Eleven Movies For Halloween

Day 10 – Night of the Living Dead

‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara’

For millions of Walking Dead, they have no idea where that line came from.  And that, my friends, is a travesty of apocalyptic proportions.  Each week they sit down and watch the latest episode, believing this is fresh and new.  Well, it’s not.  Heck, most of Season 2 was pretty much this film.  I’m here to tell you that if you are a fan of the Walking Dead, or the Zombie genre in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch the movie that started it all.

In 1968, George Romero gave us the Night of the Living Dead, a film that showed us we could now be afraid of the one thing that we used to think could never kill us – Dead people.  Even at breakneck paces of .20 MPH, these lumbering slogs could take us all with sheer numbers.  Trapped in a farmhouse, Ben (Duane Jones) and Barbara (Judith O’Dea) gather with fellow survivors to escape the plague outside.  Only to realize, the real threat comes from within.

Filmed in black & white, the film broke many barriers and tried several new things.  It took gore to a new level by showcasing the cannibalism that has become commonplace now; introduced a black hero, without feeling the need to constantly point out his color; and especially, it dared to do what horror films typically shied away from – deliver a simple story with no explanation to provide social commentary on the state of our world.  The film also posed the question: What should man fear most – the undead, or themselves.

The film is no longer quite as terrifying, but it holds up remarkable better (in my opinion) than Romero’s later classics Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead.  For my money, the simplicity sells it.  Enough reading, hobble over to your preferred streaming device and catch this one.  Before the apocalypse actually does hit and a crazed man name Tallahassee shows up at your door. – Aaron

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Continue to Day 11!

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