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Night of the Living Dead (1968) "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" Born in 1940 in the Bronx area of New York, George A. Romero began his long film making association with the city of Pittsburgh when he moved there to attend the Carnegie-Mellon Institute, studying drama. In 1961, Romero went into partnership with actor Russell W. Streiner to form The Latent Image, a small production unit that specialised in commercials and industrial films, though in 1962, Romero and Streiner teamed up with fellow Carnegie-Mellon graduate Rudy Ricci to make a 16mm 'short feature', Expostulations. Dinner with a friend and recent Latent Image employee, writer John Russo, kindled Romero's desire to direct something more ambitious. It was decided that their meager budget would restrict their first feature to black and white stock; and to assure commercial success, it should be a horror film. From Romero's original story, Russo concocted a script about radiation from a crashed satellite re-animating the bodies of the recently deceased. Written as The Flesh Eaters, filmed as Night of Anubis (after the Egyptian god of the dead) and changed from the makers' preferred Night of the Flesh Eaters to Night of the Living Dead, the partnership's modest first venture into feature film-making was destined to become a genre legend. Night of the Living Dead is one of the truly essential horror movies, a seminal work that sounded the death knell for the gothic horror of the 50s and 60s and paved the way for the more visceral and ferocious horror of the 1970s. It acts as a marker, a borderline that separates one generation of horror fans from another and it helped to redefine the genre - it's probably fair to say that without it, films like The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and half of the Italian horror movies of the following two decades would probably never have been made. Despite a rough technical edge (the use of stock music is damn annoying), Night of the Living Dead was a watershed film in the history of the modern horror film. Even today, the film retains its power to shock and to disturb, and images like that of the mass of arms clutching through the boarded up windows have been ripped off many times since. Romero's own black and white photography is immaculate, a dense, menacing monochrome that enhances the claustrophobic situations to unforgettable effect. Amazingly, Night of the Living Dead was one of those unfortunate films singled out for the hideous 'colourisation' treatment that seemed inexplicably popular during late 80s. This case was particularly annoying as much of the horror stems - initially at least - from the fact that the first few zombies (referred to as 'ghouls' in the film) appear human and it's virtually impossible to determine exactly what's going on - we aren't made privy to any special information; we're as much in the dark as the film's protagonists. The 'colourised' version removes a lot of this mystery and suspense by electronically 'painting' the zombies green! The construction of the film is well nigh flawless, executed with a remorseless inevitability that leads to its notoriously pessimistic finale. Like much of Romero's later work, Night of the Living Dead adopts a satirical stance, though it's more subtly stated here than in later films, particularly the lumpen Dawn of the Dead (1978). Irony too plays a large part in the film's success, particularly the ultimate irony of it's unforgettable climax - nominal hero Ben does everything that any good screen hero should do, but still ends up losing the group he tried to protect before being killed himself. Essentially, Night of the Living Dead is a siege film, a macabre variation on that old western plot where the pioneers, under attack from marauding redskins, draw the wagon train into a circle and prepare to fight to the bitter end - only in Romero's film, the wagon train becomes an isolated farmhouse, the pioneers a harassed bunch of human survivors and the Indians a pack of shuffling, flesh-hungry zombies. It was a theme that Romero would return to again in the sequels, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead (1985), and also in The Crazies (1973). Night of the Living Dead's narrative unfolds almost entirely within the claustrophobic confines of the besieged farmhouse and Romero economically sets up the situation in the outside world through clever use of TV and radio reports, which also serve to heighten the suspense. Occasionally, the ruthless logic skips a beat (would someone as clearly intelligent as Ben really use a shotgun to blow the lock off a petrol pump?) but overall, Russo's script is constructed as tight as a drum, with a cold, efficient internal logic. Initially, Romero and his Latent Image crew had problems finding a distribution deal for Night of the Living Dead. A few of the majors expressed an interest, but nothing came of it. Eventually, Romero placed the film with Walter Reade, a well known distributor of European 'Art' films, who seemed rather confused as to what to do with the film, sending it out as a support film to Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965)! When they found out about this, The Readers Digest was apoplectic, demanding to know how such a violent, relentlessly downbeat film could be presented on the same bill as a kids film. Elsewhere, Variety was up in arms ("The film casts aspersions on the integrity of its makers, distributors Walter Reade, the film industry as a whole...") while Sight and Sound was only slightly more relaxed ("...the most horrifying (film) ever made"). The public, as ever, proved the learned critics wrong and the film was a tremendous success at the box office. Soon, the more enlightened critics were viewing the film with their intellects engaged and began seeing more to the movie than it had previously been credited with. Romero, naturally, agreed with them and began making grand comments on the violent decline of social standards in the 'States and suggesting all manner of Vietnam allegories. Russo, however, was less ready to admit to any deeper motives for making the film, admitting only that the film was made for purely financial gain. If that was the sole raison d'etre for Night of
the Living Dead, Romero and co were to be disappointed. Amid allegations
of mismanagement, Image Ten (the Latent Image off-shoot formed to produce the
film) went to court to get Walter Reade to hand over the readies. Years of legal
battling (during which Reade himself died in a skiing accident) led to the Image
Ten partnership regaining rights to the film, but couldn't lay claim to anywhere
near the amount of money they were rightfully owed. Eventually, in 1990, Romero
undertook a colour, bigger-budgeted remake with Tom Savini at the helm. It was
a disappointment.
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