I wasn't sure what to expect from a zombie movie that looked like it came from the early 40's (and to my astonishment was actually made in the late 60's) but it did not disappoint. The movie was an independent film on low budget which is probably why it looked so old fashioned "I love Lucy" style of black and white. However the cinematography was brilliantly made with wonderful camera angels and creepy shots of random objects, it just appeared horrifying. Especially the ending scene where it just showed photographs of everything that had happened which looked like a coroner's report with bad photography. Something similar to the remake of the texas chainsaw massacre intro with the eerie sound of the Polaroid camera noise for creepy effect.
Anyway, one of the things about this movie that threw me off was that the main protagonist was african american. I didn't know that this movie was shot in the 60's and I thought it was shot earlier than that so I kept thinking that it was strange that the cast of the movie's main character, and longest surviving character was african american. But as we talked about in class the other day it turns out that when casting, the actor was just the best one for the part and nothing racial from the time period took play into the selection.
This movie really set up all of the major points for zombie movies to come. It sort of laid down the laws/rules of how zombie work. The infectious bite, people becoming zombies, the slow walking zombies and the fear of fire which came into play in the movie. HEADSHOTS. makes perfect sense.
Also Ramero's whole situation with the copyright of the movie is pretty horrifying and hysterical at the same time. That man would at this point in life be filthy filthy filthy rich (so much zombie) if he managed to copyright his movie correctly. But sadly for him that is not the case and anyone can title their movie "night of the living dead" due to such a flaw (and people have)
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