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Night of the Living Dead
R1 - America - Off Color Films/Twentieth Century Fox Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Roger Nicholl (15th July 2005). |
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The Film
 Regarded as the grandfather of the modern zombie film, Night of the Living Dead transformed the zombie from the (more realistic) human afflicted by a voodoo trance into the flesh eating undead. It may not have been the first film to treat zombies this way, but because it’s a great film the transformation stuck. Gore-wise Night of the Living Dead may not be shocking any more, or frightening, but it is compelling and intense. Its combination of black and white photography (This DVD also includes a colorized version as well) and grisly horror is particularly unsettling, and gives the film a grimy, realistic quality. The opening scene of Barbara (Judith O’Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) visiting their father’s grave is justifiably famous. Johnny jokes with Barbara about how the graveyard used to scare her as a child. When they see a man slowly walking towards them, Johnny starts taunting Barbara with "He’s coming to get you, Barbara". Barbara tries to apologise to the man for Johnny’s rudeness but he attacks her. Johnny tries to help, but is knocked out, and Barbara flees to a deserted farmhouse. She finds that an African American man, Ben (Duane Jones), is already in the house. And while she is almost catatonic from fear, he is resourceful and determined. After boarding up almost the whole house they find that there are five other people hiding in the basement who claim they didn’t know what was going on upstairs while Ben was doing all that work. One of them, Harry (Karl Hardman), is a short-tempered, opinionated, loud-mouthed white man who thinks it’s crazy that they’d stay upstairs when they could just lock themselves in the basement. Ben thinks the basement is a death trap, and he has a shotgun to back him up. But Harry openly bristles under his command, and the two of them clash. Thankfully, their rivalry is written well enough that it doesn’t turn into a tiresome series of shouting matches, as has happened in a lot of Night of the Living clones. The movie is paced perfectly, the zombie menace builds up in a way commensurate with the tensions inside the house. Information on the zombies is given out first via radio, and later when they find a TV. And while this is technically just exposition, it’s done in an entertaining way and is spaced out to ease up the tension and avoid endless scenes of people boarding up windows. The last act is a perfect example of a horror film pay off, the threat has been built up, the tensions allowed to grow, until things explode. George Romero has said that he laces all his zombie films with social commentary. In Night of the Living Dead he cast an African American as the hero (the race wasn’t specified in the script) who saves the white girl, in an era when civil rights was still very much an ongoing debate. Add to this the fact that all of the mindless zombies have pasty white faces, and Harry the intolerant bull-headed white man wants to hide in a safe place and not worry about anyone else. We have an African-American hero who may be up against the undead in the text of the film, but is faced with racism is the subtext. And then there’s the ending, which I won’t reveal, but has been purposefully left open to interpretation. I don’t know if the choice of filming in black and white was part of this metaphor (in 1968 it was a choice). But it looks so perfect that it makes me wonder why black and white isn’t used much for horror any more. Perhaps it’s because the majority of black and white horror films didn’t go for grisly gore, and most horror films are cheap knock-offs of each other. When people came to copy Night of the Living Dead they copied the zombies, and the arguments, rather than things worth copying like cinematography and theme.
Video
Presented in the film’s original theatrical ratio of 1.33:1, Off Color Films have included two transfers on this disc, a colorized version and the original black and white. The color transfer was created by Legend Films. Using a relatively new 48-bit colorization process to achieve a final image in high definition or to film quality as stated in their official site. And while it’s true that colorization of film has vastly improved from efforts in the past but does not genuinely look like a film shot in color, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Much like Off Color Films’ previous release of Carnival of Souls, you can tell that a certain level of care was taken to help ‘enhance’ the transfer and make it friendly to those that have a built-in dislike for black and white films, however it still at times looks like someone used color pencils to color over a photocopied image. The color process has given the image added definition; however also takes away some of the film’s creepiness due to its original photography, by adding color some of the film’s blacks came out blue on occasion. For a film of its age the transfer is quite clear, however occasionally soft, sharpness does vary throughout the transfer and is likely an inherent problem from the source material. Occasional signs of age do pop up throughout the transfer such as scratches, minor print damage and dirt appearing onscreen but does not cause a major distraction. If you are not particularly fond of black and white films then you should be content with this version. Personally I prefer to view the film in its original black and white format that was intended by the director and thankfully Off Color Films have included that on the disc. The black and white transfer is by no means the best, however it’s far from being the worst. The image is soft and on occasions is also blurry, much like the color version sings of age to show up on this transfer such as white speckles, scratches, dirt and also the infrequent missing frame. Off Color Films have managed to maintain a consistent level of film grain that helps preserve the original look and style of the film, blacks, grays and whites are balanced throughout, however the blacks were not as bold as I would have liked them to be.
Audio
The color version and the black and white version feature different soundtracks. The color version includes English tracks in DTS 5.1 (half-rate) and in Dolby Digital 5.1, while the black and white is only viewable with its English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track. Both the DTS and Dolby 5.1 tracks on the color version did not seem all that different, they are basically mono tracks spread over the 5.1 channels, so depth is limited and immersive it is not. Most of the activity is focused on the centre speaker, but it is very clear and distortion free. The Dolby 2.0 Mono track present on the black and white version is much like its 5.1 counterparts, clear and dialogue is easily heard without any distortion. It basically does the same job as the 5.1 tracks do but only in 2.0 Mono, it’s not as loud and prominent but for this type of film it does the trick. I did however detect a few signs of weakness, primarily in the form of low hiss and the occasional pop. The disc does not include any subtitles, so those that are hard of hearing are sadly out of luck.
Extras
The audio commentary can be viewed only on the color version and is by Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. Nelson jokes around by making fun of the title given to the film by fans, the abbreviated ‘NOTLD’, he also pokes fun at the looks and fashion sense of both the humans and the zombies, in one particularly amusing scene he says I don’t known what the zombie’s motivation is, could be the tacky clothes their loved ones buried them in. Nelson also references scenes from the film that actually happened to him one includes arguing with people you’ve just met and people occasionally wanting to eat his flesh. He also takes stabs at the cast and crew, the commentary is generally amusing, however I found that there are far too many silent gaps for my liking. The disc also includes two of the film’s original theatrical trailers both in color and in 1.33:1 with mono sound. The first runs for 1 minute 58 seconds and the second runs for 1 minute 8 seconds. Additionally there is a trailer for Carnival of Souls also in color, 1.33:1 and mono that runs for 2 minutes 27 seconds as well as a black and white trailer for The Flesh Eaters in 1.33:1 and mono sound that runs for 2 minutes 41 seconds. Rounding out the extras is an interactive game entitled Separated at Death it features 13 characters from the film and by moving across with your arrow key you can see who resembles that character in Hollywood today. Now for a game there are no instructions and no real point to this, I assume you look at the character's picture and try to guess who resembles them, you arrow across to find out if your guess is right. Well guess what - this extra is kind of sucky. An insert is included in the case that features a chapter listing.
Overall
"Night of the Living Dead" is a great film, which deserves its place in the highest echelon of horror films. Like many much imitated films, the imitators got the basics right, but often didn’t grasp what made the original work so well. Russo and Romero not only wrote a finely crafted script, they had fresh ideas, both horror-wise and in a social commentary sense. That’s why this film was, and still is, great. For fans of the film the only real reason to get this is the commentary, newcomers that dislike black and white films may also dig this alterative release.
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