Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - 'Night of the Living Dead' will make you scream

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Friday, February 23, 2001
'Night of the Living Dead' will make you scream
Flesh-eating zombies walk the walk and talk the talk in this gory no-brainer freak of a film
By John Bruce
Caller-Times
In the last ten years, scads of new CDs have been released by John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. Very impressive when you consider the fact that these people are dead. Fred Astaire passed away almost 14 years ago yet he still pops up to cut a rug with a vacuum cleaner on TV commercials. Please, folks, if you can't rest in peace try switching to decaf.
   While the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead" aren't quite as ambitious, they've still got an agenda. Creep-master George A. Romero's first film is a frightening masterpiece intense enough to give anyone a screaming case of the heebie-jeebies. The cinematography, quick cuts and confined setting gives this 1968 horror flick a claustrophobic, documentary feel. This realism raises the chill factor.
   Flesh-eating ghouls
   In "Night," the story is incidental. Knowing what motivates a zombie isn't going to help much; it's not like you can reason with it. Basically, seven people lock themselves in a house and are soon surrounded by flesh-eating ghouls. Eventually, through news reports, the people learn that radiation from a fallen satellite is causing the dead to walk the Earth. (Note to self: Call NASA and find out if I need to worry about this.)
   Actually, walk isn't the best way to describe the undead mode of transportation. It's more of a shamble, really. Think Hannibal Lecter after three bottles of fine Chianti. And whatever this walk might be called-the "Zombie Two-Step," the "Help I'm Standing And I Can't Fall Down"-it's the same in every zombie movie (See Figure 1). Even in Michael Jackson's zombie-filled "Thriller" video, the choreography is all stagger. Only funkier.
   "Night of the Living Dead" stars a cast of unknowns. Duane Jones, perhaps the first black horror movie hero, plays the handsome, levelheaded Ben who does his best to keep the windows boarded up. As the leader, Ben must keep the others, fatigued and (yikes!) almost out of cigarettes, from killing each other. He also keeps from getting eaten, a bonus in anyone's day.
   The sole purpose of the undead, in fact, seems to be eating the flesh of the living. And what's worse, once a person is nibbled by a zombie, that person becomes a zombie, too. It's like a cannibalistic version of dodge ball.
   Brains, brains, brains!
   With "Night of the Living Dead," Romero created what would soon become rules for zombie movies. From "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" to "Return of the Living Dead" the cliches are all there: the walk, the dead-eyed stare, the zombie diet.
   Unnecessary modifications have been made from time to time. In "Return of the Living Dead," for example, the zombies are partial to eating brains. Brains? Color me skeptical, but after several months in a coffin I doubt I'd suddenly have a hankering for French food. No side orders? No garnish? And getting a brain might become a problem when you consider the zombie to people-with-brains ratio (See Figure 2).
   Romero's less-is-more approach in "Night of the Living Dead" is preferable to a lot of specifics. Being eaten is bad enough; it doesn't matter if you know the zombie is targeting your brain. After all, without a brain what are you? OK, maybe a supermodel.
   "Night of the Living Dead" was followed by "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead," both in living color. But the starkness of the first film, shot in black and white, is creepier. There have been remakes, re-edits and re-releases in a variety of formats, so there's plenty for gore freaks to sink their teeth into. The DVD collector's edition contains director commentary and a parody called "Night of the Living Bread."
   Films like "Silence of the Lambs" and its recent sequel owe a little to Romero's influence. But one measly cannibal doesn't really compare to hundreds of hungry zombies. Eat your heart out, Dr. Lecter.


John Bruce can be reached at 886-4371 or by e-mail at brucej@caller.com

| Talk about this story | Next Story | Home |

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[ Printer-friendly version ]
[ Subscribe to newspaper ]

SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND

[an error occurred while processing this directive]