Romero's
zombie debut set the scene for the genre, and has inspired wave after
wave of popular zombie movie fads (depending on your time of reading, you may be experiencing one now!) With a simple premise (a group of
people trapped inside a house surrounded by the undead) George A Romero creates
many of the staples of future zombie movies, and the film doesn't
even feel too badly aged or cliché.
It
does a lot on a low budget, and the characters are all built
believably without any unrealistic hunks of filler background
dialogue. The script is fairly minimal, which works in the films
favour, as characterisation has never really been this genre's strong
point. The characters manage to stay believable and even get to tell
each other their stories without it sounding at all forced or cheesy
(ahem, every other zombie film of all time).
I've
seen both the original and the colourised versions of this film and
I'd highly recommend the black and white for new viewers. The zombie
make-up looks off when it's in colour (this is one aspect where the
budget shows, but it still looks great in black and white, and the
innards looked great regardless).
The
bleak ending must have been even more of a kicker when the film first
aired, but it still packs a punch today. It was fitting, though, I
think, and each of the characters died in a way that rounded up their
main flaws nicely. It's a very small film, but it doesn't try and
overstretch itself. It does what it's trying to do perfectly, and I
don't think there's much higher praise I can give a film than that.
Easily one of the best horror films of all time, and I expect the
best zombie film of all time.
Night of the Living Dead: 85.1