Originally posted: October 1, 2007 @ 9:39pm MST (Arizona)

 

They’re coming to get you, Barbra! - Johnny from Night of the Living Dead

Welcome to day one of Happy Horrorween! Yes, what was once Octoberfest has undergone a metamorphosis. Last year, I attempted to cover a movie a day for thirty-one days straight and ultimately burned myself out, not recovering until May. I’m finally picking up my stride again and to keep from having a repeat of last year, I’m not only featuring movies but also video games, TV shows, and even a few extra features, as well. So, let’s kick off our month-long festival with a cult classic!

I have a bit of a confession to make: I’m not the biggest zombie movie fan. Sure, I enjoy a good zombie flick every now and then, but ultimately my interests lie elsewhere. My mom, on the other hand, is a zombie fanatic. Her favorite type of horror movie is the zombie movie and as a result I’ve seen my share of them: good (Romero’s films), bad (The Video Dead), weird (Dead/Alive, aka Braindead), and ugly (Vampires Vs. Zombies).

Today, we’ll be focusing on the first category. My earliest memory of Night of the Living Dead is from a Halloween night many years ago. I didn’t see all of the movie then, but I remember seeing the body on the stairs and I remember the ending from then, as well. Flash ahead to about five years or so ago. I was in the habit of checking out the local public access station, as there were some pretty good shows coming out of the local University. When I turned it on one night, there was an old black and white movie on. After some watching, I realized it was Night of the Living Dead so I watched the rest of it. Finally, last Wednesday night, I watched the whole movie in one sitting for the first time. And what was my opinion of it? Ah, you’ll have to wait till the last paragraph, as always.

 

We open on a brother and sister, Johnny and Barbra (not a typo), who are getting to a cemetery late in the evening to place some flowers on their father’s grave for their mother. Right away, Barbra starts getting on my nerves. When they get to the grave, she starts asking why the gravekeeper takes the previous year’s flowers off the grave when they could be saved. On their way back to the car, Johnny starts making fun of Barbra. Spotting a guy walking in the distance, he starts in with, "They’re coming to get you, Barbra." As the stranger comes near, Barbra approaches him to apologize for Johnny when the man grabs her. Johnny runs to her rescue, but he gets thrown down, his head conking against a tombstone. Barbra runs, making it to the car but not finding the keys. The stranger rushes to the car and starts hitting the windows. Spotting a rock, he picks it up and starts hitting the glass, finally breaking it right before Barbra finds the parking brake and releases it, sending the car rolling down a hill and into a tree.

Running away from the still-following stranger, Barbra makes her way to a quiet farmhouse, trying to find help but the place seems deserted. What’s more, the phone doesn’t work (I originally attributed this to an earlier shot of the stranger ripping down a line outside the house, but now realize it to be a normal disaster phone tie-up). With the doors locked, she starts to go upstairs but finds a mostly-devoured corpse laying on the landing. She panics and runs out the front door nearly charging into an arriving pick-up driven by a black man named Ben. Ben encountered several of the slow-moving cannibals (who have started to surround the farmhouse) and he knows how to keep them at bay with fire.

Ben quickly takes charge, putting makeshift barricades up at the windows and doors and starting a fire outside to drive the intruders away. This proves wise as Barbra, in her shock, has slipped into an almost catatonic state. Ben quickly becomes the hero of the movie, especially after more survivors appear and complicate matters.

The acting in this movie was pretty good, I thought. Several of the main actors also played zombies in different scenes and I couldn’t tell they were the same person. Duane Jones played Ben, who definitely did an excellent job. The last movie he did before he passed away in 1988 was To Die For (aka: Dracula: The Love Story). Judith O’Dea played Barbra. I found her character to actually be pretty annoying and useless, due to her being in shock for most of the film. Miss O’Dea was also in Serial Slayer, aka Claustrophobia, where she plays the first victim we see of the crossbow-wielding killer. Karl Hardman plays Harry Cooper, the antagonist of the movie (well, human antagonist, anyway). His only other film credit is 1996’s Santa Claws. Sadly, he passed away just a few days ago on September 22. He was also a producer, sound effects artist and make-up artist on Night of the Living Dead. Marilyn Eastman played Cooper’s wife, Helen, as well as a zombie who eats a bug in a later scene. She’s also in Santa Claws. Her performance was good and I could feel the slight animosity between husband and wife (they were really married, as well). Kyra Schon played the Cooper’s stricken daughter, Karen, who spends most of the movie sick in the basement of the house. This was her only actual film credit and she was also the real daughter of Marilyn Eastman and Karl Hardman. Finally, Bill Heinzman played the first zombie we see, a role that he’s played in the last three movies he’s been in (2005’s The Drunken Dead Guy, 2006’s Shadow: Dead Riot, and 2007’s It Came from Trafalgar Square).

 

So, now, what were my thoughts on the film? I thought it was very well-done, both for the time it was made and the budget they had. This version of the movie was one I picked up with a 2-CD set called Horror Movie Hits, a collection of themes from different horror movies. The DVD itself is rather bare bones, with three one-page articles on Ouija boards, Voodoo, and the director, himself, as well as a trivia quiz of five questions about the movie. All in all, not a bad little package. I give the movie a solid 4 out of 5. Tune in tomorrow, when we jump ahead ten years to the next Romero installment with Dawn of the Dead. Until next time, this is Red Hawk signing out!

-- by Red Hawk of http://www.happyhorror.com

Tags: black and white, horror, movie, zombies

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