Rish Outfield's reviews
This is the Gone With the Wind of Zombie films! Spooky, interesting, fun, sad, stupid, brilliant, and oddly socially relevant. I read somewhere that the whole zombies as coinhabitants was supposed to be a commentary on racism, but I choose not to believe it. What I see is a horror movie that works on several different levels, and FEELS right to me. You know what I mean? It feels like this is what life in a living dead world would really be like. Especially if it was 1978...FOREVER. Never mind. What I meant to say was--I love this movie! Hopefully, you will too. Yes, it's a bit gory, and yes, the 70's were a silly-looking time, but overlook that and pay attention. Didn't Anthony Michael Hall mention that this movie scared the heck out of him in Weird Science? Whoops--tangent. The performances are good (I often hear, in my head, the blonde guy saying, "But I'm gonna try...not to."), the makeup is great, and George A. Romero is to be lauded. And keep your eyes open--you know what will happen when there's no more room in Hell.
Best Scare: The story that includes the above line.
Who I'd Recommend It To: Horror fans like you and me.
Posted: July 22nd, 2002

The tyranist's thoughts
Fantastic. The trapped feeling that was present in Night of the Living Dead increases exponentially and mankind's fate begins to look grim. The gore is more. The characters better developed. The situation more entertaining. On every level I can think of this movie is satisfying. As much as I hate some of the characters when the movie starts, by the time its over, I wouldn't want anyone else with me in this situation. Of course, the fact that George Romero took every suburban American kid's dream and turned it into a nightmare helps the tension. I remember fondly imagining that I lived at the mall and had free run of everything. And that was before I ever saw this movie. Still, in some small way it makes the scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day even more menacing.
This movie probably isn't for the weak-stomached horror fan. There were moments where Rish and I cried out in sympathy. I should also note that our Skulls are based on the Anchor Bay widescreen, collector's edition of the movie that has quite a few scenes not found in the versions that are closer to the theatrical release.
In re-viewing this recently, I was again struck by how masterfully George Romero manipulates us. In particular, the scenes with all of the "rednecks" hunting zombies served two purposes for me. First, it tied the movie back into Night of the Living Dead perfectly and second, it set up the later biker army scenes by foreshadowing both how much fun people were having in the face of death and how much contempt for those people Stephen had. Just a detail that is easy to overlook, but Romero inserted it perfectly. It makes the failure of so many other zombie films all the more glaring.