Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Chaos descends upon the world as the brains of the recently deceased become inexplicably reanimated, causing the dead to rise and feed on human flesh. Speculation rests on a radiation-covered NASA satellite returning from Venus, but it only remains a speculation. Anyone who dies during the crisis of causes unrelated to brain trauma will return as a flesh-eating zombie, including anyone who has been bitten by a zombie. The only way to destroy the zombies is to destroy the brain. As the catastrophe unfolds, a young woman visiting her father's grave takes refuge in a nearby farmhouse, where she is met by a man who protects her and barricades them inside. They both later discover people hiding in the basement, and they each attempt to cope with the situation. Their only hope rests on getting some gasoline from a nearby pump into a truck that is running on empty, but this requires braving the hordes of ravenous walking corpses outside. When they finally put their plans into action, panic and personal tensions only add to the terror as they try to survive. Hilarious chaos ensues.

Trivia: The blood is actually Bosco chocolate syrup. The word "zombie" is never used. The most common euphemism used to describe the living dead is "those things," mostly by Cooper. When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies, as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway. Though the radiation of a detonated satellite returning from Venus is theorized to be the cause of the dead rising and attacking the living, according to the filmmakers, the actual cause is never determined.

Columbia Pictures was the only major Hollywood studio interested in distributing this film, but eventually passed because it was in black-and-white at a time when movies had to compete with new color televisions. Ironically, Columbia did distribute the 1990 color remake. American International Pictures (AIP) considered releasing the film, but wanted George A. Romero to shoot an upbeat ending and add more of a love story subplot. During the filming of the cemetery sequence, shot on two separate days, an unexpected accident caused a fast change of script. The car driven by Barbara and Johnny into the cemetery was actually owned by the mother of Russell Streiner. Unfortunately, sometime between the two filming sequences, someone ran into the car and put a dent in it that would easily be visible on camera. George A. Romero rewrote the scene so the car would come to a stop by crashing into a tree. One of the Walter Reade Organization's publicity stunts was a $50,000 insurance policy against anyone dying from a heart attack while watching the film. The only real mishap to happen during filming involved producer and actor Russell Streiner's (Johnny's) brother, Gary Streiner. After the scene where Duane Jones sets the chair on fire, it was Gary's responsibility to extinguish the flames and set the chair ablaze again to preserve continuity, ensuring that smoke would be seen emanating from it near the end of the film. At one point Gary's sleeve caught on fire and, as he ran in terror, S. William Hinzman (in full zombie makeup) tackled him to the ground and helped extinguish the flames, saving him from major injury.

Okay, maybe your thinking, gee, I thought Will didn't like horror movies like that. Well, I have discovered that most are okay, especially the older ones and since this one came on cable (Turner Classic Movies) albeit at 1 a.m. in the morning I figured it was safe to watch. And it was. I really have noticed since starting this blog that I am watching movies I would have never thought of watching a year and a half ago. But what better movie is out there for a post on Halloween (besides maybe, oh I don't know...Halloween?) The Hollywood desensitization continues as this was tame compared to some of the "mainstream" movies I have seen. I commend the director for insisting on the darker ending when he could have succumbed to the major studios wishes and made a happy ending. For those of you who don't know how it ends, here is how: The living dead finally storm the house and as a result all the survivors except Ben are killed. Ben then barricades himself in the basement to wait out the night. He makes it through the night and listens as the sheriff and his men come in and kill the remaining zombies. As Ben emerges from the basement and looks out a window to see if all is clear, one of the sheriff's men sees movement in the house and shoots, killing Ben with a shot to the head. Ben's body is then moved to the bonfire with the other zombie bodies and burned. So there you have it.

Okay, an update on my Alphabet Project movie for "F". Netflix is supposed to send it today, which means I won't get it until tomorrow (Hopefully) so if I post it tomorrow it will be late. I am going to give you a clue to see if anybody can get a little closer. So here it is. The movie has a link to a very famous very grusome very grizzly crime that shocked the nation, now before you start guessing, the movie itself is not about the crime and has nothing to do with the crime and acutally happened before the crime did, the link is elsewhere.