The ORIGINAL ‘Night of the Living Dead’
I just got done fast-forwarding through the original, B&W, 1968 version of “Night of the Living Dead.” (Why fast-forward? Because I get terribly scared by horror movies, even the less graphic, more “innocent” genre from the ’50s and ’60s, but I do love them so!)
Anyway, IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS YET, turn back now because a spoiler is coming.
It turns out that there’s more meat to this movie than one would have thought. Would you believe it actually has social connotations? Remember, this movie was made in the racially-charged ’60s, a decade filled with riots and hate crimes based solely on one’s race. And you don’t get the full significance of that until the very last scene of the movie.
OK, if you’re unfamiliar with the plot of “Night of the Living Dead,” apparently a satellite falls to Earth from space. Something about its radiation brings the dead back to life. Only it isn’t much of a life, because they look like hell and they crave human flesh. (Tastes like chicken? idk.) Anyway, the only way to kill these zombies is to shoot them in the head. And if you’ve been bitten by one, you’re totally fucked because now YOU will turn into one of THEM.
So people are hiding out from these zombies and have taken shelter in a house that they’ve boarded up. In the meantime, some sort of officials are aware of the zombie situation and have organized a gun-toting posse to kill the zombies…again…for the last time. (Or at least until the sequel! LOL)
Let’s get back to the house. All sorts of stuff is going on. Windows and doors are being boarded up. A couple keeps vigil over their dead little girl in the basement (don’t ask me how she died or why they kept her there…remember, I fast forwarded through the movie). The zombies are trying to bust in with lots of hands shoved through cracks in the windows and doors. It’s dramatic stuff.
So the main character of this film is a black man. And somehow he manages to survive the night of horrors. It looks like he’s the lone survivor in the house. And the next morning, he hears all the noise that means the posse has arrived to save the day…a helicopter, cars, and lots of manpower. Phew! He’s safe! He made it! He busts out of the house…ONLY TO BE SHOT TO DEATH BY THE POSSE! Wow. That hit me heavy. Because the posse comprises all white men. And at the first sight of a black man (insert the sound of a rifle being readied here), BOOM!, they shoot first and ask questions later. And that’s the REAL horror of this film.