On N List of Movie Reviews
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
12/04, 4/05
4/05:
This is the one that started it all.
George Romero will forever be remembered for Night of the Living Dead which is an underrated American horror
classic picture. Having been largely influenced by Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls, he
showed everybody what one could do with low budget, inspiring other directors to make a name for themselves in the horror genre:
Tobe Hooper of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, John Carpenter of
Halloween, Sam Raimi of The Evil Dead, and John
McNaughton of Henry: Portait of a Serial Killer.
Unintentional or not, Night of the Living Dead is groundbreaking for casting a black actor as the main protagonist
who's intelligent with a lot of common sense. Unique is the use of radio play to narrate what's happening at the moment.
I knew it's going to be a ride when the film began with a powerful introduction just like how it happened to
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course, the justifiable ending is sad, envolving into
a social commentary of how stupid white people think and embrace guns as if it's an extension of their dicks.
Many fans think Night of the Living Dead is the first zombie picture made, but that's not true. It's actually
White Zombie which starred Béla Lugosi. By the way, here's a super cool fact from IMDb: "The
extras who played the zombies were paid $1 and a t-shirt that said, 'I was a zombie on Night of the Living Dead.'"
All in all, because of Night of the Living Dead, George Romero changed the landscape of the horror genre.