Yet again, I've dipped my hand in the zombie well, only for it to come back up all goopy and brainy.
Actually, I found that I liked Night of the Living Dead a lot more than 28 Days Later or any of the other zombie films I've seen before. The violence is a lot more subtle - it's still present, but much of it happens just off-screen, so it's a little easier to stomach, if a bit more traumatizing to the psyche.
And isn't that what horror is all about?
It's nice to see the "genesis" of most zombie tropes. Most plot twists and devices now considered cliche come across as new and terrifying when witnessed in their first context. When the audience is introduced to a little girl who's been bitten by a zombie, her conversion into a full-blown walking dead brain muncher comes as a terrible shock.
Finally, I have to say something about the protagonists. Barbara is a far cry from most horror "scream queens" we've gotten used to today, but the real star of the show is Ben, a man who drowns himself in pragmatism to keep from giving in to the horror of the situation. A pretty impressive character, I thought.
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