I revisited this film before seeing George Romero's new film, Diary of the Dead, upon its theatrical release this weekend. Romero is best known as the director, writer, editor and actor in his "Dead Series" of five zombie-apocalypse films, which also offer his commentary on modern society. In the late Sixties, Romero and his friends kicked in roughly $10,000 each to produce the low-budget (i.e., $114,000) black-and-white zombie cult classic, Night of the Living Dead (1968). Duane Jones stars as Ben and Judith O'Dea as Barbra. The film tells the simple story of the mysterious reanimation of the dead and the efforts of Ben, Barbra and five others to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse that is under attack by ravenous, flesh-eating zombies. Meanwhile the radio reports an epidemic of mass murders in the eastern United States, and an emergency television broadcast reveals the hungry murderers are consuming their victims' flesh. One scientist believes the reanimation of the dead is the result of radiation emanating from a Venus space probe that exploded in the Earth's atmosphere. A gunshot or heavy blow to the head is recommended to stop the "ghouls." The film features disturbing images especially for the 1960s, and one can only imagine what it was like experiencing this horror film upon its initial theatrical release. (Roger Ebert has described the film's effect on the audience: "The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying.") Astute viewers saw Romero's film as much more than a simple zombie flick. It offers his critique of late-1960s Vietnam-era America; one film historian called the film "subversive on many levels." To date, Romero has made four sequels to his film: Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005) and Diary of the Dead (2008), and Night of the Living Dead has inspired countless other zombie films. This DVD edition (a must-have for any Romero fan) has been remastered to THX specifications from the best materials in Romero's possession, and offers many DVD extras.



G. Merritt