Film #9 — 1/5 Zombie Films
Also filed under: Video Nasties Project #1
By C. Ramsay
It’s easy to see why Night of the Living Dead has been so influential since its release, with its inventive storytelling, low-budget creativity, and drastic subversion of expectations. Within the first few minutes, one of the protagonists is subjected to an extended sequence of pure exhibition of her terror, culminating in her arrival at the farmhouse that remains the only setting over the course of a single night.
The undead are given frequent screen time, their clothing or lack of revealing how quickly the epidemic has spread. The scenes we get with them are jarring enough as they are: we see them eating flesh with a revolting texture, they have surprisingly quick reflexes that allow them to jump out of the way of fire, and they have enough cognitive capability to occasionally use tools. However, what’s most unsettling about the zombies, or ghouls as they’re repeatedly referred to, are the descriptions people give of them and what goes unseen. We don’t need to see them actually running, we just need glances of their quick reflexes to know they’re capable of faster movement. When we’re shown a human running a great distance to escape a ghoul only to suddenly see it show up in the same spot shortly after, the implication that they could be moving faster at any moment is terrifying.
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