Night of the Living Dad Disagrees (Night of the Living Dead 1968)

I watched the black and white version of Night of the Living Dead (1968) with my dad.

When I first hit play, I thought I hadn’t seen this movie before, but I quickly realized that I had seen it, it just wasn’t memorable. This statement my dad disagreed with. He, like Alexis, said the characters learned as they went, and so did the viewers, and that’s how he remembered it, as the movie went on her remembered right before things happened.

Some people have reviewed this movie by going through the plot, others through the characters, and others still avoiding both and analyzing it for it’s ground laying for the zombie genre. I actually wrote a play by play of comments as I watched this one. Here’s the CliffsNotes version of my funniest comments:

"They're coming to get you Barbara." I KNOW THIS LINE. HAVE I SEEN THIS?

These zombies are fast and smart. Not quick moving, but they chase Barbara across an entire field, and have fast reflexes in punching glass (and knowing to do that) and moving objects with strength. They use tools like rocks and clubs and shovels. I find it interesting to learn that the initial baseline for zombies had them much smarter than we do now. Speaking of shovels, Karen stabbing her mom was more like Chucky than what I think of as modern zombies. Side note: I also loved that the majority of them were in suits like the recently buried.

The music and string instruments are excellent. As a classical musician for 13 years, those crescendos are amazing and well timed. The black and white also lends itself very nicely to dramatic lighting. While the plot may be slow, the cinematography is excellent. The radio is so much more interesting than the actual plot. It pulls me to snippets sampled from the movie in the song Aim for the Head by Creature Feature. I also didn’t find this movie scary. Yes, the zombies are ominous and lingering, but this movie was more a setup to what would later turn the ghouls into the zombies we know and love today.

My mom walked in here and there while my dad and I were watching, and she complained about the overacting and everything being heavy-handed. She also enlightened me to the radios obsession with radiation, it being attributed to worry from the Cold War.

This movie has such a misogynistic view of women. Barbara is useless, Judy is dumb, Helen is annoying. I understand trying to put all the different forms of coping and trauma into the plot, but they could have done the Barbara being in shock much better. I just wanted her to die at the start. The women were useless. But this movies was made back in the '60s, so it should be judged by the views of that time, not our modern ones. They could have shown the different stages of grief much better. My dad liked all the females except Barbara.

As for character, I loved Ben. Everyone loves Ben. However, I didn’t like Cooper. He was very necessary for conflict to move the plot along, but I still cheered when Ben shot him. Cooper was just annoying, especially after he says he’s never opening the basement door again, and then he uncovers it and emerges just a few minutes after.

I’m going to contradict everyone else here and say Ben isn’t the only likable character though. I also liked Tom and Judy even though they were incompetent. Even though Tom and Judy were an idiotic train wreck, I feel like they are the most relatable characters to how I would act in the situation: trying to keep the peace and worried about one another taking risks. However, I would not be an idiot and run out to the car like Judy. And the foreshadowing with her saying did it have to be him made it obvious he would die. I honestly found it funny when Tom’s gas pump use was like those commercials where someone smashes a hole in the wall trying to hammer a nail in.

The ending didn't do it for me. I liked that everyone died, but I would have liked it more if the zombies had gotten Ben. At least then he could have gone down in a blaze of glory. His death was anticlimactic. I left feeling unsatisfied after finishing the movie. Why didn’t he just call out? Zombies don’t talk, it’s the easiest way to show you are human. That reminded me of Train to Busan, where (SPOILERS) the little girls sings and that’s how she know she’s human.

My overall: I understandable why this movie is the baseline for all of the stereotypes of zombies, and it sets that stage very well, but the plot itself is much too slow and the ending is uneventful.

Dad: Not scary, but very good and ominous. I think you're too hard on it. And Johnnies car was my car when I was younger, so I like Johnnie. And I'm John. It's perfect.

My final recommendation: Watch Night of the Living Dead for studying the origin of the zombie genre, but watch Train to Busan to be entertained and scared.