Our ongoing column giving the spotlight to movies that bucked the Hollywood Blockbuster trend and still managed to deliver a superior viewing experience. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
By Sam Christopher
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)
16,000 bucks. It took just $16,000 to make one of the most celebrated horror films of all time. George Romero, John Russo, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman and associates got together a script based somewhat on Richard Matheson’s seminal horror novel I Am Legend, hired an actor or two, rented a house that was to be torn down, slapped a little makeup on a few dozen of their closest friends and shot a simple little black-and-white film about dead people “waking up” and attacking the living. These were just above amateur filmmakers, eking out a living at the time filming beer commercials and the like for local concerns in Pittsburgh, Pa. Little did they know…
This is a nihilistic film, all about the destruction of the nuclear family and the breakdown of traditional society. Yada, yada, yada. You can read that analysis anywhere. This is, of course, because it is true: This film is indeed all about a “new society” rising up in violent revolution to replace the old. Duane Jones was cast as the lead, one of only a couple of true actors hired for the shoot, and I’ve read and heard different accounts of the significance of this. Jones was black and it was odd for the time to have a black lead in a film of this sort. I’ve read accounts that say his hiring was a deliberate break with tradition and I’ve heard people involved with the casting say that it never really entered their minds to even think about it. They say they were making a low budget horror flick and Jones was willing to do it, and they liked him. That was enough for them and that’s how it happened. They even changed the character of “Ben”, who was originally supposed to be a rough and tumble truck driver, softening him to better suit the sensibilities of Jones himself.
There is so much here to talk about with this film:
Item: Creative effects guru Tom Savini, who was doing some makeups and such for the Chiller Theater local show in Pittsburgh (with “Chilly Billy” Cardille, who was also in this film), did not work on this film only because he was drafted to go to Viet Nam just before shooting started. He would later, of course, take care of the makeups, along with about half the stunts, for Romero on the wild “sequel” to this film, Dawn of the Dead, before going on to have a very successful career in SFX on all manner of films.
Item: The farmhouse used in the picture has indeed since been torn down, and the cemetery used for the opening sequence was ripped up by a tornado. George Romero, on hearing the account from John Russo about the bodies that were disinterred by this storm, asked, “Did they walk?”
Item: The car used at the beginning of the picture was actually owned by Russ Streiner’s mother (Streiner played Johnny. Brother to Judith O’Dea’s Barbra). She needed it for work and it was actually wrecked right after the opening scene was shot. This precipitated having Barbra crash the car into a tree being written into the script.
Item: This film, a landmark in modern horror, failed miserable upon release and was only saved by continuous showings at the drive-in. The viewing dynamic was very different between drive-ins and theaters, with drive-ins offering a more comfortable yet more “closer to danger” experience.
Item: To this day, Romero talks about having to apologize for his treatment of the character Barbra in this film. She “does all the classic things. She falls down, loses her shoes…” He frequently mentions having strong women characters in his films as an apology to women everywhere for this.
Item: Kyra Schon, playing the youngest Cooper in the film, has only a single line: “I hurt.” She later becomes one of the single most memorable characters in all of horror filmdom. When she dies and returns, attacking her mother with the trowel, that was the moment for me when everything changed. Her attack was stylishly drawn yet brutal and final, crystallizing the theme of the new generation destroying the old.
As always whenever I talk about this film, there’s so much here to talk about I have a hard time stopping. Just see it, and know that it changed everything. Like Psycho, this was a film ahead of its time. Put yourself in that time and place and feel the wonder anew.
Buy Night of the Living Dead on DVD from Amazon.com:
