Caseus Archivelox: Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary edition & Dawn of the Dead

2002-03-28 - 9:41 p.m.
We watched the 30th Anniversary edition of "Night of the Living Dead". That was quite simply the worst rereleased film of all time. The added scenes had the worst acting in the movie. This is a zombie movie, where the worst acting isn't the zombies. That sort of tells you how bad the acting was. The added scenes where a priest doesn't become a zombie by prayer and splashing holy water upon the zombie bite also goes against the entire idea of the movie. The new scenes were also edited in horribly.

2002-03-28
You already know how much I absolutely detested the added scenes and new soundtrack for Night of the Living Dead. The desire of some people to ruin films in the name of supposed profits makes me sick and supremely disappointed.

I will not dwell upon the completely unnecessary scenes, or the horrendous acting, or the fact that the added scenes actually detract from the impact of the scenes. The original film is one of the most perfect horror films, as it works as both a gruesome and gore-filled shocker and also as a multi-layered allegory for civil rights, Vietnam, communism, or even the over-reliance upon television. The dominant white male society almost destroys the strong black male, and when it fails at first, it finally succeeds at the hands of the suggestively racist sheriff’s posse. A small amount of Americans is constantly attacked by a much faster growing and relentless enemy and is slowly destroyed. Americans, instead of actually escaping, sit around waiting for the TV to tell them what to do. The original ending, although ultimately destroying the occupants of the house, ultimately confirms the status of society, suggesting that the society needs to work harder to make it better.

In contrast with the low budget masterpiece of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead had a much larger budget and was in color. And, although Dawn of the Dead was a sequel made by the same director, they show what the larger budget can do for a filmmaker’s vision. Romero’s use of black actors as the take-charge (and most sensible, along with Dawn of the Dead’s Francine) characters goes against the Hollywood stereotype where the black character always dies and is supporting cast to the white actors. Also, Dawn of the Dead is the first of the zombie movies that has zombies that obviously have some memory of their past life, and thus, it allows Romero to touch upon the consumerism that was so prevalent in the 70s (and still to this day), by having the zombies wander around the mall.

The gore effects in both are great, and help to make the movies less obviously deeper meaning than some other pretentious horror films. That is always a bonus, because pretentious movies almost always fail miserably because they cannot be good movies. Message films need to have a sense of humor about themselves, or at least be good films, or else they will end up being respected but not watched, something that Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead certainly do not deserve.