The movies starts a bit slow, with a brother and a sister visiting their
grandfather’s grave. Johnny keeps teasing Barbara about the dead coming back to life. There is another man in the
distance that keeps approaching them.
That man and Johnny get into a fight, while the Barbara screams in terror
am runs off.
She manages to get into an abandoned house and also stumbles upon
another man running away from other people that seem to act weird and
violent.
They barricade the house and when the night sets in, the real nightmare starts to begin.
Ben, the accidental trailblazer. A Black lead in a 1968 horror movie? Revolutionary. Duane Jones owns every scene—calm, competent, and tragically human. Hollywood could’ve taken notes.
That gritty, old-school vibe. The film’s roughness works for it. Every scratch on the film reel, every over-the-top scream—it’s like time-traveling to a drive-in theater.
Zombie OG status. This movie basically invented the rulebook for zombies. Slow, hungry, and everywhere? Thank (or blame) Romero.
What made me cringe:
Barbara’s meltdown. Look, trauma hits hard, but her wide-eyed, catatonic shtick felt like someone cranked the “panic dial” to 11. Girl, breathe!
Ben’s ending. UGH. After surviving zombies, a gas explosion, and human stupidity, he gets… mistaken for a zombie? It’s brutally poetic, sure, but come on. I wanted to throw a pillow at the screen.
The movie is great, especially if you want to learn more about how the zombie movie genre started. Ben is an absolute standout, the zombies set the standard, and that brutally unfair ending? Somehow, it works. Flawed but essential.
No comments:
Post a Comment