Zombies

 

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1990)

A group of mismatched strangers find themselves fighting for their lives in an out-of-the-way farmhouse against legions of zombies.

I admit my ratings are a bit odd, so hang with me for a moment.

Night of the Living Dead '68 is one of the most important horror films ever made.  It created the modern zombie sub-genre and changed how horror movies were made and what they were about.  George Romero introduced the decaying, brain eating, disease spreading zombie which is so ubiquitous now.  No voodoo spells were needed (nor any explanation of why there are zombies).  You know only what the characters know, and that's not much.  Romero also raised the shock and gore factor common in films.  But more than that, Romero gave horror cynical and important themes.  Night of the Living Dead isn't about humans fighting evil; it's about prejudice and the tendency for people to mindlessly follow along with the cruelties in our society.  It has one of the great ending in all of film and made me think that maybe things would be better off if the zombies won.  But then, it depends on who the "zombies" really are.

The problem is that it is a much more important film than it is a good one.  Sure, films can still be of high quality with low production values, but there are limits.  Shots are poorly framed, the film grain obscures the actors' expressions (as well as anything that happens in a shadow) and the muffled sound is unpleasant.  The acting is less than adequate, the dialog is stilted, and the middle of the film drags.  Still, I'd have to rate it a "must rent" if that was the end of the story.  But in 1990 Tom Savini (who works closely and often with Romero) re-made Night of the Living Dead, fixing many of the problems, though not all (it still drags).  The altered ending makes the newer version more satisfying, but less powerful, and the story was more socially relevant in 1968.  But as everyone should see Night of the Living Dead at least once, you might as well make it the better version.

Followed by Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead.

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