Night of the Living Dead

As the dead return to life to feed on the living, strangers barricade themselves inside a farmhouse.

Your first viewing of Night of the Living Dead is like your first rollercoaster ride. It’s like nothing you’ve experienced. The sheer force and originality is overwhelming. It’s a rush and a punch in the gut. You can’t get back in line fast enough.

Then you see it again. And much like that second roller coaster ride, it’s still fun, but not quite as thrilling. This time, maybe you notice how bumpy it is. It wasn’t that bumpy the first time, was it?

By the third time, you’re riding more to relive the memory of that first ride than for any genuine thrills. By now, the bumps are kinda annoying. Maybe you even pass up a ride or two when the line is too long.

Such is life with Night of the Living Dead. That first time is all thrills and chills. The second time you begin to notice the stilted acting and dialog. By the third viewing, you’re rooting for the zombies, anything to end Judith O’Dea’s over-the-top performance.

It’s an important film, to be sure, but one that’s also very flawed. The characters, aside from Duane Jones’s Ben, are paper-thin and little more than plot devices. We don’t know anything about these people and, more importantly, we don’t care. Thus, when they fall victim to either the zombies or their own ineptitude, it’s not much of a loss. Fortunately, writer-director George A. Romero would somewhat correct this shortcoming in his superior follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, and in doing so, provides us with a much more repeat friendly rollercoaster.