Focus on movies – "Night of the Living Dead" Zombie classic: Undead by tradition

Due to carelessness, the producers forgot to place a copyright notice – the result according to American jurisdiction at the time: this version of “Night of the Living Dead” went into the public domain and is now available legally on YouTube and the like. Alternatively, there various elaborately made releases, which should be worthwhile for true zombie fans.

Plot and influence: zombie classic par excellence

“Night of the Living Dead” begins with brilliant music, foreshadowing all doom, in a cemetery where Barbara and Johnny are suddenly attacked by a zombie. While Johnny dies in the fight, Barbara is able to flee to a house where she meets Ben, a real heroic figure. He takes the initiative and barricades the house into a seemingly impregnable fortress. Other survivors emerge from the cellar: Tom and Judy, newly in love, and Harry and Helen Cooper, a typical American couple of the 1960s who are caring for their sick daughter. Together, the survivors devise a plan to escape from the house, but it turns out that the undead are not the only obstacles…

Shot on its own with a budget of just 114,000 dollars, “Night of the Living Dead” is one of the most successful independent films of all time – not least thanks to its status as one of the great midnight movies. Those films of the 70s were shown in small cinemas after midnight and became true cult films. “Night of the Living Dead” was and is also influential in the Horror genre, which would be almost unimaginable in its current form without Romero’s work.

Interpretation: The individual and the collective

Zombie films, especially those by Romero, are often said to wrap profound social criticism in rotting flesh. For many critics, the film is a treatise on the Cold War and the ever-present fear of nuclear war. It is then also an unknown radiation that turns the dead into zombies.

More important to me, however, is another timeless aspect: the clash between the individual and the collective. This is particularly evident in the stereotypically overdrawn characters – beautifully summarised by Marcos Ewert (link not available any more). Instead of sticking together in the face of a common enemy, the characters barely help each other or even turn on each other:

• Tom and Judy, the young teenage couple, die because they give up the group plan to be together;
• Harry Cooper is shot by Ben because he rises up against him to protect his own (perceived) advantage;
• his wife falls victim to their undead daughter after fleeing the undead instead of taking care of the group;
• Barbara remains oppressively inactive throughout the film.

However, the film is far less stereotypical than one might assume when reading. Harry is not simply a racist, but cares about his family and refuses heroic actions in an attempt to save his sick daughter. Tom meets his death when he tries to rescue Judy from the burning car. And despite her apathy, Barbara keeps thinking about her brother Johnny, who eventually drags her into the sea of the undead – tellingly, just after she has overcome her apathy. Ben is left behind – and with him the whole tragedy of the film (warning, spoiler!). He is the only one to survive the fight against the undead by doing what he didn’t want to do throughout the whole film: fleeing into the cellar instead of fighting. However, the humans can only beat the undead by becoming a violent killing squad – one that is so uncompromising that they don’t even recognise when they shoot a human. Ultimately, humanity also loses its humanity.