Dec 29, 20232 min read

Looking at - NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

For the first instalment of this short series of blogs I am going to be looking at the making of George A Romero’s, ‘NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD’. This is the film I am going to be focusing on in my media artefact portion of my deep dive into American Independent Cinema. It is in my opinion one of the greatest directed movies of all time, especially considering the limited budget of the production.

George Andrew Romero was born in the Bronx, NYC on Feb 4, 1940. He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology studying art, design and Drama. In the 60s he made short films and worked in television, finally forming Image Ten Productions with 9 friends. It’s this company that produced Romero’s first feature length film Night of the Living Dead in 1968.

It’s widely acknowledged that critics didn’t take to the movie, outraging them with its graphic content while shocking young movie goers. Could it be that the recent assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy added fuel to the fire? With Romero insinuating an end of world scenario created by flesh eating zombies, it definitely created an unsettling experience for audiences.

It’s been said that Romero consciously drew on the novel I Am Legend for Night of the Living Dead. Given to him by his friend and Image Ten Productions colleague Richard Ricci, he saw how they could draw upon the book’s own small location and easy visuals to make a low budget movie of their own.

With a budget of less than $100,000 and a cast of unknown actors, he would have to get creative. They used 35mm black and white film to help smooth over the productions rougher edges like Bosco’s chocolate syrup which they used for blood, and guts which were made from ham donated by a local butcher shop. Clothing was anything the actors had already that they didn’t mind getting ripped or torn. And the location was a home already scheduled for demolition so knocking down doors or putting holes through walls was no problem.

Getting his film out to cinemas was never a problem as companies such as Columbia were willing to take a punt on the movie, but they demanded a happy ending which Romero was unwilling to waver on. This allowed Continental which had already success with arthouse films like Room at the Top and Lord of the Flies, the ability to take a chance with Romero’s exploitation type film. With Continental finding huge audiences and even better sales with Night of the Living Dead, it opened the eyes of other financiers to engage with and back other independent film directors.

For my artefact I am going to be recreating the first grave yard scene, adding a modern twist to the production, but staying true to the original angles and lense settings of the original.

Overall, Night Of The Living Dead is simply one of the greatest movies of all time, and fuelled a changing point in Independent Cinema with its crude subject matter, inspiring many films, both indie and big scale in the future.