At the age of 6, a midnight feature came on that started out with a car on its way to a graveyard set to an eerie score. Night of the Living Dead the title card read. With grim foreboding I layed me eyes upon. In the next hour and a half, I would go through the ringer. Maybe I was too young to get the social commentary that was in the film. The fact that this came out in '68, a year of assassinations and protest. What always stayed with me though was Judy going up those stairs and seeing that corpse at the top of them. Karen Cooper picking up a garden trowel and going after her mother. The fact that it ended on such a downbeat note. Harp on Romero all ya want. The man formed a legacy after these films. & if it wasn't for his first three dead films, I'd be starving for something to wet my appetite. Beatin' on a car window with a brick, trying to get inside for some fresh meat. I just wish the meat of his last two zombie films felt fresh. Instead, it feels like leftovers.
I've always maintained that while Night was his masterpiece, Dawn was the one with the best balance. Day on the other hand veers into such nihilism and is shamefully dismissed because of it. I personally hold major digs for the film and actually in some ways prefer it over Dawn. Though that story has pretty much been told...
A+
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