Night 30 of 31 Nights of Horror

We are on the second to last night of the marathon, and it occurred to me that I had not yet watched a zombie movie. So I’ll correct that oversight with what will turn out to be the oldest, lowest budget, yet highest rated movie so far. It has an average rating of 95% on 82 reviews and an audience score of 87 on Rotten Tomatoes and I agree with them.

In the intro I wrote 30 days ago, I said I wanted to see if older movies still held up. Some did, some didn’t, but this one, the oldest of them all, sure does. Okay, it’s in black and white, but so was Clerks, the film stock is cheaper than colour and when you’re on a tight budget, you save money where you can. The look also helps hide the weakness in the makeup, it’s nowhere near as detailed or polished as a modern B movie, especially the eyes. Without the cloudy contact lenses that are affordable and common today, the zombie’s eyes are too intelligent looking and don’t make them look dead. That’s about it for the negatives though, the rest of the film is great.

The cinematography is well done, the editing, the music, even the acting is surprisingly good for a cast comprised almost entirely of first timers. The pacing and tight script keeps you interested and engaged the whole time. Like most good zombie films, a lot of the drama comes from the humans. I loved that you are made to dislike Harry right from the beginning, but that he turns out to have been right in the end. Speaking of endings, that was a surprising, but sadly all too realistic way to close out the story.

It’s interesting to me to go back and watch the grandfather of modern zombie movies and see how it differs to the lore of today. First, they never call them zombies, the news people refer to them as ghouls, but technically a ghoul is a creature that is still living. Second, these zombies use tools, so they aren’t completely mindless. They’re also afraid of fire, which we don’t really see these days.

I liked it, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would and I encourage any budding filmmaker to watch it themselves and see that you don’t need a huge budget or well known actors to tell a good story. You just need talent.