A group of people take refuge in a remote farmhouse as a group of zombies attempts to get in to eat them.
Also known as: Night of Anubis, Night of the Flesh Eaters
Subgenres: zombie, racial commentary
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Simple, right? A siege movie with zombies trying to get into a farmhouse to feast on the tasty flesh within. Sure, it's simple, but it's also effective and horrifying. Night of the Living Dead was the first truly great indie horror film--a select group that now includes The Evil Dead and The Blair Witch Project--and it has lost none of its power or significance. The conflict among the characters still works, the gore effects still work (surprisingly), and the zombies, as comparatively primitive-looking as the makeup is, are still scary. I was unnerved from the jolting beginning to the horrifyingly ironic end.(Sep 13, 1999/Dec 15, 2000) | ||||||
Followed by Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and possibly by a fourth and final entry in the series (Twilight/Dusk of the Dead?). Remade in 1990. Also followed by three unauthorized sequels in the horror/comedy Return of the Living Dead series--The Return of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead Part II, and Return of the Living Dead 3.
George Romero apparently does not have sufficient ownership over Night, because there are any number of unapproved, but perfectly legal, copies out there. The same problem allowed for a parody of the film, called Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh-eating, Hellbound, Crawling, Zombified, Living Dead: Part II (In Shocking 2-D) that uses the original film itself but overlayed a new audio track.
Imitated countless times--once, even in a beer commercial!
The zombie world created in this series of films was interpreted in a book of short stories, Book of the Dead, by many different authors.
