“Night of the Living Dead”
Day 1 of the 2025 31-Days of Horror
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A group of people seek refuge in a farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania as the dead rise and eat the flesh of the living.
Hello dear readers! (Assuming I actually have any.) Welcome to my annual In the Audience binge watching, writing, and posting. For this year’s 31-Days of Horror challenge, I’ve decided to add another self-challenge layer. All of the movies I will be watching have some sort of “of the Dead” or “of the Living Dead” title. I had entirely too much fun combing through my personal physical media collection and searching a half dozen streaming services to find what resulted in an impressive list of horror and horror adjacent films with “of the Dead” or “of the Living Dead” in the title. FYI, Tubi had the largest collection, though even there I had to use multiple different key word searches to find them.
Obviously (to me), this self challenge means beginning with George A. Romero’s cult classic that sparked a zombie craze that still exists today. Since I expect that all fans of horror have seen some version of this, I’ll keep this brief.
The film itself is well put together and still an effective horror story, even today. Such wonderful use of dramatic music. The tension builds right away as Johnny teases his sister, Barbara (Judith O’Dea), with the iconic line “They’re coming to get you, Barbara.”, and continues as the first ghoul attacks then chases Barbara with that shambling run. It was all so effectively creepy! Then silence and mute terror as Barbara’s worst fears become real and she slips into shock. The introduction of Ben (Duane Jones) as the lead man, mostly level headed in the chaos of confusion, danger, and fear, gives only a brief reprieve from the tension. When it is just the 2 of them, Ben is able to (mostly) focus and maintain patience, controlling his own fears. He creates and executes a plan to make their shelter as safe as possible. Once the last few characters are introduced, the group/mob mentality takes effect and Ben loses focus, drawn into the fears of the group and Barbara slips further from reality.
I honestly don’t remember the first time I saw this film, I’m not even sure whether I saw this or the 1990 remake first. However, I’ve always been struck by how the quote “They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear” – Kyle Reese, from Terminator (one of my favorite movies) perfectly described the shambling dead. Zombies have always been my favorite horror sub-genre, probably because of a combination of the social-political aspects, as shown in this film and the fact that they are robot-like and don’t get tired. They’re slow and relentless in their search for sustenance.
There are very good reasons this film has been studied, written about, honored, and mimicked decade after decade.
Other versions of Night of the Living Dead I’ve posted in past years are: Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, Night of the Living Dead (1990), and Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection (2012).
