Well, there’s no problem. If you have a gun, shoot ‘em in the head. That’s a sure way to kill ‘em. If you don’t, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat ‘em or burn ‘em. They go up pretty easy.

It was George Romero’s 70th birthday on Wednesday, so the wife and I celebrated by watching Night of the Living Dead. The original 1968 version, of course. It’s strange how on his birthday we’re the ones who get such a nice present. Anyway, I really love watching old horror movies because, more than anything, they’re good for a laugh. We’re so used to trillion dollar budgets and CGI this and green-screen that nowadays that when we come across something archaic and raw like a movie from the 60s, it seems comical in comparison. And most times it is, but that’s really not the case with Night of the Living Dead.

It’s amazing what superb lighting, clever camera angles, and chocolate syrup can do. I’ll compare Night of the Living Dead to The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (since it’s freshest in my mind), where the latter was shot as though it was a theater performance on film. Everything was stationary and static. The actors moved as if on a stage. Romero’s classic, however, just six years later, shows remarkable visionary achievements. There’s real chills created in the shots alone. Throw some zombies into the mix and it’s one hell of a movie, even if it is 42 years old. It also stands as the benchmark in zombie movie mania (even though the word zombie is never mentioned once in the movie). It is the one. Everything we know and understand about the undead is established in Night of the Living Dead; their penchant for human flesh, how to kill them, the downside of being bitten by one, the confusion and fighting amongst the people trying to avoid being eaten, etc. But I think I’m telling you stuff you already know.

For those that don’t know, here’s how it all started. Siblings Barbara and Johnny are visiting their father’s grave when a zombie attacks them. Barbara escapes, but Johnny isn’t so lucky. Barbara takes shelter at a nearby house whose owner has perished, likely eaten by a zombie. Then this dude, Ben, shows up (he’s also trying to avoid being eaten) and together they board up the house and hope for the best. Actually, Ben does most of the boarding up; Barbara spends the rest of the movie in a catatonic state. Then two dudes pop out of the basement. They had also taken shelter in the house and had been hiding in the basement with their women (and a sick child) until the madness was over. Well, the madness is only escalating. They turn on the TV and the radio to learn about the mass murders sweeping the land at the hands of the undead, or ghouls, likely due to some radioactive contaminants from an exploded space probe.

So the people in the house argue over how to proceed and finally they decide that some of them will try for a bone dry car, fill it up at the house’s gas pump, and then grab everyone else and make a break for it. It was a good plan in theory, but it didn’t quite work out, and now the zombies have made their way into the house and the sick girl in the basement wants in on the flesh-eating action. The only one left by sun-up is Ben, but when the local authorities make their zombie-killing rounds, they shoot Ben because they think he’s a zombie. Oops.

There you have it, the grandfather of all zombie movies, and while it has a few are-you-kidding-moments, it’s nowhere near the kind of chuckle-fest most of these old horror movies are prone to be. No, Night of the Living Dead is a masterful, original, apocalyptic triumph concerning the reanimation of the recently dead. Fuck yeah.

So you know what you’re going to do now, right? Yeah, you’re going to watch Night of the Living Dead right here!