Skippy's Movie Reviews, #11: Night of the Living Dead (1968)
It's undisputably a classic of the genre...one of the yardsticks by which all other horror films are measured. But...is it REALLY a good movie? We sought the answers to these and other questions, and here's what we found:
Basic Plot: for reasons unknown, the dead are coming back to life with an insatiable hunger for human flesh!
Observation#1: The "heroine" (sic) of this movie was absolutely, positively one of the STUPIDEST people ever to stumble through a horror movie. For crying out loud, she didn't even say anything for the first half-hour! She couldn't fight. She couldn't help other people fight. Frankly, we had our doubts as to whether she could tie her own shoelaces. Even after she activated near the end of the movie, she couldn't do anything right. In our opinion, Barbara ranks up there in the top 10 all-time useless protagonists list.
Observation#2: This movie is badly dated. The family values and general behavioral patterns of the 1960s are painfully obvious here, and they only hastened the process of the characters' deaths. Good thing the zombies moved so slowly, or the movie would've only lasted twenty minutes.
Quote #1: "The bereaved will have to forego the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. They're just dead flesh...but dangerous."
Quote #2: "Are they slow-moving, Chief?" "Well, they're dead. They're all messed up."
Reviewers' Quote #1: "Hey! They're not only zombies, they're vandals too!"
Reviewers' Quote #2: "Is that a zombie? No, it's Barbara. Might as well be a zombie though."
Of course, this is not to say that the movie didn't have its share of cool stuff. Flaming zombies...a garden-spade murder...BBQ lunch in a burning truck...someone getting bitch-slapped...naked zombies...entrail feasts...a torched La-Z-Boy...a zombie eating tree bark...the invalid Barbara playing with couch-fuzz...
Okay, that's enough. This movie, while entertaining, has aged badly and contains its share of stupid protagonists. We give it a C+.