Birth of the Living Dead Page #8

psychedelic, and Roger Corman's

Edgar Allan Poe movies,

said they'd release it,

but under one condition.

They wanted to change

the ending and they said,

"It's just too dark,"

and, you know, so,

we boldly said, "Fuggetaboutit!

This is our movie!"

And we walked, and we never

got the time of day

from anybody else for a while.

And we finally hired, someone

recommended a sales agent,

um, you know, somebody

who's business it is

to go and, you know,

try to find distribution.

And so we hired this

guy and he took it,

and eventually got

a deal with Walter Reade.

"Night of the Living Dead"

was first released in theaters

and drive-ins

on October 2nd, 1968.

When we first saw

"Night of the Living Dead"

we went to a drive in

to watch it.

It was the first time we said,

"It really is a movie,

isn't it?"

'Cause we were able

to go to the drive in

and buy some dogs and some

popcorn, check out

"Night of the Living Dead."

"Night of the Living Dead"

in New York was treated

as a grindhouse movie,

and it was booked

as a grindhouse movie.

It played on the New Amsterdam

theater on 42nd Street,

which was like a 7th run,

a bad theater.

New York's 42nd Street

was the epicenter

of the grindhouse circuit.

These are all exploitation films

that have no artistic ambition.

You can't escape the shock.

I'm going to give you the time

of your life, baby.

That have no political meaning.

That are--are probably

morally bankrupt.

I'm going to kill you!

Night...

"Night of the Living Dead"

honestly was the kind of movie

that critics mostly dismissed.

...of the Living Dead.

It was in a very

disreputable genre.

Horror was a dirty business

right next to porn,

uh, in terms of how the movies were

made, how they were financed,

where they were shown

in drive ins.

Variety called

"Night of the Living Dead" an:

which:

Anyone who did review it

reviewed it in that way.

You know, sort of

really angrily.

It was dismissed in

the New York Times, um,

in a tiny, tiny review

by Vincent Canby.

Canby's 3 sentence

review began with:

He writes in this tone

that he can't really believe

that he's been dispatched to

have to write about this thing,

and probably had to go

spend a miserable day

at the New Amsterdam theater on

42nd Street sitting through it.

Along with

the grindhouse circuit,

"Night" was booked

for afternoon matinees.

Throughout the 60s,

horror movies,

fan magazines and toys were

marketed primarily to children.

You'll cringe in terror

when you see our

Screaming Mee Mee Show.

In 1968, parents felt safe

dropping their kids off

for an afternoon

of "horror."

Their most recent experience

would have been something

like the Roger Corman,

Vincent Price,

Edgar Allen Poe adaptations,

which were fun and they

were even a little scary,

but they were basically

horror movies

which you could

almost take kids to.

So, here comes

"Night of the Living Dead."

I can't imagine what children,

by the time you get to

the, the sort of flesh feast

where they're eating,

whatever they're eating.

And this naked, uh, zombie

staggering toward the house.

You were like, way out

of the realm of anything

that had happened in horror.

Critic Roger Ebert attended

one of these matinees.

He wrote

in the Chicago Sun-Times:

It was so many people

running out of the theater

in the hallway of the movies,

that was the first movie

I ever seen people

running out the movie.

I remember the girl

that was in front of us,

she put the coat over her head

and was running out, falling.

The name of the theater

was called, "Adams."

It was in Newark, NJ,

downtown Newark.

I had to be 10, my oldest

brother had to be 11,

and he cried worse than all

of us, and my younger brother,

it didn't bother him.

As of today,

he likes scary movies.

I might have been 13...

12, 13?

The drive in movie was

the Whitestone Drive In

in the Bronx.

The part where the little girl,

she's, like, eating the father.

That was, like,

really horrible!

It took me a long time

to get to sleep at night.

And when the lights was

off it was hard for us.

You know, I remember

a few times I wet the bed

because I was scared to get

up to go to the bathroom

because I always thought that

the "Night of the Living Dead"

was in the other room.

You feel so, like, "Oh, my God,

they're coming..."

They're going to come

to get me and eat me up!"

An abridged version

of Roger Ebert's review

was published nationwide

in Reader's Digest magazine.

In spite of this warning to

parents, the film did so well

that the National

Association of Theater Owners

selected it as their

"Exploitation picture

of the month."

It was playing at, like,

in the Drive-In circuit

and it wasn't the first

run film in the bill,

it was the last film,

so consequently it was on late

when everyone was

asleep in the car.

Elvis Mitchell first saw "Night"

when he was 10 years old

at a drive-in

in Detroit.

The sheer excitement

of seeing a movie like that,

as terrifying as it was,

it felt like it belonged to you.

You know, it felt like this

generational shift

in filmmaking.

If there had been more

resources devoted to the movie,

and more consideration,

and if it wasn't like

run and gun filmmaking,

if it wasn't like hearing

Public Enemy for the first time,

or for my parent's generation

seeing Elvis Presley

for the first time.

It's just that kind of, oh,

my God, that electricity.

In 1969, Walter Reade

re-released "Night"

on a new double bill.

They played it

with "Slaves?"

I mean, I couldn't

believe that.

You know? What?

"Slaves"

and "Night of the Living Dead?"

How does that connect?

But it was at this

double-feature

where George Abagnolo,

critic for Andy Warhol's

ultra-hip "Interview" magazine,

saw "Night."

He wrote:

And when the film got

to Europe in 1970,

the prestigious French film

journal, "Positif," called it:

Of course, the moment

that stuff starts happening

then everybody over here says,

"Well, maybe I should

take a look at this."

A bunch of people jumped

on the bandwagon, Rex Reed,

and all that.

And Roger did a Mea Culpa

and said he didn't

understand it.

Roger Ebert would later write:

The Museum of Modern Art

in New York played "Night"

to a standing-room-only crowd.

The film would

eventually become part

of its permanent collection.

But, uh, then that whole

copyright issue came up

and that was the end of that.

When Romero and Streiner were

shopping their film around,

its original title was,

"The Night of the Flesh Eaters."

And we put the little

copyright bug,

the c with circle around it,

on the title.

It was over

a live action picture,

of one of the early shots

of the car in the cemetery.

And when they put

the new title on,

which was their title,

"Night of the Living Dead,"

the copyright thing came off.

And they never noticed

that there wasn't one,

and that's the way it is.

And people all around

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