Night of the Living Dead Impressions

  Overall, I found Night of the Living Dead to be a very interesting and atmospheric film, but I didn't find it very entertaining.  I thought the film had it's strengths and weaknesses.  On one hand I thought that the make-up and the overall uneasy and claustrophobic atmosphere were done very well, but on the other I believe that the pacing and the characters brought the film down.  I never found myself liking any of the characters in particular, with the exception of Ben.  The women were all typical and helpless, and the other men in the film were either too arrogant or too foolish.  I even found Ben to be a little unbelievable, as he was too dominant and controlling in the way he bossed around the father.  I found every one of the characters be as unrealistic as they were unlikeable.  The pacing of the film also seemed off to me, as the action was too up and down; it was like a roller coaster ride that ended right before the drop.  What I did enjoy were the make up, the music and the set.  The scenes which showed the zombie hobbling towards the house were fantastic, as the ominous music in combination with the grotesque and shocking zombies were truly scary.  This in combination with the hectic and tightly packed house work well to create the feeling of claustrophobia and impending doom.  I have to give credit to the film for it's originality.  Although it wasn't the first zombie film, it's undeniably influential in its vision of the slow, shambling flesh eating zombie and the zombie apocalypse, without this film, we wouldn't have the strong zombie genre that we have today.  It isn't the best acted film, or outstanding in terms of plot, but Night of the Living Dead is oozing with creativity.