Horror Beneath The Tombstones By George Romero

Night of the Living Dead is about a group of people that take refuge in an abandoned house when zombies begin to emerge looking for fresh human bodies to devour. The main character Ben does everything he can to control the situation but when the zombies make their way to the house the other characters panic. Slowly, the zombies find their way inside, one by one, the characters become the prey of the deceased.

The article “Dead man still walking: Explaining the zombie renaissance” by Kyle Bishop is about the revitalization of the zombie genre. The article talks about the inception in the late 1960’s, the category of zombie films has had its roller coaster ride of ups and downs, starting with its decline in the early 1980’s with the release of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Furthermore, during 1990’s, due to the shift in the cultural consciousness that came with the Clinton Administration and the countries isolation from global tragedies, the popularity of these films continued to decline. Cultural consciousness refers to the understanding and awareness a shift in feelings, sensations, thoughts, of not only our own culture, but adjoining cultures.

There has been a resurgence of zombie films in the last decade, ranging from Danny Boyles 28 Days Later to Paul W.S. Andersons Resident Evil. This renaissance of zombie cinema has resurfaced in response to the cultural, political, and social volatility experienced in today’s society, much like its predecessors. A zombie film, unlike other monster movies, plays more with the real-world fears and anxieties, presenting the audience with inescapable realities. However, to understand why this subgenre has been brought back into the mainstream cinema, a comparison is needed across generations of film. This paper will focus on the comparison between George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Danny Boyles 28 Days Later; in an attempt to show how zombie cinema is a reaction to cultural shocks.

The film, “Night of the Living Dead”, is a horror movie taking place in the late 1960’s and set in a small town in Pennsylvania. The beginning scene opens with siblings, Barbara and Johnny arriving at a cemetery after three long hours of driving. Barbara and Johnny went to the graveyard to visit their late father's grave and as they were leaving Johnny decided to tease Barbara saying “They’re coming for you Barbara… look, there comes one of them now”. While they were walking to their car Barbara figured she would apologize to the man for what her brother had said but as she was about to speak the “man” grabbed her. When Johnny saw, he quickly ran to them and pulled the zombie away from his sister but he was then attacked by the living dead. During the struggle, Johnny fell and died from hitting his head on a gravestone. The zombie then went after Barbara in a long pursuit that only ended when she came up to an abandoned house. While in the house, Barbara saw more of the zombie people heading toward the house and found a dead body. Startled by the horrifying sight, Barbara ran outside in a hurry and almost ran into a man that was walking into the house. This man, Ben, had run out of gas and was forced to stop at the house to seek shelter. Ben quickly grabbed Barbara and got them both into the house to safety. After getting rid of the three zombies that were after them, Ben boarded up the windows and doors as soon as possible. Barbara decided to tell Ben what had happened to her before they met. Ben decided to turn on the radio and get the news of what was going on around them. In hope of finding something useful, Ben looked in a closet and found a gun and ammunition. As Ben was looking in the closet, two men, Harry Cooper and Tom, emerged from the basement, while Helen, Harry's wife, and Judy, Tom's girlfriend, remained to watch over Helen’s Injured daughter. After fighting about where the safest place to be was, they all came to the conclusion that Harry would go back down to the cellar while Tom and Judy stayed upstairs. A little while after, Harry and his wife Helen went back upstairs and the group got the TV going to get an update on what was happening. After they watched the telecast, the group cooperated

Starting first with Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the most obvious social commentary aspect to the film is the ending. While everyone else has been killed by the undead, Ben survives the night in the basement, only to be shot by a member of the militia the next morning. This moment as well as the grainy newspaper photo montage reminds the audience of the race relations of the time, in particular, between southern police officers and black men. In addition, we see the subversive critique of 1960’s American society. Romero’s zombies have no cure; the good guys don’t win at the end, and the zombie apocalypse cannot be stopped. This shows the reflection of the shattering 1950’s optimism. The film takes on a pessimism approach; society is on the verge of collapse, and the authorities cannot be trusted or are too inept to deal with the

“Zombieland” is a film where a lot of stylistic choices were made. Especially the opening scene says a lot about the film and the characters. Mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound shape the film’s effect on the viewer.

Night of the Living Dead follows this story line. George A Romero saw zombies as what they were, the living dead, meaning that they were dead, and dead things cannot talk. Instead, he developed the zombie communication of grunts and groans. These were effective in such a way that it made the film so much more realistic.

The popularity and appeal of the undead has greatly increased in the past few years with the rise of the popular television show, The Walking Dead. The show began in October 2010, and is still on the air today. Before the show was created, there were The Walking Dead comic books that were first published in 2003, and continue to be published today with over 148 issues. The fascination did not begin with The Walking Dead, though. Many movies were produced, and many books published before The Walking Dead was even thought of. An extremely influential individual to note is George Romero. Romero is an American-Canadian screenwriter, film producer, film director, and editor. He is best known for his series of apocalyptic films, beginning with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Romero has been nicknamed the “Godfather of the Undead.” Some other works of fiction and film to note include 28 Days Later, I am Legend, Pride and Prejudice Zombies and The Zombie Survival Guide, also by Max Brooks. Our cultural fascination with “the return of the dead” can be traced back to the events and the general morale leading up to World War Two, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Comparing George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead to Dario Argento’s Suspiria is a task that not many would attempt due to the drastic differences in these two horror films. Yet their few similarities bare striking theme and cinematography semblances that make it a curious contrast to each other. Some of the connections made in these two movies are themes of isolation and tension, tight camera angles to evoke feelings of restriction, use of lighting to create mystery and anxiety along with musical scores that help mark the mood to each scene. Both movies also have an aspect of super natural elements that attempts to be explained by realistic reasoning, not pertaining to a false reality.

First released in October 1968 and shot for an underwhelming $114,000, Night of the Living Dead was created by a team of movie business outsiders from Pittsburgh (IMDb.com). The Image Ten, as they were later known, led by George Romero, created a horror film unlike any that had come before. Although the horror film had been around for nearly as long as the cinema, Night of the Living Dead was revolutionary in its production, its subtext as understood in historical reference, and its lasting effects on the horror genre. The British Film Institute’s Benjamin Hervey provides an analysis of the film as understood by critical audiences of the day.

The 1970s represented a truly diverse time in the history of horror cinema. This was a reflection, perhaps, of how life was growing more complex in the 1970s, with competing problems pulling audiences towards different fears. Some horror films in the 1970s were revisionary, based on the fresh principles of a freer, more personal cinema. Other horrors were merely old resurrections and variations of monsters who had appeared on the silver screen, in one form or another, since the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, following the path of Night of the Living Dead, most low-budget horror films of the early 1970s depicted the raw social and sexual conflicts. For example, films such Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972) shares the story of a

Zombies are boring. Despite the amount of creative freedom authors can exhibit in the fiction genre, there is a singular, consistent, specific, and defining depiction of what is known as “the zombie.” The very uttering of this science fiction buzz-word conjures elaborate and imaginative images of decomposing, slack-jawed, mindless creatures hungering for flesh. Their clothes are usually dirty and ragged, their teeth stained yellow and red, the remnants of their last meal on their lips, and a telltale missing limb or chunk of flesh from when they crossed from life into un-death. The manner in which the zombie plague is passed will often differ: one of the earliest iterations of the zombie in the 1932 movie The White Zombie were simply

Night of the Living Dead (1968), a film directed by George Romero, at its surface seems to be just another horror film. However, beneath the survival story lie deeper messages about race, family, community, and collaboration. The film’s focus is not on the zombies who terrorize the trapped group, as it first appears, but instead on the group itself, and their own trials and reactions. Night of the Living Dead attempts to inspect how dysfunction in a group or family unit impacts people under stress.

Is it possible to kill an idea when it is undead? Classic movie monsters tend to fade in and out of popularity as audiences grow bored and move on to fresher concepts. But there is one that has risen up and does not seem to slow down: zombies. Zombies have gone from being a small subgenre of horror film to a staple of popular culture across various media. This paper will explore the rise of zombies in popular culture and why it continues to remain relevant.

Reading through the whole essay, there are many appealing strategies found in order to strengthen the essay academically. Brooks attracts the audience with a pathos-style strategy, giving specific movie examples to straighten up the essay. The movie Night of the Living Dead resonates the viewers with an image of a flesh-eating and harmful zombie figure instead of a harmless voodoo-created zombie, which makes the notion of zombies transformed into a horrifying figure, provoking the sense of fear of audience with emotional appeal. The revolutionary creation of zombie film was led by George A. Romero, the father of the entirely new horror genre. In his work, zombies are characterized as a form of undead