No longer the supernaturally reanimated corpses of Haitian folklore, mind you, but now (pseudo)scientifically-born a new flesh-eating concoction straight from the fevered and bleak imagination of Pittsburgh filmmaker George Romero the ‘destroy the brain and the body will die’ variety that hit the Western zeitgeist in a way that would, forever forward, with its Romero-defined rule book, be what modern audiences would think of as the zombie.
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And, of course, the mindless, stumbling zombies themselves, figures of decay, of human rot, representations of pure abjection (at least that’s what they are here – Romero would slowly delve into more complex territory with his monster of choice, exploring the nature of the zombie as outsider – and even sympathetic ‘other’ - through his five sequels). The rowdy rural gun-toting mobs, led by white authority, casually shooting down the threat, one bullet to the head at a time.
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The young, sweetly innocent couple whose very concern for each other will lead to their tragic fate. The stoic African American lead startlingly transgressing his social standings by brutally striking the hysterical white woman Barbara across the face to calm her down. The bickering married couple with the sick kid in the basement. The besieged farmhouse with the rotted corpse at the head of the stairs.
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‘We may not enjoy living together, but dying together isn’t gonna solve anything.’ Night of the Living Dead (George Romero, 1968)īy Douglas Buck Volume 23 Issue 9-10 / October 2019 7 minutes (1646 words)Ĭinéma Moderne, part of the monthly M: Les Maudits program