Night of the Living Dead (1968)

After enjoying Tom Savini's remake more than once I decided that it was time for me to watch George A. Romero's classic and original ''Night of the Living Dead''. Unfortunately the original Night of the Living Dead doesn't live up to its status and expectations. 

The radiation from a fallen satellite might have caused the recently deceased to rise from the grave and seek the living to use as food. This is the situation that a group of people penned up in an old farmhouse must deal with.

I'm sure Night of the Living Dead was a shocker in the 60's (although i'm a bit surprised as even then there were better and more shocking films than this one) but today as we speak there isn't much left of this classic. The tempo is a disaster for the current audience. For example, nearly 20 minutes of the film alone are spent on main character Ben boarding the doors and windows. There is little to no tension as the zombies outside are painfuly quiet. Hell, if Romero didn't occasionally show some shots of the living dead outside you wouldn't even know that there was an epedemic. 


The acting is overly dramatic. Duane Jones and Karl Hardman do a decent job but Judith O'Dea acts like she's straight from the 30's with her over the top dramatic performance. Her style of acting reminded me of the roll of Ann in the original King Kong. 

One boring scene after the other passes through and there doesn't seem to get to the film. ''Tensive'' scenes get fucked up by the bombastic music/soundtrack and even the atmosphere wasn't great. The only thing that keeps Night of the Living Dead from being a complete failure are the decent last 15 minutes where the zombies finally even get near the house. 

Night of the Living dead was way to slow paced for me. The lack of any tension or threat by the zombies was a real let down. I'm glad George A. Romero made two great follow ups in his Dead trilogy with Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead that I really enjoy. If I wanna see this story I'll watch Tom Savini's remake.