It is not often that a film, especially a low-budget flick with guerilla-style filmmaking tactics, kicks off an entire new sub-genre - but Night of the Living Dead (1968), directed by George Romero, is now considered a touchstone in the horror genre as the first zombie movie. The slow-moving, yet terrifying, ghouls threaten a group of people seeking shelter in a remote farmhouse and the story focuses just as much on the interpersonal conflicts as on the villains growing in numbers and strength on the outside. Incredibly progressive in its diverse casting, the film not only launched Romero’s career, spawned a long-lasting franchise, but also inspired untold numbers of zombie cinematic tales. The first film in our Horror Marathon is a bit of homework before the official kick-off - dipping a toe into the genre with the first zombie movie!

Siblings Johnny and Barbara (Judith O’Dea) drive to a cemetery to visit their deceased father’s grave, only to be attacked by a slow-moving, yet dangerous, undead creature. Johnny perishes, but Barbara escapes by running away and seeks shelter in a seemingly abandoned farmhouse. She is soon joined by Ben (Duane Jones), who secures the house as more of the ghouls make their way toward their sanctuary. They soon discover more people in the farmhouse’s cellar - a young couple and a family of three, a father Harry (Karl Hardman), mother (Marilyn Eastman), and daughter - who has been unfortunately bitten by one of the creatures. The newly formed group desperately tries to gather more information via radio and television reports. A plan to obtain gas for the farmhouse car goes awry, killing the young couple who volunteered for the risky mission. The ghouls use this opportunity to attack the farmhouse and fear of the undead leads to turmoil amongst the surviving humans. A conflict between Ben and Harry leads to the father’s death. Barbara is taken by her brother's revived ghoul body, and the daughter dies from her wounds. She reanimates, eats her father’s flesh, and kills her mother - all before attacking Ben who is seeking his shelter in the cellar as a final stand. He fends her off by shooting the girl down and survives the night in the cellar. As he miraculously awakens in the morning, Ben emerges from the farmhouse and meets an armed posse sent to destroy the ghouls; mistaking him for a deadly creature, they shoot him down and burn his body.

Establishing the tone via the setting is key to any horror movie - and Night of the Living Dead checks all the creepy boxes. The first scene is literally set at a cemetery, giving the ghouls a natural place to stage their attack. The abandoned farmhouse, which is the central location of the film, is an ideal setting for the horror genre. It not only provides ample devices to stage their last stand, as they tear the place apart to set up barricades to block their foes, but also becomes a central conflict amongst the characters; they spend a majority of the film arguing about whether to lock themselves up in the cellar or take their chances in the main house. The remote location leaves the characters on their own to either find a way to work together or face the (slowly) incoming danger separately. Their division leaves the majority of the party deceased, while only Ben survives in the cellar, a plan he was initially vehemently opposed to as a complete dead end. Desperation drives him to the last ditch solution and, ironically, it is emerging from the farmhouse sanctuary that eventually kills him as the final member of the doomed party. 

The characterizations of that doomed party are both progressive and frustratingly pedantic at the same time. While the script was not written with a black lead in mind, Romero cast the best actor to audition for the hero role, a controversial move in the late 1960s. Jones is by far the best actor of the bunch (more on that later), and his casting naturally infuses the script with far more subtext for the intra-human conflicts. His decision to stay on the main floor and take leadership of the group there, standing up strongly to Harry, who thinks the cellar is the better move, must be viewed through the lens of the racial politics of the 1960s - a young black man asserting his power over a feckless white male. In a similar vein, Ben takes care of the simpering Barbara, but their relationship isn’t entirely smooth either. At one point, they get into a physical altercation and Ben slaps her, leading her to faint, and he moves her body to the couch to recover. Although Ben ultimately is protecting her, the images of a black man hitting a hysterical white woman must have been shocking to audiences of the time. Finally, the brutal act of law enforcement shooting down a defenseless black man, applying force that leads to his death, is an image that is evocative both in the historical context of the 1960s Civil Rights movement as well as resounding today.

While the racial portrayal is complicated, the women in Night of the Living Dead are disappointingly inept. Perhaps additionally hampered by their poor acting abilities, the script draws the various women as overwhelmed and helpless in the world’s darkening circumstances. Barbara in particular, although dealing with the trauma of losing her brother and being attacked by the ghouls, just cannot pull it together to deal with the crisis. She consistently vacillates between catatonic states and hysterics and can only rely on Ben to protect her. The woman in the young couple shows some grit to go on the gasoline mission, but the actor is so terrible that she is hard to watch in the film. In the same vein, the mother of the family basically lets herself get taken by the zombies - she doesn’t even put up much of a fight for her life when they are breaking into the house, nor when her undead daughter comes to eat her flesh. For all of us women out there, put up a bit more of a fight, please!

The fight these characters are up against is the monster of this horror film - the zombie (although they are only ever referred to in the movie as ghouls). The villain appears almost innocently at the start of the film, slowly shuffling towards our unsuspecting siblings, an undead in a business suit whose speed slightly increases as he chases Barabara through the countryside. He appears as mostly human, with very little movie makeup to indicate his ghoul nature, but the opening sequence already sets up the danger they present, especially as Johnny is taken down right away. As the farmhouse becomes the sanctuary to our band of humans, the undead are drawn to the sniff of life and their numbers grow in volume; an assemblage of various undead humans shuffle their way towards their potential victims. Romero composes an incredible shot of one zombie stumbling back from the camera and revealing numerous more zombies stalking forward, crystalizing the growing threat. 

As the film’s action centers more on clashes with the ghouls, the camera focuses closely on the grisly flesh, but, understandable for a low budget film, the movie makeup and special effects have inconsistent visual results. During a sequence of the monsters attempting to storm the house, zombie hands are reaching in through the barricade and the young man in the couple is wielding a knife for defense; he hacks away at a hand that is obviously fake, easily removing fingers in a smooth swipe that features no blood nor bones nor reality - even he seems surprised that it was so easy to cut. In just the next few shots, however, Ben shoots a zombie and the gunshot wound with smattering blood is incredibly realistic and creepy. As fire is a natural enemy of zombies, the team of humans use it as a defensive weapon, and the special effects crew feature a shot of a stuntman on fire. Romero also focuses the camera several times on zombies attacking and consuming the flesh of humans, crafting creepy close-up images of humans as a meal for monsters, culminating in the sequence of the daughter hacking her mother to death and feasting on her father. The images here are the most explicit of the film, using shadow work to feature the weapon and blood spurting and dripping as her death screams wail. As a low-budget film, Romero must have had to choose where to spend his budget for ramping up the terrors of the monster and for the most part, the dread that is generated from their efforts is well-earned.

Night of the Living Dead’s place in horror history is notable for creating a new zombie sub-genre, but it also exists within the arc of horror’s cinematic evolution, as detailed in the Horror Marathon’s overview. [link to my first blog post] In a post-Psycho world, Romero’s zombie apocalypse fits in narratively with the evolution of the horror genre’s storytelling. Rather than an external monster that terrorizes humans, the ghouls are humanity themselves, re-animated and eager to cannibalize their fellow beings. Even within the farmhouse sanctuary, conflict emerges and sets the groups of people against each other, showing their monsters within despite the evil lurking outside. Social institutions that are meant to protect and serve, such as the policemen who are hunting the ghouls across the countryside, become villainous - killing Ben by mistaking him for a monster, rather than the lone survivor of a violent siege. Although unintentional, society’s institutions deliver the final killing blow. These themes continue to be explored in the explosion of zombie movies that spawned from this initial film, including some cultural touchstones that will be viewed during this Horror Marathon!

Night of the Living Dead has some rough edges as an output of low-budget independent filmmaking, but its ambitious ideas and unique monsters make it a great first introduction to the horror genre. The uneven acting was sometimes a distraction, but the progressive casting of an African-American hero was brave for its times (and helps that Duane Jones was the best performer in the cast), infusing the film with societal commentary that was more reflective of the anxieties within the United States in the late 1960s. While the ghouls are a bit slow and feel less threatening than modern zombie films, the focus on the daughter in the climax emphasized the real danger these monsters posed to humanity. Unfortunately, the mother - and most of the other women in this film - don’t fight back with any actual effort, which was a disappointment. The film’s ultimate conclusion, that even after defying the odds and surviving a night in the farmhouse surrounded by the walking dead, the main hero is cut down by the very humans and social institutions attempting to solve the crisis, shows a pessimistic worldview that aligns with the social and racial anxiety of the 1960s. The next stop on our marathon is the sequel to this film, Dawn of the Dead (1978), which comes a full ten years after the initial movie; slightly excited, but mostly scared to see how Romero ratchets up the stakes, intensifies the danger of the monsters, and continues the horror.