Night of the Living Dead: Film Review

Although pic's basic premise is repellent - recently dead bodies are resurrected and begin killing human beings in order to eat their flesh - it is in execution that the film distastefully excels. Until the Supreme Court establishes clear-cut guidelines for the anatomy of violence, Night of the Living Dead will serve nicely as outer-limit

Although pic's basic premise is repellent - recently dead bodies are resurrected and begin killing human beings in order to eat their flesh - it is in execution that the film distastefully excels.

Until the Supreme Court establishes clear-cut guidelines for the anatomy of violence, “Night of the Living Dead” will serve nicely as outer-limit definition by example. In a mere 90 minutes, this horror film (pun intended) casts serious aspersions on the integrity and social responsibility of its Pittsburgh-based makers, distrib Walter Reade, the film industry as a whole and exhibs who book the pic, as well as raising doubts about the future of the regional cinema movement and about the moral health of filmgoers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism.

Although pic’s basic premise is repellent – recently dead bodies are resurrected, via that old fright-film debbil radiation, and begin killing human beings in order to eat their flesh – it is in execution that the film distastefully excels.

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No brutalizing stone is left unturned: crowbars gash holes in the heads of the “living dead,” people are shot in the head or through the body (blood gushing from their ck), bodies are burned, monsters are shown eating entrails, and – in a climax of unparalleled nausea – a little girl kills her mother by stabbing her a dozen times in the chest with a trowel and the remainder of the cast (living living, that is) suffer similarly disgusting fates.

While all these set-pieces are staged with zestful realism, the rest of the pic is amateurism of the first order. Director George A. Romero appears incapable of conniving a single graceful setup, and his cast is uniformly poor. Both Judith O’Dea and Duane Jones are sufficiently talented to warrant supporting roles in a backwoods community theatre, but Russell Strein-er (rollercoaster inflections), Karl Hardman (eyeball – rolling and clenched fists pumping the air for emphasis), Keith Wayne (eyeblink-ing every other word) and Judith Ridley (pretty but catatonic) do suggest that Pittsburgh is a haven for undiscovered thespians.

Apart from all those gory special effects and makeup, the production is even worse. Romero’s
photography is abysmally lit and the processing appears to have been done on 20-year-old Army stock. The music (uncredited and almost certainly canned) ludicrously hypos every gratuitous shock effect and reminds one of a late-’30s serial with its moaning and groaning. Even the lip-synch was on for about 15 minutes at screening caught, and sound throughout has the echo-in-an-empty-room quality of most unprofessional low-budget (under $200,000) efforts.

John A. Russo’s screenplay is a model of verbal banality and suggests a total antipathy for his characters (particularly the women, all blithering idiots) if not for all humanity. On no level is the unrelieved grossness of “Night of the Living Dead” disguised by a feeble attempt at art or significance. Pic apparently cleaned up in its first multiple break in Pittsburgh, and quite possibly a sufficient market exists elsewhere for such sprockets. Distrib may cry all the way to the bank.

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‘Night of the Living Dead’: Film Review

  • Production: Image Ten. Director George A. Romero; Producer Russell Streiner, Karl Hardman; Screenplay John A. Russo, George A. Romero; Camera George A. Romero
  • Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1968. Running time: 90 MIN.
  • With: Judith O'Dea Russell Streiner Duane Jones Karl Hardman Keith Wayne

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