Zombie Movie Review - Lessons Learned, Phase One

I recently decided that I wanted to do movie reviews for the blog, but not your typical movie review.  Instead of doing the obvious "Must see", "Great special effects", "Feel good coming of age... blah blah" review... I wanted to pick the movie apart and find out what we can learn from it.  With that in mind, I created a basic outline for my zombie movie reviews.  What are the characteristics of the zombies?  How do they kill them? Did the movie give us any good survival tips. And most importantly, how did the zombie outbreak start and is it plausible?  I decided to start this journey with George A. Romero's 1968 cult classic "Night of the Living Dead".  While this isn't the first zombie movie, it is the one that set the standard for modern zombie movies. 

So... what did we learn?

First things first... at no point of the movie are the dead referred to as zombies. What?!  yep... they are called ghouls.  We considered a blog about ghouls, but TEAMKILLGHOULS didn't have a good ring to it.


LOCATION - The setting is in a farmhouse some 200 miles from Pittsburgh. They never really mention what state they are in, but the assumption is that they are somewhere in Pennsylvania.  According to the news reports that they are watching, the entire "eastern third of the country" is infected. 

ZOMBIE CHARACTERISTICS - These aren't the slowest zombies that I've seen, but according to the news reports, a local sheriff refers to them as "slow moving".  They also appear to be quite smart.  In several scenes, the dead pick up items like rocks and sticks to bash windows and try to break down doors. An interesting trait was that they do not like bright light.  The zombies... (forgive me) ghouls smashed out blinding headlights on a car and avoided the light from fire.  Oddly enough though, good old-fashioned sunlight didn't bother them in the slightest.

HOW TO KILL THEM - The first reports from the radio and TV suggested that you had to burn them.  Later, Sheriff McClelland tells the viewing audience that a bullet through the head or blunt head trauma will do the trick.  But even after he shoots them, he burns the bodies for good measure.

SURVIVAL TIPS - There are three that come to mind. 
1)  If you have a Winchester 30-30, use it to shoot zombies in the head.  Stop wasting ammo on countless body shots.  And for Pete's sake, stop dropping it!
2) Board up the windows!  Three 1x6 boards does not constitute boarding up windows.  If the zombies can simply reach through and pull you out... you deserve it.
3) Most importantly... when your rescue arrives... IDENTIFY YOURSELF!  "Don't shoot! I'm a not a zombie"... that should work fine.

THE OUTBREAK, CAN IT HAPPEN? - The outbreak was caused by a NASA space probe returning from Venus.  It was believed that the probe was contaminated with high levels of radiation from Venus and when the probe exploded in the Earth's atmosphere, the radiation which fell to earth caused some sort of human mutation.  Bites from these mutated ghouls would kill their victims, only to have the dead reanimate within minutes. 

I'm not really sure if Venusian radiation would have this effect on humans.  I'm also not sure if it wouldn't.  But, I remember when I was a young boy watching the moon landings in the late 60's.  When the astronauts would return to earth, they were quickly whisked away to be placed in quarantine.  Why?  Was NASA concerned with Lunar radiation or exposure to the Van Allen radiation belt?  Maybe.  Did you see Buzz Aldrin on Dancing With the Stars?... talk about a zombie!