentary on the times, but I doubt there’s anything I could say that Wikipedia hasn’t already. So instead I’ll give my own reasons I think this movie’s become the classic it has.
First Romero gave us the characters. We don’t spend too much of the movie getting to know each one personally, but through their actions and some very minimal expository dialogue we do begin to see these characters as people and not just a name and a face to fill the part. We learn enough about Tom and Judy to get a small glimpse into their lives before this day. We learn enough about the Coopers to know their marriage is over, but that they’re muddling through, probably for the sake of their daughter. Barbra is a very timid woman, forever living in the shadow of her more-outspoken brother. And Ben is a man’s man, one who’s probably had to struggle for his place in the world, but who’s never let that struggle hold him back. You never see this kind of characterization anymore. More often than not a horror movie is populated with the same anonymous nobodies, it’s only the killer’s backstory that changes--and that not even very often.
At the time, 1968, horror movies were basically kids’ stuff. They were shown during the afternoon matinees and there weren’t ratings like we have today. Anyone could get in. And no one, at that point, was taking such unflinching looks at what the genre was capable of. Giant monsters born of radioactive fallout? The Army will take it down. A ghost is haunting the old castle? Figure out its uncompleted mission--more often than not, taking vengeance on the party responsible for his or her death--and the spirit can rest in peace. But the dead are coming back to life and eating the living? Holy sht!
And then there are the performances. Judith O’Dea may get some grief for portraying such a weak, empty-minded Barbra, but even in the scenes when she’s sitting in shock, she holds our attention. Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper is despicable. But Duane Jones gives, easily, the best performance. He’s the obvious leader of the small group, strong-willed and quick-thinking. Jones projected an aura of knowing exactly what he was doing. At least to start. Granted, his big plan to gas up the truck and escape results in the deaths of Tom and Judy, and by the end of the movie Ben has barricaded himself in the cellar, which he’d chided the Coopers for doing only a few hours earlier. But at the beginning, Ben was the man, and Duane Jones brought that to life.
I believe NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD may have been just the turning point the horror genre needed. Finally movie makers were able to stop relying on the monsters trampling over badly-constructed model towns and instead use themes like isolation and paranoia, helplessness in the face of over-whelming odds, and build off that to give the audience honest to God scares. Finally, the monster wasn’t a small dog dressed in a goofy suit to look like a giant rat (I’m looking at you KILLER SHREWS), but it was something we, as a society, don’t want to think about: it was us. The monster coming after you was your neighbor, or worse, your brother. And there was absolutely no warning the danger was coming. One minute Barbra’s being teased by her brother, and in the very next blink of her eye, one of the dead is trying to take a bite of her, it happened that fast.
Before you know it, you’re hiding in a house you don’t know. The phone doesn’t work. The television tells you it’s a widespread phenomenon and that they don’t know why it’s happening. You’ve got information coming in telling you it’s everywhere, and you have no way of getting the call out to come help you. And if the dead manage to encircle the house and come in through every window and door, where do you go to get away?
I’m sure Romero had no idea just how big this idea was going to be when he was making his little low-budget “Monster Flick” as it was originally titled, but man, it goes to show just how unexpected and accidental these things can be. One minute you’re goofing around with an idea, the next you’ve touched the lives of every horror aficionado to follow and are able to use that one idea to make you a star for life.
Unfortunately, the money this movie made didn’t do the same for those involved. An oversight with the copyright put it into the public domain and no royalties were earned on those several million dollars. This was a big part of the reason Tom Savini remade the movie in 1990, using as many of the original crew as he could gather (all new cast, of course), in hopes of finally being able to compensate those who’d basically been cheated the first time around. Far as I know, that movie bombed. And why? Because it doesn’t matter how many remakes or sequels get made, there is only one original, only one chance to change the game, and this was the movie to do it, the 1968 George Romero original, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
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