The forty-year night

Night Of The Living Dead is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. It was released originally in 1968, the very politically charged year.

Duane Jones, as Ben, was the star. He was one of the few African-Americans of the time to star in a movie, even a low budget flick like Night. I read once that director George Romero said Jones wasn't picked because he was black, but because he was the best actor. What made the movie unique for its time is that race wasn't part of the plot, not like the Sidney Poitier-Rod Steiger movie, In The Heat Of The Night, from the previous year. Race may not have been part of the storyline, but it was in the minds of the audience. Some people have said they have heard "Old Man River" interpolated into the soundtrack. George Romero scoffed at that claim.

The audience had to notice the leading man was black. The female lead was white and blonde. When Ben enters the movie the first thing we see is his face filling the screen, startling the girl. He is being pursued and needs safe haven. Folks who might be expecting some romance between the two leads would be disappointed, but the man and woman do form a bond. If fighting off the living dead wouldn't give two people a sense of closeness, nothing would.

For groundbreaking cinema I put Night up there with Psycho. Both movies created a genre of horror film that hadn't been seen before. They were both filmed on low budgets in black and white. Far from looking cheap, it enhanced their creepiness. Despite Night's low budget the story was good, the cinematography was good, and for the most part the acting was good. There were some amateur performances, more like the level of a school play. What was most important was the overall mood and audience identification with the characters and the danger they were in.

Night has some great film noir scenes. This is one from early on in the movie. Ben has just fought off a zombie outside the house. Before he comes back in a creature emerges from the shadows.


Barbara, the female lead played by Judith O'Dea, shrieks with terror. Ben re-enters and fights the creature.

Ben has used the tire iron to dispatch the other zombie, and uses it on this zombie. We don't see the tire iron enter this zombie's head, but we quickly learn what every zombie movie since has taught us: Kill the brain, you kill the zombie.

Ben steps back from the creature and in a pensive moment, the reality of the situation has hit him. In killing the monster which is trying to kill him, he is reduced to its level.


The whole scene goes fast, maybe a minute or more, but is full of great mood and camera angles. Deep shadows envelop the actors. Having the movie on DVD helps by enabling us to slow it down, step through each frame so we can see the editing and the techniques used to give it such a feeling of claustrophobia and suspense.

Unfortunately for the folks who made Night Of The Living Dead, there was a screw-up and they lost the rights to the picture. It became public domain in a very short time, which makes for a lot of modern-day copies taken from soupy-looking prints. A remake was made in 1990, starring Tony Todd as Ben. It gave a new look to the movie, but didn't improve it. I like Tony Todd and thought he did a good job, but Ben to me is Duane Jones.

Night Of The Living Dead, as admitted by George Romero, was inspired by the classic 1954 Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, and the early 1950s EC horror comic books, Tales From The Crypt, The Vault Of Horror, and The Haunt Of Fear. Over the past 40 years, with endless sequels and imitations, Night Of The Living Dead, like the shambling dead that populate it, has taken on a bizarre life of its own.