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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Another classic gets killed by its own "anniversary edition."
Oct 28, 1999 | Poor "Night of the Living Dead."
It began as your basic, heartfelt film about six strangers boarded up in a house defending themselves from an atomic plague that makes the dead arise and crave human flesh. OK, so maybe the original concept was a tad convoluted. But its execution and aspirations were humble. Made for $114,000, "Night of the Living Dead" was kinetically shot, frantically edited and sharply acted, co-starring a legion of lurching zombie extras (mostly made up of family, crew members, $600-a-pop investors and the film's stars hiding under goopy makeup). George A. Romero's spare, instinctive direction favored paranoid dread but didn't skimp on the grisly chills either.
When "Night of the Living Dead" was completed in 1967, no one wanted to touch it. Fratricide, matricide and intestinal tug-
Then it got really, really popular.
Just in time to ruin your Halloween, Anchor Bay Entertainment has released the ill-conceived "Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition," a DVD chock full of "extra features," including filmmaker commentary, trailers, still photos, movie clips, a behind-
How's that for "extra"?
The brains behind this Frankensteinian beast are people who really should've known better: director of the new scenes and original co-screenwriter John A. Russo (I have my own ideas of what John's "A" might stand for); original co-producer Russell Streiner (who nabbed "Night's" most famous line, "They're coming to get you, Barbara"); and original cemetery zombie Bill Hinzman. Hinzman, it seems, has taken his delicately nuanced, three-minute portrayal of the rugged-
Russo, too, has spent the better part of his post-"Night" existence helming movies like "Scream Queens: Naked Christmas" and "Santa Claws." In fact, everyone involved with this new DVD has successfully ridden Romero's coattails all the way to cinematic oblivion. If "honoring" "Night" with this heinous atrocity is some way of getting back at Romero for leaving them in the dust, it sure is a doozy.
My agitation is not unjustified. "Night" is an important film. Released one month before the MPAA ratings board began strangling the industry, "Night" was a visceral culmination of the helplessness, agitation and paranoia that the late '60s specialized in. In the Vietnam War era, America was troubled over its own capacity for violence and dishonesty. The figure of the zombie was the perfect open-ended metaphor for the new domestic threat. You didn't know who they were, where they were or how many there were, only that they were coming at you from all sides, and some of them looked just like you.
"Night" was a purging of authority and self-cannibalization of culture; Romero chewed up taboos the way zombies eat flesh. The black hero is smarter, richer and stronger than his white counterparts. The government is impotent. Brothers eat sisters. Daughters eat parents. This total lack of reverence presents "Night" as catharsis -- but also as a very scary reality. In "Night of the Living Dead," we are all equal zombie fodder.
