Night of the Living Dead starts so innocently...

[bicentennial_baby]

2 kids going to Dad's grave 3 hrs from Pgh. Ouch.

Watching now. Awesome late night cable find. :D

[Forkboy]

1. It's a deeper movie than many realize.

Change the zombies to black people and viola...a different movie entirely. I've actually read deep discussions on this.

Of course, I've read deep discussions on the Offside rule in soccer as well. :freak:

[bicentennial_baby]

3. I do believe that was Romero's deeper intention...

I f'n love this film. It's classic in so many ways. But yes, the deeper meaning behind it makes it that much more powerful.

And the music and cinematography is badass. :D

[JTG of the PRB]

2. Which channel?

I looooove zombie movies. One of my favorite genres.

[bicentennial_baby]

4. On my system, it's "PLEX"

which is MoviePlex. Comcast Digital, ch 200

[JTG of the PRB]

5. Argh... No such luck for me.

I have DirecTV, and it's a no-show for me. Curses! Foiled again!

[nuxvomica]

6. I first saw it in college, presented by Romero himself

I think it was in the fall of 1974. It was shown on a portable screen in a small cafeteria so it was a rather intimate group. Romero spoke about the logistics of filming it and the sociological subtext of the story. You'd think that his little talk would've taken some of the edge off it but all I can remember was how fricken scared I was walking across the quad back to my dorm.

[Juche]

7. sociological undertones

I am in my 20s and didn't experience the culture of the 60s and 70s, so I do not know what all sociological undertones are in this movie. I assume it has something to do with the fact that the black character takes on such a leadership role, only to be treated like dirt in the end.

I saw a few minutes of it an hour ago, but went on to watch something else.

[FloridaJudy]

11. It was totally shocking at the time

Not because the black character was the only one who acts half-way sensibly, but that he's mistaken for a zombie and accidentally killed at the end, just as you think the nightmare is ending. And the scenes where family members change into zombies and turn on their own were horrifying. It's a common theme now, but that was a first. Before that, zombies were always portrayed as creepy outsiders that one wouldn't hesitate to kill. And NOTLD was shot in shaky black and white with unknown actors: that gave it a documentary feel.

Come to think of it, it's still rare that the hero of an action movie dies, except in historical dramas like "Braveheart". And those never die in vain.

[Downtown Hound]

17. In each of the living dead films, the zombies are the

representation of a new society devouring the old. A lot of talk has been made about the fact that NOTLD has a black man as the hero, but Romero himself has often said the he was simply the best actor they could find. But the zombies themselves are representative of the chaos of the 60's, a time when the streets were crawling with riots, Vietnam was in full swing, and new drugs made everyone afraid. You can feel the presence of the Vietnam War in this movie if you look closely enough.

Dawn of the Dead was made in 1979, a time when America's economy was in the tank. And it takes place in a shopping mall, portraying the zombies as the ultimate consumer: mindless, aimless, just wandering around for the next thing to snack on. Malls were still a relatively new thing back then. In the scene where they first approach the mall in a helicopter, it is described as, "one of those big, indoor malls." Would anybody describe a mall like that these days? The zombies are the new materialistic culture in America rising up and taking over. The heroes that seize control of it and lock the zombies out while they wallow in misery at the prison they created are the upper class. They have access to everything, but it's empty and hollow. The zombies are the poor and the homeless, and their whole existence centers around getting back inside the mall to consume more.

And in Day of the Dead, which isn't as good as the fist two but not bad nevertheless, the surviving humans are holed up in an abandoned nuclear missile silo. It was made in 1985, so I think it's a pretty safe bet that Romero was making a statement on the cold war. You have the evil military guys that are representative of the military industrial complex, the scientists who are either well-meaning but ultimately clueless about what to do or downright psychotic, evil genius types. And then you have the helicopter pilot (once again a black man) and his assistant who are basically like, "Fuck this. Let's go find an island, fuck until we repopulate the species, and get drunk and lie on the beach." They are the people that were tired of the cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation, of which there were many in the 80's.

[deucemagnet]

8. I've decided I really do not want to be at my job during a zombie epidemic.

I work at a Catholic university and there's a graveyard full of nuns not a stone's throw from my building. Zombie nuns! Could you imagine? :scared:

[China_cat]

9. That cemetery is where my family is buried.

And I hate it when they say '3 hours' from pittsburgh. An hour and a half in heavy traffic. Three hours would get you to the outskirts of Erie. Even back when NOTLD was made.

They did a lot of typecasting for that movie. A lot of relatives made a whole $5 each for being zombies.

[bicentennial_baby]

12. True dat, I used to live in Pgh

I wasn't sure where the cemetery is.

And the original Dawn of the Dead was shot in Monroeville Mall! :D

[China_cat]

15. Rt 68 from Zelienople to Evans City

The road to the right right before the railroad tracks, up the hill and catty-corner across from the Ifft turkey farm.

[datasuspect]

10. the copyright expired on that and was never renewed

you can watch it here (http://www.archive.org/details/night_of_the_living_dead) whenever you wish.

[TK421]

13. Thanks!

:D my work day just got a whole lot better!

[Deep13]

14. We see Kyra Schon (sp?) every year at Cinema Wasteland.

She played the little girl who stabs her mother with a masonry trowel.

[soleft]

16. Innocent? I think it's creepy as hell!

[Jade Fox]

18. There is an interesting article in Vanity Fair.....

about Romero and Living Dead. It's in the Hollywood issue, which was recent but is not the latest issue.

[bicentennial_baby]

19. I'll see if I can find it online, thanks!

:hi: