Night of the Living Dead

(I just deleted two more faux Chinese comments, so either all my blog comments are being translated into Chinese, or the spammers are the world's most persistent and hopeful losers.)

Yesterday, I went back to our gorgeous theater for a classic double-feature of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and Night of the Living Dead.  I'd never seen either of them, but I read reviews of both before I went, and they both looked really good.  I knew NotLD was was a classic, and I felt like I should have seen it by now, and the chance to see it on the big screen was too good to miss.

The Last Man on Earth was unexpectedly wonderful.  I should have known that it would be.  Vincent Price, when he was allowed to be, was a fantastic actor.  Even when they had him so deep in camp that only the barest of his cultured voice and acting skills showed, he still managed to salvage something.  TLMoE was as good as it was, I think because he was alone in it for the most part.  There was no Gothic castle, nothing Poe-esque lurking.  He got to shine instead of having to fight with the background.

Night of the Living Dead wasn't what I expected it to be.  There were moments of extreme camp, but by and large, it wasn't a camp film at all.  I don't know why I always thought it was.  It actually made several really good points.  I saw in it the beginning of so many other horror movie traditions, and of course, the origins of every zombie thing that is currently so popular.  It was full of stereotypes, too, but that seemed quite deliberate and sophisticated.  It felt much more like social commentary masquerading as a horror film than any other thing.  I really liked it.  There were a few images that I had to look away from because they were really disturbing and gruesome, but the final scene was the most disturbing one, and it didn't have a thing to do with reanimated corpses.  The ending was perfect and ironic and terrible.  I think I'd like to use it when I teach irony, in fact.  Well, if any of my students have seen the movie....  Maybe we could watch it for Halloween....  (ha.)

I'm so glad to get to see these films in our wonderful old theater.  I hope they show a million more.