GEORGE A. Romero’s 1968 horror classic “Night of the Living Dead” was made using mostly amateur actors, at a budget that probably wouldn’t cover catering for today’s average Hollywood production. But while the black-and-white film’s lumbering zombies and chocolate-sauce blood effects seem quaint by today’s standards, Tuesday’s 40th anniversary DVD reminds us how many different ways the film broke ground.
While “Night of the Living Dead” shocked moviegoers with scenes of zombies feasting on human flesh, it also garnered attention for the politics of its content and creation, presenting barbed commentary on American society while, in a reported first for American film, casting a black actor in a lead role that didn’t specify race.
Among the features on the DVD set are two commentary tracks, a new feature-length documentary and a brief but essential conversation with Romero, in which he discusses the film’s impact. Romero begins by explaining how the shocking EC Comics of the ’50s (the eventual creator of Mad magazine) influenced his work.
“They would rip out somebody’s heart and use it as home plate in a baseball game,” he recalled. “I would sit there just giggling.”
Romero then discusses (jump to the next graph if you haven’t seen the movie) the film’s much-noted nihilism in, among other things, having its lead character mercilessly shot dead at the end, mistaken for a zombie after spending the entire film fighting them off. In the time of Vietnam and civil unrest, Romero notes that his intention was to turn convention on its ear.
“My biggest complaint about horror or fantasy is, you do it to upset the apple cart, to upset the ways of the world, and then in the end you restore it all,” he says. “Well, [then] why did we go through all that in the first place? So I thought, I have to leave the world a mess.”
Another groundbreaking statement was made unintentionally. The low-budget production drove Romero to cast producers, crew and friends of the film’s creators. African-American actor Duane Jones was cast in the lead role for reasons having nothing to do with race.
“We cast Duane because he was the best actor from among our friends,” Romero says. “We didn’t realize the power that would have. Duane was saying things to me all through the shoot, like, ‘Wait a minute. I’m the guy that has to walk out of the theater after I slug this white dame.'”