Summary
Trapped in a lonely house in rural western Pennsylvania a group of strangers struggles to defend itself against the unrelenting attacks of an army of the risen dead. A greater enemy is already inside the house and within each of them. Cowardice, jealousy, greed, carelessness, and even love may form obstacles to their survival even more insurmountable than an empty gas tank, a locked gas pump, and a horde of ghouls intent on devouring living, human flesh.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
 |  | |
Barbara's Rant
How can I ever hope to express in mere words that brilliant beacon of horror cinema that is Night of the Living Dead? What turn of phrase could adequately convey the subtle sense of foreboding, the menace that fairly drips from the tall, mysterious, gaunt man as he ominously and silently stalks his way across the graveyard, as oblivious to Johnnyís taunts as he is to Barbraís apologies? How can I hope to shape the pitiful shreds of the English language at my command into the face of a mother, ashamed of the man she married, consumed by guilt on account of that shame - she has just seen him gunned down, unarmed, by a virtual stranger -as she watches the corpse of her only and beloved daughter, trowel in hand, with soulless eyes, cross the floor of the basement, once their refuge, now their prison, soon their tomb? What sentiment, encased in the gross and clumsy written word, could do justice to Ben, as he turns his rifle away from the window where gather the unconquerable masses of reanimated dead, into the house, and onto his fellow living man? How can these impotent black letters on a glowing screen encompass the callous pride with which vigilante mobs swarm across the countryside, unmoved by the near humanity of their intended targets, the tragedy of Ben's meaningless death at their hands, unacknowledged, unmourned, unburied?
Faced with the enormity and near impossibility of my task, my usual eloquence (or rather my usual verbosity, which I try to pass off as eloquence) deserts me. I have seen literally thousands of horror movies. In dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of those movies a group of strangers or near strangers is menaced by a seemingly unconquerable horde of zombies, bats, giant ants, vampires, fish, puppets, giant locusts, bees . . . Night of the Living Dead is the only, the only, one of all those movies that looks at its characters with the unflinching, uncompromising eye of truth, and yet with such sincere compassion and understanding that we must identify with and pity even the worst of them. This movie not only recognizes but celebrates the greatest triumphs and the greatest failings of the human spirit. It is not only our nobility, our courage, our self-sacrifice, our love, the fact that most of us don't eat human flesh that set us apart from the zombies. It is also our cowardice, our fear, our vicious pleasure in the kill, our greed, our jealousy, our anger, our hatred, our suffering . . . There is no monster like a zombie for showing us the truth about ourselves and there is no director like George Romero for forcing us to face it. What more can I say?
BARBARA JO
What do you think? Talk back here!
Post a Comment []