TIL: Night of the Living Dead
11Continuing on with the Halloween themes of the month I decided to learn a bit about the horror movie classic Night of the Living Dead
- Night of the Living Dead is often mistaken as the first zombie movie. That title belongs to White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi in 1932.
White Zombie is also the inspiration for the rock band of the same name.
- Due to a copyright mistake at the time of publication the movie is considered public domain. You can watch it right now without issue on Youtube which I have linked the movies just below. You could make your very own version of Night of the Living Dead if you wanted in your backyard.
–The original black and white version
-
Because of that copyright error Romero would have held the copyright until 2024 and we wouldn’t have other zombie based media like 28 Days Lateror even Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.
-
Duane Jones as “Ben” in Night of the Living Dead was the first time a black actor was cast as the lead in the horror genre of movies. Jones also rewrote his own dialogue for the movie for the script.
-
George Romero worked on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when starting out. Romero wanted to use the actress that played “Lady Aberlin” in Night of the Living Dead but Fred said no.
-
Night of the Living Dead along with some other works of Romero were shot in and around Pittsburgh. This made Pittsburgh a hotspot of sorts for movies locations in the 1980s to the 1990s.
-
Mark Dodson voiced the sounds of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. Dodson also voiced the Kowakian monkey-lizard “Salacious Crumb” which was in the Jabba the Hutt scenes in Return of the Jediand Mogwai and the Gremlins in the Gremlins movies.
-
George Romero and Night of the Living Dead might have been the inspiration for tons of the zombie stuff we’ve watched recently but Romero got his inspiration (possibly nearly stole) from Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend.
-
Night of the Living Dead opened before the soon to follow rating system by the Motion Picture Association of America. Anyone could see it, even children. Variety Magazine at the time proclaimed the movie “pornography of violence”.
-
In zombie filmmaking the rule is to generally avoid using the word “zombie”.
With a few exceptions that break the rule most films and shows use alternate terms like “biters” and other colorful terms.
What do you think of Night of the Living Dead? Does it hold up? Compared to today’s zombie and horror related media is it Meh or scarier?
- 4 comments, 3 replies
- Comment
I think it’s scary compared to today’s zombie movies which are more startling or shocking.
/image night living dead scary
@eonfifty We were having that discussion at lunch. Most horror these days lean pretty hard on gore and jump scares. Psychological horrors are the place to be.
@eonfifty and by “place to be” as far as psychological horrors are concerned is staring up at your ceiling and think-wait… that was an odd sound, oh god, it’s coming to kill me isn’t it?
The Ghost Breakers : still my favorite zombie movie!
@aetris I’ll check this out.
Saw Night of the Living Dead at the drive in theater. Awesome. Esp the noises.
I’d call it ‘meh’, even though I personally think it’s a good film and worth watching. The violence was shocking at the time it was released, but I think for most modern viewers, it’s too tame - scenes meant to build tension will instead induce drowsiness. For a certain viewer, it’s easy to recommend, but then those viewers have almost universally already seen it.
It’s also interesting as a sort of bridge between eras of zombie media, but a modern-day zombie fan interested in examining patient zero should be directed instead to Dawn of the Dead. The bones of the genre as it stands today are present in Night, but Dawn is where the concept really got fleshed out, and it absolutely holds up today, despite the rotting.