Barbara and her brother Johnny arrive at a cemetery located in a secluded suburban location. Suddenly they are attacked by creatures resembling dead men who have risen from their graves. Barbara takes refuge in a nearby house, where a dark-skinned guy named Ben, married couples Harry and Helen Cooper and their daughter Karen, and lovers Tom and Judy also find shelter.

4k movies reviews
A true film classic is immortal and infallible. Immortal because each new film, made under the influence of the original masterpiece, revives again and again the brilliant idea and author’s style, brought to life many years ago. And the infallibility of a classic is precisely because it has laid the canonical foundations of cinema of a certain subject and genre that continue to work perfectly well despite changing generations of viewers.

Such is the ancestor of all zombie films, George Romero’s unfading horror film Night of the Living Dead.

Despite the simplest construction of the narrative, one never ceases to wonder how Romero in one film managed to implement a large number of author’s findings, forever turned into the classic techniques (or hardened stamps – whatever you like to call it) of “dead” cinema. Especially since in the original film you perceive them as primary sources of endless creative fantasy for the numerous followers of George Romero.

Here are typical examples. The film begins with a demonstration of an ordinary country highway. And then… lo and behold! The road leads straight to the cemetery! And what do we see amidst the silent graves? A star-spangled flag, proudly waving in the wind! Usually this attribute is inherent in Hollywood hurrah-patriotic films, where the flag of the nation – the guarantor of the inevitable victory over the enemies of America. In Romer’s masterpiece, however, it is nothing less than a harbinger of inevitable apocalyptic tragedy. Here it is – the strongest and most indestructible country in the world … Which, moments later, will plunge into wild chaos, and the citizens of a great nation will turn into savage beasts that tear the flesh of those who still retain their human form. And the ominous phrase jokingly uttered by one of the characters before the unexpected beginning of the carnage will forever be remembered: “They’re coming for you, Barbara! They’re coming for you!”

And how eerie and depressing are the unceasingly impassioned voices of the radio and TV announcers, commenting in real time on the unfolding apocalypse! In fact, in their frightening reporter’s monologues Romero laid down all the basic principles of the behavior of the living dead – the cannibals. There’s not much violence or visual horror in the classic film compared to most thematically similar modern films. But everything that “The Night” only told about will be more than demonstrated in subsequent sequels to “Father of the Zombies,” not to mention the countless clones of other authors. And this fact only confirms the greatness of the original horror – simple, low-budget, even thrashy by the standards of high art, but which gave birth to a vast and important area in “scary” cinema.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (79.9 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Audio
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital Mono

Subtitles
English SDH.