Night of the Living Dead

The original Night of the Living Dead by zombie extravaganza-man George A. Romero is highly, highly esteemed within horror film circles, and revered endlessly for its creativeness, introduction of the zombie genre, and political message beneath all the blood and guts. Now, NOTLD is not actually a ton of blood and gore, and it actually has a bigger feel of claustrophobia than anything else. The political message within NOTLD is sort of dubious, and I feel like it's grasping for meaning in something. However, NOTLD deserves some of its praise, for it is an effective horror film--tension builds up. We start with the television sets telling of the walking dead, and quite soon, a group of people have barricaded themselves up. Questions arise: should they flee? Will this ever be over? What if one of their own becomes a walking dead? These questions are obligatory within zombie pictures, and it isn't given any sort of better treatment here. Zombie films have a few rules to them. These include how the zombies look, the fact that someone will have to die every fifteen minutes or so, and everything goes to hell in the end. This makes zombie pictures extremely predictable and perhaps boring, but NOTLD was the first, and its suspense factor and grungy look make it stand out.
Night of the Living Dead: ✰✰✰