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Night of the Living Dead (Horror, 1968) IMDB Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes Directed By: George Romero Written By: George Romero, John Russo Produced By: Karl Hardman, Russell Streiner Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon Watch the trailer Watch my video review from a year ago  Sure, we've all heard of it, but until a year or so ago, I'd never seen it. I think it's worth mentioning here, primarily to increase it's profile among those who haven't had a chance yet and to make them aware of where they can get it. Yes, we all know it's a 'classic,' but I don't buy in to phony or automatic worship based on that alone. Also, I do not think it's good for us to judge a film based solely on it's impact at the time of release, but also whether it's held up for today's audiences, who for all their flaws, I think are more sophisticated and quick to call out cheese, even if they are not patient. Anyway, enough prologue. You can find out more about the film's influences and influences on others from wikipedia. Night of the Living Dead is a simple zombie movie that sets up a lot of the rules zombies have followed for most of the last 40 years. They're slow, undead, and crave human flesh. The majority of the movie takes place in a single farm house, where our heroes work to overcome internal strife to protect themselves from the zombie hoard slowly gathering outside. They board the place up while trying to think up strategy for escape. Does it hold up today, even with our current knowledge of all of the zombie clichés and subsequent retellings? I think the answer is yes, absolutely if you have the patience for old horror. Only you can answer that question, but I think if you haven't had your mind rotted from watching Transformers 2, you'll appreciate this on many levels. It's got subtlety, reasonably good acting, decent characters and costume and visual effects that allow you to generally suspend your sense of disbelief. Now, if you've seen a horror movie in the last 30 years, you'll probably think this is neither gory or scary, but that's not the point. Horror fans like to say, "there's no such thing as a scary movie." Maybe that's because they've seen to many, but regardless, this film should be taken as an adventure film, of which I am a huge fan. That's why I watch these old horror films. To watch good characters brave extraordinary (but believable) challenges. Night of the Living Dead won't give you a huge amount of gunplay or even a lot of violence, but it isn't boring for the time period it was made in. In fact compared to what was out at the time, it's reasonably swift in it's telling of events. Bottom line, if you're willing to sit back and enjoy what is presented rather than what's not, you should enjoy it. The quality of the visuals could generally be improved, but I've got you there... As you may know, Night of the Living Dead has fallen into the public domain meaning no one owns or controls it. It can be put up for public viewings, packaged and sold by anyone, etc. It is of course, also available on the internet in a variety of different qualities, both for streaming and download. As usual you have the trusty YouTube, but you've also got Google video and the Internet Archive which host it as well. It's also available in about a million other places. - YouTube: Typical YouTube quality. - Internet Archive: Available in a variety of versions including 1080p! Is it not worth it for free? I did think about giving this a 4/5, but considering the price, I can't see any reason not to give it the highest score. No, it isn't perfect, and perhaps a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes is a bit high, but it's a must see if you're at all interested in the genre. 5/5
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