Thoughts on Night of the Living Dead

Today in class we finished viewing Night of the Living Dead, a classic zombie film that helped spark the entire "zombie apocalypse" genre. While I had never seen the movie before, I had participated (as a special effects technician) in my high school's play adaptation, so I had most of the lines memorized beforehand. I found the contrasts and similarities between the two very interesting. Besides the obvious changes that had to be made in terms of set and script to make an adaptation plausible, it was the differences in the original film's characters surprised me the most. Barbara especially seemed exceedingly helpless and incapable. I had always assumed that she "was in a state of shock", but still capable of functioning and participating to some degree. The Barbara I saw today spoke very few words, did nothing useful to help the survivor's situation, and generally seemed to embody the sexist stereotype of women being less capable than men in stressful situations.

On the other hand, many of the conclusions and thoughts I had come to after viewing the theatrical version stayed true to form in the film. For example, from the moment that Mr. Cooper admits that he refused to come help when he heard a woman screaming upstairs, it becomes very clear that he will not be the hero of the film. Throughout the rest of the plot, the audience is made to dislike him more and more to the point where we are almost glad that he gets killed. Ironically however, his initial suggestion of staying in the cellar might have saved them all had they followed his advice. With that said, it also seems likely that they all could have survived upstairs had they managed to work together effectively. Ultimately, I still believe that it isn't the undead that gets them killed, it's the fact that they fight among themselves.