Force Fed Films: "Night of the Living Dead" (1968)

 Jim was wary of making me watch the original “Night of the Living Dead” for the sole reason that I prefer the fast zombies over slow zombies. But there is one key part of slow zombies, and that is the movie is a lot more predator vs. prey and less Rambo action scenes. And I hate to admit it, but these movies are usually a bit more horrific. But I never had an interest of seeing the original George Romero film because I fear I would be bored with the slow pace and not so impressive movie quality. Hit the jump to read my thoughts.


Zombie movies should have a good story to support it. This usually divides the great zombie flick to the average one. And what we have is a fairly simplistic story. Supposedly radiation from a space satellite that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere is causing humans to transform into ghouls. As the living dead roam the Earth, a group of strangers meet at an abandoned farm house. They’ll need to drop their differences and work together to survive until help arrives.

Braiiiiins!!!!

My concerns were justified, the movie is slow. A lot slower than I am used to. It was hard at times to keep my interest squarely on the movie. But at the halfway point, when the movie does really kick it into overdrive the movie is purely enjoyable with no major flaws.

What I like in zombie movies and sometimes don’t get addressed in a lot of them are the inter-group politics. And this is one of the biggest reasons I loved “Dawn of the Dead”. There is a good amount of focus on the psychological and social aspects of working as a group. And “Night of the Living Dead” delivers this. We have a good number of people, all with their different roles and personalities. The way they interact, communicate (or not) and develop was very interesting and was one of the few saving points of the movie.

Kids meal size braiiiiinis!

But because this is a zombie movie and there needs to be some zombie killing. And thankfully I got an adequate amount of that. While they don’t dive into different strategies and only face one scenario (surrounded by zombies in a farm house), I still got my lust for blood and brains. Albeit not being a very gory film, there are some impressive special effects. The fact they used roasted ham covered with chocolate syrup to represent human meat and blood was a bit laughable. Personally, I wouldn’t think that would taste all that good.

Even though this movie lacked production value and polish, it makes up with its charm. I thoroughly enjoyed what I watched today. It may have not been my favourite zombie film, but it sure is up there. I guess I should be a bit more open when it comes to slow zombies. I shouldn’t prejudge them for who they are, and how they act. Because at the end of the night, all we need is love, love, love brains, brains, brains.