Jun 06 2004
Movie: “Night of the Living Dead” (1968)
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) directed by George Romero.
Starring Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley and Kyra Schon.
Zombie Film Rating:
Summary: A brother and sister a visiting the Grave of their mother when they notice a man shambling towards them. Johnny (the brother) taunts Barbara that they’re “Coming to get you!” and before Barbara has a chance to fret too much about offending the stranger, he suddenly attacks the pair.
Johnny is knocked down, and Barbara flees to a nearby farmhouse. Rapidly loosing whatever composure she had she encounters Ben who has just driven up to the house. Ben shakes some sense into her and they begin barricading themselves in. At this time the news is somewhat confused, with Ben telling Barbara about his experiences with the Living dead at a restaurant, adding to the sense of general confusion.
While making efforts to fortify the house Ben and Barbara come across a group of five people hiding in the basement, Helen and Harry Cooper and their daughter Karen (who has been bitten by a zombie), and a 
young couple (Tom and Judy). These new additions reluctantly join Ben and Barbara in fortifying the ground floor portion of the house (although Barbara has become almost catatonic at this point).
As the siege wears on we experience the struggle between Ben and Harry for control of the group, with Ben advocating a layered defence and Harry insisting that hiding in the basement is the only safe option.
Ben formulates a plan to use the gas pumps on the farm to gas up the truck parked out front and make their escape, naturally this escape goes horribly wrong and suddenly Tom and Judy are crispy critters and the group has lost its only means of escape.
Naturally the festivities don’t end here, and with the battle between living and dead heating up around the house, we find that the Coopers daughter has turned into a zombie deep within the final bastion inside the house, and has turned on her mother.
The movie ends as dawn breaks the next day, as Ben looks out the window and sees groups of men hunting down the living dead. Unfortunately he is mistaken (at some distance) for a zombie and killed.
Critique: What can I say, when I first saw this film it scared the hell out of me. There is just enough chaos to keep you wondering what the exact back story is on the zombie outbreak (in the end it is attributed to radiation brought back by a satellite) and how far reaching the outbreak is.
The film ranks as one of my all time favorites, and I still drag it off the shelf from time to time and give it a watch.