Created by a team of television commercial producers and distributed by a fast-buck outfit who curiously neglected to copyright the film, Night of the Living Dead would spawn an entire genre unto itself, a genre that would ultimately reap billions, particularly with The Walking Dead franchise.
But to this observer, zombie horror is second only to slasher/splatter trash as a font for some of the dumbest, dullest, most deliberately dehumanizing narratives to ever hit the screen.
Now, bear in mind some of my all-time favorite films are rightly categorized as explicit horror, such as Jacob’s Ladder, Dagon, and Mandy. And of course, The X-Files often delved into the genre as well.
Then there are films like the original Exorcist, whose origins arise from real-world (and decidedly non-supernatural) terrors.
But these are films that ask the big questions, display professional pride in craft, and present the viewer with entire imaginary worlds to explore.
Mind you, zombies had been seen in pictures, before but never like in Night:
Prior to the release of the film in 1968, “zombie” movies focused on “voodoo zombies”, which meant living victims that were turned into slaves by supernatural forces.
Night of the Living Dead changed that by rebranding the zombie into a undead killer that hungers for human flesh (or brains). It also established much of the lore that surrounds modern zombies, such as the idea of having to destroy the brain of a zombie to kill it, zombies being afraid of fire and so forth...
Nearly every zombie movie since 1968 owes its roots to Night of the Living Dead, even those that deviate from the formula.
And since its release, there’s been a never-ending deluge of pseudo-intellectual idiocy like this written about Night of the Living Dead :
Some film scholars argue that this film can be read as a subversive critique of 1960s American society with most of them interpreting the film as dealing with racism, the Vietnam War, a patriarchal society, and distrust of authorities.
Bear in mind this is a movie in which an 11 year-old girl is depicted eating her father’s corpse.
Perhaps the efforts made to redeem the film are meant to disguise the way in which it was originally presented to the American public: as a kids’ movie...
And coming this Sunday...
Are you fascinated by the tantalizing riddles embedded in Stanley Kubrick's final film, but sick to death of YouTubers acting like talking about the film's blatantly obvious depictions of elite sex-pestilence is some kind of special revelation from on high?
Tired of hucksters and shills fleecing the rubes with ridiculous "exposés" based on nothing but rehashed 90's USENET nonsense?
- Did you know there were three previous adaptations of the novel Eyes Wide Shut is based on?
- Did you know that Kubrick and screenwriter Frederic Raphael obsessively referenced unique plot points and even shots from those previous adaptations?
- Did you know WHY Kubrick had been trying to make Eyes Wide Shut before it eventually was released?
- Did you know who the mysterious Ziegler was in real life?
