Night of the Living Dead 1968

 Over the nearly 50 years since it's release many things have been said about Night of The Living Dead.  It is a classic.  It is a cult favorite.  It is the father of all modern day zombie films and television series.  It was risky.  It was historic.  All of these things I agree with and will touch on.  Is it good?  Here's where the hate mail will come in because for me, the answer to this one is: No.  George Romero and John Russo wanted to write a screenplay for a movie that was similar to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend but not use vampires.  Instead they used ghouls and notice that the term zombie is never used as they were not thought of as zombies by Romero because zombies were only though of in the Haitian folklore sense.  Today the Romero zombie is the more commonly used version of the legend.  So that takes care of the historic part.  Using a black man as a lead role and hero in a film in 1968 was a hell of a move and very risky and it garners plenty of respect for that.  So what gives?  All of these things are positive and most people rave over this one.  I won't be one of them though.

 Let me first say this:  I can not like a movie but still highly recommend it which is the case here.  If someone has never seen it for history sake you really need to just so you know why The Walking Dead is as good as it is.  Ya gotta pay your respects to your ancestors.  The first ten minutes and the final ten minutes are quite good in fact but it is the hour or so in between the beginning and the end that just doesn't do it for me.  I think people give it more credit for it's historical importance than for it's actual quality.  I first saw this movie back in the mid 80's when I was a teenager and it was OK to me back then.  I got it.  I understand it's importance but I don't understand the hype.  I've seen it done many times since and I've seen it done better.

I don't know if I'm being too harsh for a movie that was made on a shoestring budget nearly 50 years ago or not but I gotta say that with each viewing, I saw it again in the 90's and then The Horror Honey and I re-watched it again for The Countdown To Halloween and I haven't changed my opinion about it.  Actually I might be wrong about that I might actually like it even less now than I did the first couple times I saw it.  While many people criticize the film for being gory I didn't find it to be.  In fact I feel that it's about average for a black and white film from the late 60's.  Maybe if it was in color or was from the late 50's I would consider it closer to being over the top but it seems fine to me.  The very ending is also sort of a downer for me as the only black guy in the movie who is also the only one keeping his wits about him is killed by a posse out hunting the ghouls.  Honest mistake or does the posse have a touch of racism?  Probably a little bit of both.  There's a message in there somewhere as Romero points out it was the 60's everything had a message.  So with all that being said, how do I rate this one?  Well, for the history alone people should see this.  You can't be a fan and of horror movies and not see this one so you need to add you the resume if it's not already on it.  For the nearly thirty minutes when this movie hits all the right spots it rates about three and a half but it's only about a third of the movie so add the history part and take off for the boring hour you have to sit through to get to the end I can only give this 2 and a half Masonry Trowels out of 5.  Denise is a little more generous and gives it three out of five but it's definitely not one of our favorites of the month.