Night of the Living Dead ( 1968 )

This classic horror movie is considered one of the best and certainly one of the ground breakers of this genre. Set in a small town, filmed in black and white, and brought to you by the soon to be much more famous George Romero the movie set some precedents and broke some rules.

The fact that the movie starred a young black man in a movie otherwise inhabited by white people and that he interacted and became the leader of the group was in 1968 beyond the norm. As I watched the movie I thought the storyline was campy if anything. Reading reviews of the movie from 1968 it was thought to be obscene and beyond redemption. Of course at the time before MPAA ratings this movie was shown in the typical Saturday afternoon slot, a time when the theatre was filled by kids. So one can understand the impression the movie made.

The story is pretty simple. Young girl and her brother drive to father's grave in a small Pennsylvania town. Clearly they are not that broken up as the boy starts to tease the sister who is creeped out by lingering in a graveyard. She runs from him and runs into a tall man who she notices is strange and walks in a strange way, he grabs at her and her brother has to rescue her. The brother after a struggle is thrown, hits his head on a gravestome and dies.

She runs but somehow struggles to outrun this man who is after all walking slowly like a zombie. Eventually she comes to a farmhouse, at the same time a young black man appears. This man jumps into a truck, they take refuge in the house.

What comes to pass is that all over the country, perhaps world, undead are capturing, killing, and according to some reports eating people.

The movie goes on from there. Some dialogue that is almost too funny, a young pretty blonde girl portraying shock in a way that there is not an Oscar statuette small enough to recognize correctly and some other folks.

The ending is strong, much too ironic for the normal audience of the genre however. The movie is interesting. Worth watching. Just do not expect too much.