Case Study: Night of the Living Dead

Film Analysis

“Night of the Living Dead”

The ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is a black-and-white American independent horror film directed by George A. Romero in 1968. The film story is about a group of people trapped in a rural farmhouse in Pennsylvania which is then attacked by the ‘living dead’ monsters, which they are now popular known as zombies. The film was premiered in October 1968 with the budget of $114,000 with a successful gross profit of $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally.

Genre

Night of the Living Dead carries the stereotypical conventions of a horror film in the terms of the Mise-en-scene, in which it includes the usual dark and gory scenes. The plot involves the plight of a group of friends, both male and female, attempting to survive the newly-buried rise from their graves with a hunger for human flesh.

Lighting

Although the film is in black and white, it is very clear to see that certain scenes are darker and grainy to represent the scary mood that horror films can carry.

Location

The Location of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is set in Pennsylvania in which the characters are staying near a grave in a closed off area. Graves and closed off areas are general genre conventions of horror films, in which the region of the film can also be identified by the characters accents and dialogue.

Props

The main props used in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ are used a weapons such as guns and axes, which a quite stereotypical for horror films as the living fights to survive. The choice of weapon can also reveal the social class of the characters, in which the more wealthy characters would use guns and the less wealthy would use axes and whatever household weapon they can find.

Music

A lot of the eerie and disturbing music for of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was in fact not composed for the film; a lot of the music used in the film was purchased from the library of Capitol Record. The music was used to stereo-typically create the tense and shocking mood for the audience in the lead up of all the jump scares.