“If you have a gun, shoot ’em in the head. That’s a sure way to kill ’em. If you don’t, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat ’em or burn ’em. They go up pretty easy.”
With 8-years olds watching The Walking Dead today with Mom and Dad today, it’s hard to convey just how grossed out and appalled people were when NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD started popping up on movie screens back in 1968. Variety wrote back then: “No brutalizing stone is left unturned: crowbars gash holes in the heads of the living dead, 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.” Yep, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD had it all: cannibalism, slow-moving zombies who always seem to be catching up, and women-in-danger tripping and falling for no reason. But it was one of the first horror films that refused to turn away from its own gruesomenesss and has become the barometer by which all Zombies Attack films are measured..
The minimalist plot of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD makes it all the more horrifying. Simply put, a group of strangers end up trapped in a farmhouse as slow-moving zombies, who were created by radiation from a Venus space probe (don’t ask), try to break in and eat them. Among the house’s occupants is a woman (Judith O’Dea) who saw her brother attacked by one of the “living dead” while they visited their father’s graveside, a black man (Duane Jones) who attempts to take charge of the situation, a middle class husband and wife (Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman) who are nursing a young daughter who was bitten by one of the ghouls, and the requisite terrified teenage couple (Keith Wayne and Judith Ridley).
The first time I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was in 1974 at the Crown Theater in Florissant. The EXORCIST knock-off BEYOND THE DOOR was the main feature and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD played second. My friends and I were terrified and amazed (especially after that dull first feature) though most of director George Romero’s political and social commentary no doubt went way over our little 12-year old heads. This being years before DAWN OF THE DEAD or ZOMBIE, we had no idea how influential the film would be or the impact Romero’s little low budget black and white movie would have on the evolution of horror films. Thirty years later I interviewed eight cast members from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on stage at the Kitbuilders Monstrous Weekend Convention here in St. Louis including Judith O’Dea and the late Bill Hinzman, who played the first graveyard zombie. Several of these were older folk who had never acted before or since, yet were being flown to horror cons and treated to long lines of fans willing to pay for their signatures. Behold the power of the first ‘Living Dead’ movie!
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is a masterpiece, still holding strong today, and you’ll have the opportunity to see it again in all of its 35mm big-screen glory when it plays this weekend (October 4th and 5th) at midnight at St. Louis’ fabulous Hi-Pointe theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, MO 63117) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse Film Series. The pre-show begins at 11:30.
The Friday night Facebook Invite can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/1415295048688937/
The Saturday night Facebook Invite can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/711354925561229/
The Destroy The Brain.com site can be found HERE
http://www.destroythebrain.com/
The Hi-Pointe Theater’s site can be found HERE
