REVIEW: The budget was $100,000, no one in the cast was a professional actor and the soundtrack was all library music, yet this 90-minute, black and white homage to guerilla filmmaking is a must-see for any horror film aficionado. It's creepy, it's gruesome and, despite the hokey premise, it's startlingly real. Night of the Living Dead shows just how much a good script can compensate for shaky performances and lack of materials, proving that low-budget does not always have to mean low-quality. Even the score--cobbled together from public domain tv and movie soundtracks--sounds eerie and moody.

This movie was the first to take zombies out of their voodoo/black magic mold and use them as villians; and just you try to sit there and watch that zombie stagger out of the closet and get a tire iron in the face without feeling a little freaked out! Night also scores because the zombies are not the focus of the story. It's the power struggle between Ben and Harry that really drives the action and makes the movie fun to watch. The thoughtful use of graphic violence further elevates this movie out of horror flick crapdom. Let's face it--guts and gore lose their impact pretty fast in our society; kudos to Romero for keeping the gore startling and fresh!

Night of the Living Dead is a good night in front of the tube if you want a well-written character story, or if you crave a good ole' fashioned slashfest. The performances are pretty good, but not perfect (especially the performances of "Tom" and "Judy," who get one scene together that justifies their horrible deaths later), the wardrobes and hair smack of vintage sixties and some of the editing is noticeably rough. But ever since that day when I was a sweet and innocent nine years old and first heard the immortal words, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" I was horrified, thrilled and convinced that my house was going to be overrun by hordes of flesh-eating undead during the night.

So this Halloween, wait for night fall and pop the tape (or DVD) into the machine and enjoy a vintage horror classic, cuz' there's no feeling like the one you get curled up in bed with a baseball bat, content in the knowledge that if the zombies DO break in, they'll eat your sister first, giving you time to leap out the window to safety.

FAVORITE LINE: Sheriff McClellen, when asked about the ghouls: "They're dead; they're all messed up."

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