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Night of the Living Dead

DFI Cinema

/ Feature Narrative / United States of America / 1968 / Black & White
In English / Arabic subtitles
Rated: Mature subject matter. Not suitable for minors. Individuals under the age of 18 are not admitted into cinemas.


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Synopsis

The contemporary craze for zombie stories – from cinema’s ‘The Girl with All the Gifts’, ‘World War Z’ and ‘28 Weeks Later’ to television’s ‘Walking Dead’, ‘The Return’ and ‘True Blood’ – without a doubt owes its origins to George A. Romero’s low-budget and unassuming but ultimately game-changing ‘Night of the Living Dead’. By now, we are familiar with the various rules and codes of contending with invasions of the re-animated (Keep quiet so as not to attract them! Shoot them in the head! They’ll try to get in the house through the windows!), but here we have ground zero for all such bits and pieces of the mythology surrounding the undead.

The film’s seemingly simple plot – several people hide out in a remote house in an attempt to escape a mysterious attack of mindless gangs of flesh-eating ghouls – has been repeatedly analysed in political terms over the years. Besides the frightful pleasure of its creepy thrills, ‘Living Dead’ can be read as a protest against the horrors of the Vietnam War, a condemnation of social complacency, or a comment on the morality of me-first capitalism – heady commentary that remains topical nearly half a century after the film first terrorised a generation.