So last year, when I had time , I did my reviews of original horror movies vs remakes for the week leading up to Halloween.
I had plans again for this season, but, I just really haven’t had the time. Life has been… amazingly interesting, of late.
BUT, now that I have oodles of cable channels, and because this is America, one of the channels is playing virtually nothing but horror this month. Censored, of course, but nonetheless.
So, my darlings, I’m going to see how many of these I can recap before life eats me again.
First up? Night of the Living Dead. I love this movie. This 1968 classic not only crowned George A. Romero as the King of Zombies, it redefined the zombie genre. Up until this movie, zombies were a product of voodoo, as opposed to the cannibalistic living dead we know and love today.
So let’s get started. As the credits run, we follow Barbara and her brother Johnny as they drive to a cemetery for their yearly visit to their father’s grave. While there, Johnny starts teasing Barbara about an old game he used to play.
“They’re coming to get you, Barbara. Look! There’s one now!”
Except the man he’s pointing to really is coming to get them. He’s a zombie. The first of this breed to ever grace the screen. As he approaches and attacks Barbara, Johnny defends her, only to be knocked down in the process. Barbara runs to a house, and after running around in a bit of a panic and finding a decomposing body upstairs, she runs outside and is intercepted by Ben, our main male protagonist.
The fact that Ben is the male lead, and is African American, is nothing short of amazing given the time period.
While Barbara falls mute from shock, Ben gets her in the house, beats off a few zombies, and begins barricading themselves. He tells how he stopped to get gas when he first encountered the living dead, and Barbara finally begins to explain her story.
Except, she’s a tad hysterical, and once she gets to the point about Johnny still being out there, she decides that she has to go out and get him. Ben disagrees, and when she slaps him in the face, he responds by hitting her.
Now, I’m not really an advocate for that sort of violence, but I do have to admit that I appreciated this scene, if nothing else because Barbara is extremely shrill and annoying, and it does shut her up for a bit.
With her passed out, Ben continues his work making them safe, and we overhear on the radio about this apparent plague of mass homicides:
Radio Announcer: Because of the obvious threat to untold numbers of citizens due to the crisis that is even now developing, this radio station will remain on the air day and night. This station and hundreds of other radio and TV stations throughout this part of the country are pooling their resources through an emergency network hook-up to keep you informed of all developments.
At this hour, we repeat, these are the facts as we know them. There is an epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unidentified assassins. The murders are taking place in villages and cities, in rural homes and suburbs with no apparent pattern nor reason for the slayings. It seems to be a sudden general explosion of mass homicide. We have some descriptions of the assassins. Eyewitnesses say they are ordinary-looking people. Some say they appear to be in a kind of trance. Others describe them as being misshapen monsters.
At this point, there's no really authentic way for us to say who or what to look for and guard yourself against. Reaction of law enforcement officials is one of complete bewilderment at this hour. Police and sheriff's deputies and emergency ambulances are literally deluded with calls for help. The scene can be best described as mayhem. The mayors of Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and Miami, along with the governments of several eastern and midwestern states indicated that the National Guard may be mobilized at any moment, but that has not happened as yet.
The main advice news reporters have been able to get from official sources is to tell private citizens to stay inside their homes behind locked doors. Do not venture outside for any reason until the nature of this crisis has been determined, and until we can advise what course of action to take. Keep listening to radio and TV for special instructions as this crisis develops further.
Thousands of office and factory workers are being urged to stay at their places of employment, not to make any attempt to get to their homes. However, in spite of this urging and warning, streets and highways are packed with frantic people trying to reach their families or, apparently, to flee just anywhere. We repeat, the safest course of action at this time is simply to stay where you are.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've just received word that the President has called a meeting of his Cabinet to deal with the sudden epidemic of murder that has seized the eastern third of this nation. The meeting is scheduled to convene within the hour. Members of the Presidential Cabinet will be joined by officials of the FBI and military advisors. White House spokesmen are saying there will be an official announcement immediately following that meeting.
This is the latest dispatch just received in our news room. The latest word also - this is from nation press services in Washington, D.C. - tells us that the emergency Presidential conference which we just mentioned will include high-ranking scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
So far, the best advice they are able to give the public is this quote from Chief T. K. Dunbar from Camden, North Carolina, who is quoted as saying, "Tell the people for God's sake to get off the streets! Tell them to go home and lock their windows and doors up tight! We don't know what kind of murder-happy characters we have here!"
Chief Dunbar's words were worn out in grisly fashion just hours ago near the small, normally peaceful town of Willard, Pennsylvania, where the driver of a tanker truck was mobbed by a cluster of apparently would-be assassins oblivious to all concerns for their own safety and blindly intent on attacking the driver. The tanker trunk went out of control and plowed into the gas pumps at a well-known eatery and truck stop known as Beakman's. The truck and gas pumps caught on fire and exploded, apparently maiming and killing gas station and restaurant employees, together with a dozen or more patrons, motorists, and pedestrians. Several bodies were found mangled and mutilated. Many others appear to have been carried off by the attackers.
Eyewitness accounts described the assassins as ordinary-looking people, misshapen monsters, people who look like they're in a trance, and creatures that look like people but behave like animals. Some tell of seeing victims that looked as if they had been torn apart.
This whole ghastly story began developing two days ago, and from that point on, these terrible events kept on snowballing in a reign of terror that has not abated. Military personnel and law enforcement agencies have been working hard in an attempt to gain some kind of control of this situation, but most of their efforts have been marginally futile up to this particular time.
Ben also discovers that the zombies don’t like fire, so he sets fire to a chair and throws it outside. As you do.
Barbara comes around while Ben starts to search the house, finding a gun, some bullets, and some shoes for Barbara (in one of her few moments of intelligence, she ditched her heels in order to run). Ben explains how they’re boarded up, have food, water, radio, weapons... They’re doing alright. But Barbara is pretty comatose. So he leaves her be for now and goes to clean away the body upstairs.
While he does this, some people show up from the basement. At first, it’s just two men, one a teenager, and the father-figure brushes off Ben’s annoyance that they didn’t come up and help at the sound of screaming.
“Why would we help you if we didn’t know what was going on?”
The father figure wants to go back down to the basement – his wife and daughter are down there, and we discover that the teenager also has a girlfriend down there – but Ben keeps repeating that they’re safe enough. Why corner yourself in a basement?
The teenager tries to placate, but the guys are at each others’ throats, vying for the alpha position, apparently.
“But the cellar is the strongest place!”
“The cellar is a death trap!”
The father figure – Mr. Cooper – says he’s going back down and he’s going to board himself up, but the teenager manages to convince him to reconsider. As Ben puts it: “At least up here we have a fighting chance.”
In the land of Bad Timing, now is when the zombies start reaching through the windows, but Ben and the teenager manage to drive them off. The teenager – Tom – decides to stay up, and brings his girlfriend Judy.
Mr. Cooper goes back downstairs, and we see his wife hovering over their young daughter, who is unwell. She was bitten by a zombie. And this, my darlings, is back before people knew what happened when you got nommed on.
Side note of interest: The word zombie was never actually used in a Romero film until Land of the Dead.
Mrs. Cooper doesn’t want to abandon their daughter downstairs, even after Tom announced that they found a TV, so they send down Judy to keep watch in order for Mr. and Mrs. to come up and have a look.
Mr. Cooper continues to act like a jackass, up to and including treating Barbara like a simpleton because she’s mute. They manage to get the TV working, and we find out more of the same.
THE DEAD ARE RETURNING TO LIFE AND EATING PEOPLE ZOMG!
We see a few interviews with people in Washington DC, and the general consensus is: “No Comment (ho shit, we’re fucked).”
Ben and Tom begin to roughly plan a way out of the house – the TV is listing “safe houses”, and it turns out there’s one not so far away. So if they can just get to the gas pump outside and refill one of the cars…
Judy is reluctant for Tom to risk himself, but he believes in the Greater Good (THE GREATER GOOD), and so wants to help Ben.
So while Mr. Cooper starts throwing out Molotov cocktails to distract the zombies, Ben and Tom leave the house to get the truck. Except Judy decides at the last minute to go with Tom, delaying them long enough for the zombies to start creeping in on them. Shit starts to go very badly from here on out.
So badly, in fact, that the truck catches fire with Tom and Judy inside. Well. Shit.
Ben runs back to the house, and has to deal with jackass Mr. Cooper, who locked him out and very nearly didn’t let him back in. Dude – he’s the most competent person in your team now that Tom’s gone.
As I’m sure you can imagine, Ben is a little ticked about this. But they move on… kinda…
Ben tries to think of alternatives – do the Coopers have access to their car? Could they maybe make a run for it? Is Barbara ever going to get her brain back?
The general answer is no, but before people can discuss any further, our survivors see that the zombies outside are actually eating Tom and Judy’s remains. These intestines have a first name, is OMNOMNOMNOM.
Let’s check in with the TV, shall we?
SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD. KILL KILL KILL.
And then the power goes out. So while Ben tries to find the fuse box, what does Mr. Cooper do? Talk to his wife about how he needs to get the gun off Ben. Because Ben is trouble! He’s already gotten two people killed!
Sigh. He just doesn’t get it. Racist prick. And yet he still stands by and looks pathetic when the zombies attack the house, while Ben is doing his level best to secure the place.
Yes. So much trouble, that good-for-nothing Ben.
Mr. Cooper retreats to the basement while the zombies try to nom on his wife. But Mrs. Cooper escapes, and retreats downstairs, to find that her daughter has become a zombie and is nomming on Daddy. And her little girl proceeds to kill her mother in order to keep on nomming.
Considering there was no restrictions about letting kids see movies in those days, I can only wonder how traumatised some audience members must have been.
Now is the point where shit gets really bad. Mr. Cooper’s a zombie, Barbara’s been nommed on, Mrs. Cooper’s a zombie, Ben’s running out of bullets…
We cut to morning, and it’s relatively calm. Ben is the only survivor, but he did survive. And we see the shooting party that is patrolling the area and killing everything that moves.
Ben hears the commotion, and looks outside the window.
Um. That thing I said about shooting everything that moves?
Yeeeeah. Poor Ben.
And that’s the end, aside from some stills that depict body-disposal. One hell of a bleak ending, for a hellishly bleak movie. And it is thanks to this movie, that the modern day zombie exists.
I love it so much. This movie is a classic. If you can't handle black & white, then I'll forgive you skipping ahead to Dawn of the Dead, but otherwise, you can't consider yourself a zombie fan if you haven't seen it.
I had plans again for this season, but, I just really haven’t had the time. Life has been… amazingly interesting, of late.
BUT, now that I have oodles of cable channels, and because this is America, one of the channels is playing virtually nothing but horror this month. Censored, of course, but nonetheless.
So, my darlings, I’m going to see how many of these I can recap before life eats me again.
First up? Night of the Living Dead. I love this movie. This 1968 classic not only crowned George A. Romero as the King of Zombies, it redefined the zombie genre. Up until this movie, zombies were a product of voodoo, as opposed to the cannibalistic living dead we know and love today.
So let’s get started. As the credits run, we follow Barbara and her brother Johnny as they drive to a cemetery for their yearly visit to their father’s grave. While there, Johnny starts teasing Barbara about an old game he used to play.
“They’re coming to get you, Barbara. Look! There’s one now!”
Except the man he’s pointing to really is coming to get them. He’s a zombie. The first of this breed to ever grace the screen. As he approaches and attacks Barbara, Johnny defends her, only to be knocked down in the process. Barbara runs to a house, and after running around in a bit of a panic and finding a decomposing body upstairs, she runs outside and is intercepted by Ben, our main male protagonist.
The fact that Ben is the male lead, and is African American, is nothing short of amazing given the time period.
While Barbara falls mute from shock, Ben gets her in the house, beats off a few zombies, and begins barricading themselves. He tells how he stopped to get gas when he first encountered the living dead, and Barbara finally begins to explain her story.
Except, she’s a tad hysterical, and once she gets to the point about Johnny still being out there, she decides that she has to go out and get him. Ben disagrees, and when she slaps him in the face, he responds by hitting her.
Now, I’m not really an advocate for that sort of violence, but I do have to admit that I appreciated this scene, if nothing else because Barbara is extremely shrill and annoying, and it does shut her up for a bit.
With her passed out, Ben continues his work making them safe, and we overhear on the radio about this apparent plague of mass homicides:
Radio Announcer: Because of the obvious threat to untold numbers of citizens due to the crisis that is even now developing, this radio station will remain on the air day and night. This station and hundreds of other radio and TV stations throughout this part of the country are pooling their resources through an emergency network hook-up to keep you informed of all developments.
At this hour, we repeat, these are the facts as we know them. There is an epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unidentified assassins. The murders are taking place in villages and cities, in rural homes and suburbs with no apparent pattern nor reason for the slayings. It seems to be a sudden general explosion of mass homicide. We have some descriptions of the assassins. Eyewitnesses say they are ordinary-looking people. Some say they appear to be in a kind of trance. Others describe them as being misshapen monsters.
At this point, there's no really authentic way for us to say who or what to look for and guard yourself against. Reaction of law enforcement officials is one of complete bewilderment at this hour. Police and sheriff's deputies and emergency ambulances are literally deluded with calls for help. The scene can be best described as mayhem. The mayors of Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and Miami, along with the governments of several eastern and midwestern states indicated that the National Guard may be mobilized at any moment, but that has not happened as yet.
The main advice news reporters have been able to get from official sources is to tell private citizens to stay inside their homes behind locked doors. Do not venture outside for any reason until the nature of this crisis has been determined, and until we can advise what course of action to take. Keep listening to radio and TV for special instructions as this crisis develops further.
Thousands of office and factory workers are being urged to stay at their places of employment, not to make any attempt to get to their homes. However, in spite of this urging and warning, streets and highways are packed with frantic people trying to reach their families or, apparently, to flee just anywhere. We repeat, the safest course of action at this time is simply to stay where you are.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've just received word that the President has called a meeting of his Cabinet to deal with the sudden epidemic of murder that has seized the eastern third of this nation. The meeting is scheduled to convene within the hour. Members of the Presidential Cabinet will be joined by officials of the FBI and military advisors. White House spokesmen are saying there will be an official announcement immediately following that meeting.
This is the latest dispatch just received in our news room. The latest word also - this is from nation press services in Washington, D.C. - tells us that the emergency Presidential conference which we just mentioned will include high-ranking scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
So far, the best advice they are able to give the public is this quote from Chief T. K. Dunbar from Camden, North Carolina, who is quoted as saying, "Tell the people for God's sake to get off the streets! Tell them to go home and lock their windows and doors up tight! We don't know what kind of murder-happy characters we have here!"
Chief Dunbar's words were worn out in grisly fashion just hours ago near the small, normally peaceful town of Willard, Pennsylvania, where the driver of a tanker truck was mobbed by a cluster of apparently would-be assassins oblivious to all concerns for their own safety and blindly intent on attacking the driver. The tanker trunk went out of control and plowed into the gas pumps at a well-known eatery and truck stop known as Beakman's. The truck and gas pumps caught on fire and exploded, apparently maiming and killing gas station and restaurant employees, together with a dozen or more patrons, motorists, and pedestrians. Several bodies were found mangled and mutilated. Many others appear to have been carried off by the attackers.
Eyewitness accounts described the assassins as ordinary-looking people, misshapen monsters, people who look like they're in a trance, and creatures that look like people but behave like animals. Some tell of seeing victims that looked as if they had been torn apart.
This whole ghastly story began developing two days ago, and from that point on, these terrible events kept on snowballing in a reign of terror that has not abated. Military personnel and law enforcement agencies have been working hard in an attempt to gain some kind of control of this situation, but most of their efforts have been marginally futile up to this particular time.
Ben also discovers that the zombies don’t like fire, so he sets fire to a chair and throws it outside. As you do.
Barbara comes around while Ben starts to search the house, finding a gun, some bullets, and some shoes for Barbara (in one of her few moments of intelligence, she ditched her heels in order to run). Ben explains how they’re boarded up, have food, water, radio, weapons... They’re doing alright. But Barbara is pretty comatose. So he leaves her be for now and goes to clean away the body upstairs.
While he does this, some people show up from the basement. At first, it’s just two men, one a teenager, and the father-figure brushes off Ben’s annoyance that they didn’t come up and help at the sound of screaming.
“Why would we help you if we didn’t know what was going on?”
The father figure wants to go back down to the basement – his wife and daughter are down there, and we discover that the teenager also has a girlfriend down there – but Ben keeps repeating that they’re safe enough. Why corner yourself in a basement?
The teenager tries to placate, but the guys are at each others’ throats, vying for the alpha position, apparently.
“But the cellar is the strongest place!”
“The cellar is a death trap!”
The father figure – Mr. Cooper – says he’s going back down and he’s going to board himself up, but the teenager manages to convince him to reconsider. As Ben puts it: “At least up here we have a fighting chance.”
In the land of Bad Timing, now is when the zombies start reaching through the windows, but Ben and the teenager manage to drive them off. The teenager – Tom – decides to stay up, and brings his girlfriend Judy.
Mr. Cooper goes back downstairs, and we see his wife hovering over their young daughter, who is unwell. She was bitten by a zombie. And this, my darlings, is back before people knew what happened when you got nommed on.
Side note of interest: The word zombie was never actually used in a Romero film until Land of the Dead.
Mrs. Cooper doesn’t want to abandon their daughter downstairs, even after Tom announced that they found a TV, so they send down Judy to keep watch in order for Mr. and Mrs. to come up and have a look.
Mr. Cooper continues to act like a jackass, up to and including treating Barbara like a simpleton because she’s mute. They manage to get the TV working, and we find out more of the same.
THE DEAD ARE RETURNING TO LIFE AND EATING PEOPLE ZOMG!
We see a few interviews with people in Washington DC, and the general consensus is: “No Comment (ho shit, we’re fucked).”
Ben and Tom begin to roughly plan a way out of the house – the TV is listing “safe houses”, and it turns out there’s one not so far away. So if they can just get to the gas pump outside and refill one of the cars…
Judy is reluctant for Tom to risk himself, but he believes in the Greater Good (THE GREATER GOOD), and so wants to help Ben.
So while Mr. Cooper starts throwing out Molotov cocktails to distract the zombies, Ben and Tom leave the house to get the truck. Except Judy decides at the last minute to go with Tom, delaying them long enough for the zombies to start creeping in on them. Shit starts to go very badly from here on out.
So badly, in fact, that the truck catches fire with Tom and Judy inside. Well. Shit.
Ben runs back to the house, and has to deal with jackass Mr. Cooper, who locked him out and very nearly didn’t let him back in. Dude – he’s the most competent person in your team now that Tom’s gone.
As I’m sure you can imagine, Ben is a little ticked about this. But they move on… kinda…
Ben tries to think of alternatives – do the Coopers have access to their car? Could they maybe make a run for it? Is Barbara ever going to get her brain back?
The general answer is no, but before people can discuss any further, our survivors see that the zombies outside are actually eating Tom and Judy’s remains. These intestines have a first name, is OMNOMNOMNOM.
Let’s check in with the TV, shall we?
SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD. KILL KILL KILL.
And then the power goes out. So while Ben tries to find the fuse box, what does Mr. Cooper do? Talk to his wife about how he needs to get the gun off Ben. Because Ben is trouble! He’s already gotten two people killed!
Sigh. He just doesn’t get it. Racist prick. And yet he still stands by and looks pathetic when the zombies attack the house, while Ben is doing his level best to secure the place.
Yes. So much trouble, that good-for-nothing Ben.
Mr. Cooper retreats to the basement while the zombies try to nom on his wife. But Mrs. Cooper escapes, and retreats downstairs, to find that her daughter has become a zombie and is nomming on Daddy. And her little girl proceeds to kill her mother in order to keep on nomming.
Considering there was no restrictions about letting kids see movies in those days, I can only wonder how traumatised some audience members must have been.
Now is the point where shit gets really bad. Mr. Cooper’s a zombie, Barbara’s been nommed on, Mrs. Cooper’s a zombie, Ben’s running out of bullets…
We cut to morning, and it’s relatively calm. Ben is the only survivor, but he did survive. And we see the shooting party that is patrolling the area and killing everything that moves.
Ben hears the commotion, and looks outside the window.
Um. That thing I said about shooting everything that moves?
Yeeeeah. Poor Ben.
And that’s the end, aside from some stills that depict body-disposal. One hell of a bleak ending, for a hellishly bleak movie. And it is thanks to this movie, that the modern day zombie exists.
I love it so much. This movie is a classic. If you can't handle black & white, then I'll forgive you skipping ahead to Dawn of the Dead, but otherwise, you can't consider yourself a zombie fan if you haven't seen it.
Waaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiit.
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