I haven't watched much films from this era... I watched Rosemary's Baby recently... I've seen 2001 a space odyssey.
I do understand that this is a low budget film... but still... it seems far worse in film quality than it needed to be... was this a stylistic choice, or a result of lower budget? I mean... looking at it, I'd think it was from the 30s or 40s...
Were there other films of this era with this look?
Black and white adds to the eerie quality and also allows for cheaper special effects (you don't have to worry about getting colors of blood/guts just right).
shareIt constantly amazes me that every Sean Connery Bond film minus Diamonds are Forever is older than Night of the Living Dead. NOLD look like something that came out of the 40s or 50s. Hell, even the score sounds from that era.
Adds to its charm, I think.
I don't think so. If that was the case I've never heard Romero or anyone involved with the production mention it, and I've read and watched a lot of material about this and Romero's other zombie movies over the years.
I think the reason it looks "old" to you compared to something else from roughly the same time is because the budget was virtually non-existent, which meant shooting with equipment that was less than state of the art and using cheap, lower quality film stock that hasn't been very well taken care of over the years. For example, most people assume that the movie was shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm, but it was actually shot on 35! I can't think of another movie shot on 35mm that looks as frankly lousy as most versions and prints of Night of the Living Dead look. A few home video editions have taken great pains to clean the film up to restore it more to being along the lines of how it looked initially before poor quality prints were struck and circulated, and a couple of them look considerably better than what those familiar with the film are used to seeing, but it's still not a film that's ever going to look like Citizen Kane.
Anyway, I kind of side with those who say that the poor quality of the visual presentation that most prints and DVD editions give us kind of work in favor of the movie's effectiveness. There's something about seeing this on grainy, scratchy, frayed film with periodic debris and other flaws apparent that makes it scarier.
[deleted]
For me i think the music makes it look like it was made in 30s/40s.
shareThis was an independently produced film. It was extremely low budget. It doesn't even compare to a low budget studio film. Most people believe the low budget helped the film, giving it a documentary feel, but it wasn't intentional. Your comparison to films from the '30s or '40s doesn't make any sense. I can only assume you don't watch many, if any, films older than 50 years.
sharethat is probably why i like it so much, as well as the other 1960 movie examples brought up (the last man on earth, carnival of souls), after i explained what sort of budget this movie had my buddy was quite impressed by it, spoiler, i'm used to it now but this is one awfully sad downer ending, after having watched "day of the dead" from 1985 i just had to re watch this which i watch every halloween anyway, it is so superior, as how they put more focus on these people (instead of the zombies like the 1985 movie) stuck in the country house, the great settings of the 1960's with regular people (instead of juvenile macho men in "day of the dead"), and the radio and tv reception these people receive, would that instead get replaced by 1980's pop sync techno... oh right, that was the constant soundtrack in the 1985 flick, and since this movie is so old you don't get hit in the face with blood and violence but rather chilling, mysterious and spooky. the 1990 remake version i could never get hooked on, but wasn't there another version of this made decades later with added new shot scenes not going over well with the public or critics, i know this was also once put colour on but i think it suits in black and white like "psycho" (1960) and "ed wood" (1994). funny the line about changing the hours to get more daylight, how insane😀 i figure you're taken off guard the by the first zombie in this movie as it appears like a regular looking guy just strolling around the cemetery without any horror make up on. this and the following two are being described as romero's zombie trilogy, then there kept coming more in the 21st century, i think i saw the first of them but more recently i saw birth of the living dead (documentary about this) and i know to others as well this flick has become a tradition pick for halloween.
⚰️😵🚪📻📺
you always had a smile for me,
nomatter what misery,
on every path,
like a kindred sister i had,
since you left the face of earth turned sad.