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Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The zombie film to own - and oh what a great ending
Review: If you want to learn the art of making a horror movie, just watch George Romero's macabre masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. So many times, when it comes to horror, simpler is better, and this is actually a pretty simple film. It manages to create an atmosphere of rising fear while, at the same time, serving as a veritable study in the psychology of terror. It also has the perfect amount of humor that makes horror all the more enjoyable to me, and the truly classic ending of the film ranks among my favorite endings of all time. This ain't Abbot & Costello Meet The Mummy; this is gritty, atmospheric, gutsy horror at its best. It no longer offers the actual fright that was its bread and butter when it was released in 1968, but it's still nightmarish enough to make many a person squirm in anticipatory dread if nothing else.

Who can forget the opening scene of this masterpiece? A brother and sister drive 200 miles to lay a wreath on their father's grave, with their banter culminating in dear old Johnny's teasing his sister by moaning the words, "They're coming to get you, Barbra." Much to his surprise, "they" are coming to get her, and him, and untold numbers of innocent people all throughout the eastern half of the United States. Barbra (Judith O'Dea) flees to a farmhouse, where she commences to wig out in a quiet, childlike sort of way. She is soon joined by a young black man named Ben (Duane Jones), who becomes the driving force of the movie. He begins boarding up the house, getting little help from his near-comatose compatriot, but it turns out that there are also five people already holed up in the cellar. The meeting of all these minds leads to a bickering marathon, with Ben claiming authority and the measly-mouthed Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) resisting every step of the way. Trapped inside the house, the band of survivors does have access to radio and television, whereby they learn the extent of the unbelievable epidemic of mass murder and, later, get the news that the killers are recently deceased bodies (who have come to life in a hokey way I'll refrain from mentioning) who share a common passion for cannibalism. The group's struggle to survive is one of increasing intensity, making for a completely absorbing movie. Those of a psychological turn of mind can enjoy studying the widely varying reactions of each individual to what is essentially unimaginable terror. And the ending, as I've said, is just a wondrous thing to behold.

You just don't necessarily need a huge budget to make a genuinely scary, classic film. Just get a bunch of people, throw some pale makeup on them and tell them to walk funny and slow, then hole up a gang of strangers in a house surrounded by your zombies, and you've got the basic ingredients for your very own Night of the Living Dead. Of course, only a director as talented as George Romero can turn such a film into a masterpiece, which is accomplished in no small degree by his brilliant use of black and white rather than color film. Night of the Living Dead may well be the most famous zombie film of all time; it is without question one of the best. If you don't have a copy of this film in your video/DVD library, even this inexpensive, bare-bones version, then your true horror movie addict credentials are a little suspect. If you see only one zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead should be the one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The original zombie classic
Review: It all started here. George Romero launched a personal trilogy of classics, a new zombie genre and the idea of good old successful low budget horror movies. The Night of the Living dead is the first in a trilogy which also includes Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead was also recently remade. Radiation from a crashed satellite has caused the dead to walk. The movie never really focuses on the cause of the epidemic only because nobody really knows. The focus on the movie is a group of survivors and their ordeal of trying to cope with the events that have taken place and trying their best survive against the zombies and each other.

For a 1968 flick this has its fair share of gore. The focus of the movie ultimately though is the character interaction and the clashing of personalities. Every character handles the situation in their own way and the movie is an interesting look into what extremely stressful situations can do to people. Compared to modern day filming standards this movie probably would never have even been a blip on the radar. The acting is fair, the dialogue is good, the special effects are well 60s, the plot is decent, but this movie was the pioneer into this style of horror and thus every zombie flick to follow uses elements of the same formula that the original championed in the first place. My favorite parts of this movie and arguably the ones with the most tension aren't the scenes which have the characters trying to fight off the zombies, no instead it is as our group survivors sit around with each other talking and trying to learn and understand the true horror of what is transpiring in there turned upside world. Most of their very little information is gleaned via their radio. The radio broadcasts are great and are the true catalyst for setting the doomsday setting. Considering the budget Romero had and the very simple special effects that were available to him at the time, I think that he has done a fantastic job of telling a convincing and truly terrifying apocalypse tale.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Greatest Horror Film Ever Made
Review: It was made over thirty years ago but is still the best. They don't make them like they used to. If you like this avoid Dawn of the Dead it is way to 70's. The best part about Night is the ending, Everyone Dies!! How often does that happen???A few people take refuge in a farmhouse and only one lives through the night and he is killed in the morning!! I love it!! I highly recommend it to anyone since it's not gory at all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The original is always best!!!!!!!!!
Review: Night of the living Dead is the best horror movie picture of all time in my eyes. I give it 5 stars for its creepy soundtrack and its great one of a kind feel. It starts with Barbara(Judith O'dea) and her brother Johnny going to visit thier mothers grave to pay thier respects, when all of a sudden "Ther're comming to get you Barbara" says Johnny just fooling around. and it actually turns out to be the creepiest Zombie of the film. Anyway Johnny gets what was coming to him and Barbara gets away and runs to a nearby farmhouse where Ben(Duane Jones)helps board down the doors and windows to keep the flesh eaters out. later on they find out there were five people in the basement hiding. The whole plot is seven people in an isolated farmhouse trying to stay out of reach of the flesh eating ghouls outside the house for the night. The film that started the best and coolest Dead series of all-time, thanks to George A. Remero.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Introduced us to zombie films
Review: NOTLD is a odd horror movie made in the 60s with a low budget(The movie is shot in b&w and had unknown actors and basically one production design(a house). The movie is good to watch only once or twice in either b&w or color(The colorized version is the best way to watch this) and the this is the movie that introduced us to zombie movies by a unknown director(back then)named George Romero. Don't expect state-of-the-art special effects because the only effects they used were chocolate sauce and meat from the butcher Romero knew but expect a weird and sometimes creepy horror movie that remains a classic still. Theres been lots of DVD releases of this one stick with the Millennium Edition and skip the 30th Anniversary Edition.

Other Recommende zombie movies:
Dawn of the Dead(1978 version)
Zombie
Zombie Lake
Dead Heat

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: He said "They're coming to get you Barbara," and they were
Review: Once upon a time a young girl and her brother traveled three hours from home to place flowers on the grave of their father. The brother started teasing his sister, telling her in a creepy voice, "They're coming to get you, Barbara." However, the joke ended up being on him because they were coming to get Barbara, only they got him first.

I first saw "Night of the Living Dead" when I came home one afternoon and discovered that the Iowa City Public Library Channel on cable was showing the film. I have to admit, I was rather surprised that this cult classic horror film would be on at a time when kids could come home and discover it on television (one of the living dead is naked and they do like to eat human flesh), but Iowa is a state that thinks caucuses are a good way of selecting presidential nominees, so what can I say? But this is a horror movie that is even scary in the daytime with all the lights on.

"The Night of the Living Dead" is a horror classic, which is rather surprising when you take into account that director George A. Romero made the film in 1968 for $114,000 without a cast of first time actors (extras who playing the zombies were paid $1 and a t-shirt that said "I was a zombie on Night of the Living Dead"). Filmed in black and white with Romero as the cinematographer, this film has a technical proficiency that is missing from other low-budget classics like "Dementia 13" and "Carnival of Souls." You can take or leave the various sequels to this film, but this one has to be on everyone's Top 10 list when it comes to horror films.

The horror comes from the situation and the simple effectiveness of the slow moving, silent zombies in their growing numbers, their arms reaching out to find human flesh to eat. Barbara (Judith O'Dea) runs to an abandoned house, where she is joined by Ben (Duane Jones). After fending off the first attack of the living dead, they discover five more people hiding in the basement: Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), and their daughter (Kyra Schon), along with a young couple, Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley). Harry wants to hide out in the basement, but refuses to be trapped down there, and the two spend more time arguing about what to do than doing anything. They listen to the radio and watch the TV, learning that the dead are rising to eat the living, and try to figure out a way of getting out of the death trap in which they find themselves. Meanwhile, the little girl in the basement is getting weaker.

The only real weakness in the film is the attempt to explain why the dead are walking around as flesh-eating ghouls (which is, I believe, redundant), which has something to do with a satellite and scientific mumbo-jumbo that really does not mean anything to the people trying to survive against the growing horde of zombies. Fortunately, the "why" does not matter in this story; just the "how" in terms of taking these creatures down. Besides, if anything clinches this one it is the end of the film, both with its final twist, and the use of grainy still photographs to show the end of the tale. Few horror movies, whatever their budgets, have an ending this memorable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: He said "They're coming to get you Barbara," and they were
Review: Once upon a time a young girl and her brother traveled three hours from home to place flowers on the grave of their father. The brother started teasing his sister, telling her in a creepy voice, "They're coming to get you, Barbara." However, the joke ended up being on him because they were coming to get Barbara, only they got him first.

I first saw "Night of the Living Dead" when I came home one afternoon and discovered that the Iowa City Public Library Channel on cable was showing the film. I have to admit, I was rather surprised that this cult classic horror film would be on at a time when kids could come home and discover it on television (one of the living dead is naked and they do like to eat human flesh), but Iowa is a state that thinks caucuses are a good way of selecting presidential nominees, so what can I say? But this is a horror movie that is even scary in the daytime with all the lights on.

"The Night of the Living Dead" is a horror classic, which is rather surprising when you take into account that director George A. Romero made the film in 1968 for $114,000 without a cast of first time actors (extras who playing the zombies were paid $1 and a t-shirt that said "I was a zombie on Night of the Living Dead"). Filmed in black and white with Romero as the cinematographer, this film has a technical proficiency that is missing from other low-budget classics like "Dementia 13" and "Carnival of Souls." You can take or leave the various sequels to this film, but this one has to be on everyone's Top 10 list when it comes to horror films.

The horror comes from the situation and the simple effectiveness of the slow moving, silent zombies in their growing numbers, their arms reaching out to find human flesh to eat. Barbara (Judith O'Dea) runs to an abandoned house, where she is joined by Ben (Duane Jones). After fending off the first attack of the living dead, they discover five more people hiding in the basement: Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), and their daughter (Kyra Schon), along with a young couple, Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley). Harry wants to hide out in the basement, but refuses to be trapped down there, and the two spend more time arguing about what to do than doing anything. They listen to the radio and watch the TV, learning that the dead are rising to eat the living, and try to figure out a way of getting out of the death trap in which they find themselves. Meanwhile, the little girl in the basement is getting weaker.

The only real weakness in the film is the attempt to explain why the dead are walking around as flesh-eating ghouls (which is, I believe, redundant), which has something to do with a satellite and scientific mumbo-jumbo that really does not mean anything to the people trying to survive against the growing horde of zombies. Fortunately, the "why" does not matter in this story; just the "how" in terms of taking these creatures down. Besides, if anything clinches this one it is the end of the film, both with its final twist, and the use of grainy still photographs to show the end of the tale. Few horror movies, whatever their budgets, have an ending this memorable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best films ever.......
Review: One Saturday afternoon my parents went out and left me in the house all alone, and they had just bought me a copy of Night of the Living Dead to keep me busy. I rarely get scared at black and white horror films (Exception-Psycho) but this movie had me jumping around like a fool by the end. Night of the Living Dead was directed by George A Romero who hit with two other sequels in this same field. Shot on a shoe string budget of just over,$110,000,it is the story of the dead coming back to life and eating the living. However that is just the start. In the beginning we meet Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) and they are attacked in a cemetery where they have come to put flowers on there fathers grave. After Johnny is killed Barbara runs to a nearby farm house. A man passes in looking for gas named Ben (Duane Jones) and he decides that they should just stay put and board up the house for protection. More people show up like the cantancorous Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman),his long suffering wife Helen (Mayilyn Eastman),their daughter who had been bitten by a ghoul, and a young couple who is just scared. Ben and Harry hate one another from the outset and continue to fight throughout the film.
Night of the Living Dead works on many different levels and in the end it is just a really good horror movie, but it also say's somthing about the fact that no matter how bad things are outside, inside we still can't get along. The acting is very good,(Eastman,Hardman,And Streiner all worked off camera as well and were there from the biggining) and the violence is not very graphic although it is at time a little disturbing but if you see Dawn Of The Dead or Day Of The Dead, or even the remake of this film you will be amazed at just how tame it is compared to those others. This is the film that started all the zombie movies and it has never come close to being equeled. Most of the Zombie movies that come out now are nothing more than an excuse show how much blood and gore they can pack into 97 Minutes (See Lucio Fulci's Zombie if you don't believe me).
A remake made of thius film in the early 90's by make-up wizard Tom Savini that was a really bad movie. He should have left well enough alone and remade Plan 9 From Outer Space, at least then we would have seen his movie being intentionally funny........

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Really enjoyable
Review: Saw this a while ago on encore and was not dissapointed! This film is in black and white, but has a few surprises along the way. I enjoyed it throughout and loved the way the black and white made it more scary. The atmosphere is intense too but enjoyable as the characters are creatively done. The film is good at least. 5 stars

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The dead arise to devour the living...
Review: The horror classic which inspired such other subsequent classics such as 'Dawn of The Dead' and 'Day of The Dead'. A truly dark presentation both aesthetically, literarily, and literally.

Radiation has cause the dead to rise and hunt the living for sustainance. A few people turn a house into a fortress to shield themselves for the carnivorous advances of the walking dead. Veritable ghouls who seek to consume living flesh.

Personalities and wills conflict within the fortress, which eventually leads to the necessary murder {execution} of one of the inhabitants, followed by his family, who all subsequently arise, but are dispatched by the resident leader of this desperate and frightened troop. One tribulation after another, they battle valiantly against the zombies to protect the living, only to be shot square in the forehead by what would have been their rescuers, who mistook him for a ghoul. A dark ending to a dark film.

This film is devoid of the typical 'happy ending' pollyanna scenario propagated by poop-culture, which is actually why, I believe it made such a cinematic impression that inspired a genre from filming technique to the plot.


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