Night of the Living Dead [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray] [Criterion Collection]

Criterion Collection

Overview

One can only imagine the impact that Night on the Living Dead had on unprepared audiences of 1968. Here was a film that began with a semi-comic scene in a graveyard in broad daylight -- which was suddenly interrupted by the homicidal appearance of a seeming lunatic. Gradually the audience comes to the horrible realization that the attacking looney is a zombie, one of several "living dead" recently arisen from their graves -- and that they roam the earth in order to chow down on human flesh. Seven people with whom the audience identifies barricade themselves against the zombie invasion. The only way to destroy the attackers is to set them afire; the trick is to get the zombies before the zombies get them. Filmed in Pittsburgh on a $150,000 budget by former industrial filmmaker George Romero, Night of the Living Dead was denied a release by Columbia on the grounds that it was shot in black-and-white, and was turned down by American-International because of the film's bleak, unhappy ending. Romero turned to Walter Reade Associates, which unceremoniously dumped the film onto the kiddie matinee circuit. After attending a screening with an audience of scared-witless youngsters, a mortified Readers Digest journalist printed a scathing condemnation of Night of the Living Dead -- an article that had the immediate effect of arousing the interest of moviegoers who might otherwise have ignored the film. One of the first of the "midnight movies," Night of the Living Dead still packs a wallop today, even in the light of the more-convincing special effects indigenous to the Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street flicks of the 1980s. That the threadbare, amateurish production values of the original Night of the Living Dead added to its authenticity was proven by Romero's 1990 remake, which despite its bigger budget, color photography, explicit violence and superb makeup work, was nowhere near as frightening as the 1968 version.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/04/2022
UPC:	0715515277419
Original Release:	1968
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	7,790

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Judith O'Dea	Barbara
Russell Streiner	Johnny,Johnny
Duane Jones	Ben
Keith Wayne	Tom
Karl Hardman	Harry
Judith Ridley	Judy
Marilyn Eastman	Helen Cooper
Kyra Schon	Karen
Bill Heinzman	Cemetery Ghoul
Charles Craig	Newscaster/Ghoul
Lee Hartman	Ghoul/Reporter
Frank Doak	Scientist
George Kosana	Sheriff McClelland
Bill Cardille	Reporter,Field reporter
Mark Ricci	Washington Scientist,Ghoul,Ghoul
George A. Romero	Washington Reporter (uncredited)
John A. Russo	Washington Reporter/Ghoul (uncredited)
Jack Givens	Ghoul
Paula Richards	Ghoul,Ghoul
John Simpson	Ghoul
Herbert Summer	Ghoul
William Burchinal	Ghoul
Ross Harris	Ghoul,Actor
Al Croft	Ghoul
Dave James	Ghoul
Sharon Carroll	Ghoul
William Mogush	Ghoul
Steve Hutsko	Ghoul
Joann Michaels	Ghoul
Phillip Smith	Ghoul,Ghoul
Randy Burr	Ghoul
S. William Hinzman	Actor,Rosie (30th Anniversary 1999 scenes),Cemetery Zombie,Actor
Scott Vladimir Licina	Rev. Hicks (30th Anniversary 1999 scenes)
Adam Knox	Mike (30th Anniversary 1999 scenes)
Debbie Rochon	Darlene Davis (30th Anniversary 1999 scenes)
Judith Reilly	Actor
William Loose	Composer

Technical Credits

George A. Romero

John A. Russo

George A. Romero	Screenwriter
Karl Hardman	Producer
Tony Pantanello	Special Effects
Russell Streiner	Producer,Sound Effects,Producer,Producer
Regis Survinski	Special Effects
John A. Russo	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

When George A. Romero, a Pittsburgh-based director of TV commercials and industrial films, persuaded a few buddies to pitch in some money for a case of film stock so that he could shoot a zombie movie on the weekends, he had no idea that he would forever change the American horror movie. With his first effort, Romero shattered the rules of the horror genre; Night of the Living Dead retained many of the iconic elements of the traditional horror movie, but without the emotional buffering of most films that preceded it. In this film, the good guys didn't win, the monsters became only more powerful, the authority figures protecting us were both dangerous and inept, the source of the contagion was both unexplained and unstoppable, and, as friends and families were pitted against each other, no one got away unscathed. The early films of Herschell Gordon Lewis predated it in putting graphic gore on screen, but while Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs seemed almost comical in their candy-colored carnage, Night's stark black-and-white images of zombies feeding on their human victims possessed a blunt and troubling realism that broke new, stomach-churning ground. And while Night's political allegories are more subtle than those of such later Romero films as The Crazies and Dawn of the Dead, its open distrust of authority and depiction of society on the verge of collapse certainly mark it as a film of the Vietnam era; the grim fate of Duane Jones, the film's sole heroic figure and only African-American, had added resonance with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans. At a time when most horror movies took the tack that fear could be fun, Night of the Living Dead offered terror without a spoonful of sugar, and the genre would never be the same again.