A wizard did it.
“A wizard did it” LOL.
Anyway, what can bother me is planned stupidity. For instance, you can understand dog-girl running of to save chips - it’s stupid, but she’s young, under lots of stress, etc. But you feel the larger group should have been able to stop her…
Evil Death:
[crack of Official Administrator Whip] WHOA! Hey, you’re getting riled because of discussion of the biology behind zombie-creation in a movie? I suggest a cold shower, Evil Death, to calm yourself down. Real cold. This kind of personal insult or personal attack is not permitted in civil discourse, nor in this forum. Cease and desist. Right? [/crack of whip]
No, by the way in which certain people put forth. Point taken, however.
No, but he probably believes - and not without good reason - that the group would finish off Luda before the baby was born, thus killing it regardless.
There’s claims and there’s claims, though. The movie may not explicitly state that the cause is a virus, but with the sole exception of the rate of spread the evidence points exclusively towards that conclusion. As the rate of spread renders the only logical conclusion impossible we have a paradox to which Ockham’s Razor may be applied, and the simplest possible explanation for this paradox is an inconsistency in the script.
To an extent, ALL the “Dead” movies have hinged on the live folks being stupid, gang.
NIGHT: The major theme of the movie is that our heroes cannot pull together and cooperate effectively. If they had, they would have survived.
DAWN v.1.0: Steven gets mad at the bikers and engages them, rather than sniping or simply hiding. This leads the bikers to regroup and counterattack, rather than doing what they originally seem to have come to do – some rather pointless looting of jewelry and money.
DAY: Um… jeez, this whole movie is so full of dysfunctional behavior and slightly loony people doing slightly loony stuff because their stress level is off the charts, I don’t even know where to begin. This movie should be the poster child of what happens when you’ve been locked up in the bomb shelter with the neighbors too long.
On the other hand, I can see the point being made. We can live with the stupidities of NOTLD because we have the Ben character to fall back on – Ben, the hero, the guy who does what WE would have done, instead of that spineless jerk in the basement who wants to give orders, or the confused boyfriend who means well and winds up getting barbecued. The fact that Basement Guy winds up having been right, and Ben winds up having been wrong is irrelevant. We like Ben. He seems like a good guy, and his ideas are good. At least, they would have worked if everyone had pulled together.
In the Dawn remake, though… yeah, I will admit that the actions of some of the characters very much stuck in my craw. I can chalk a lot of it up to “under a lot of stress,” though. Although the sudden unanimous decision to flee a perfectly good mall still VERY much makes me wonder…
As to Daddy and Luda… my take on that was that Daddy wasn’t thinkin’ that far. He loved Luda, and he wanted to be a good father to his child. He feels very strongly about this, and it is explicitly stated in one scene. When Luda starts to get sick, he begins to get weird…
…which leads him to tie Luda to the bed before she dies. Just in case. My thought was that some part of him was still rational, and did this to avoid harm to himself or the baby… but I think he was cracked up enough to be able to deny that Luda had become a zombie, at least on SOME level. The same was true when he finally sees the baby. I figured THAT was the event that pushed him over completely, and he finally shoots the truck driver lady because, in his mind, Luda is just overwrought by having given birth, that’s all, and there’s not a THING wrong with this baby, and he was NOT going to let Truck Driver Lady murder his FAMILY!
Crazy people do NOT operate by the rules, folks. You guys insist on thinking logically. Crazy people are free of such constraints. Just because he tied Luda up doesn’t mean he wasn’t almost completely fruity-gumballs…
I disagree that all of the evidence points to a viral cause, but I’ve already made my case and to further repeat it serves no function.
While I think it’s admirable that y’all are discussing the methods of zombie infection, I think we should focus on the important things. Like, why you people are so fixated on zombie sex.
Seriously.
The issue being that Ben is black, of course.
It wasn’t a perfectly good mall. They were down to emergency power supplies and had run out of important foodstuffs.
I’ve said all along I think he was grief-stricken but rational to the point where the baby was born, Wang-Ka.
This is never explicitly stated in either the original or the remake. It might well have been an issue, though, considering the original was taking place in 1968… or perhaps Basement Guy was just a jerk. Either conclusion could be valid.
As opposed to a completely unknown island somewhere? Better the devil I know than the devil I don’t. Then again, that’s just my opinion.
And I don’t believe I ever said you were wrong. Simply making my own observations, that’s all. All things considered… I mean, it being a movie and all… how right could any of us BE?
Evil Death, I’ve stayed out if this thread for a while because I didn’t care for the tone it was taking, but a bit of education is needed.
A. The tension in Night of the Living Dead stems from Ben being black.
Not so. On one of the commentary tracks of the Elite Millennium Edition DVD, George Romero himself said that the part was not written to be necessarily played by a black actor, but that Duane Jones was a good local actor who happened to be black. Any racial tension in the film is supplied by the imagination of the audience. The conflict between Harry and Ben stems from Harry’s selfishness, and the deliberate irony of the film is that he was right all along.In fact, one of the important aspects of Night commented on by film critics over the years is that it is the first truly colorblind films, in that nobody comments on or even pays attention to the lead character’s race.
A. The cause of the outbreak is viral.
There is no cause, really. In Night, a radio commentator links the outbreak to a returned Venus probe contaminated with radiation from outer space,but it’s never mentioned again in the movie or its two sequels.
I would urge you to read up more on the films and listen to Romero’s commentaries to learn more. Master Wang-Ka’s posts have been spot-on in their understanding of the films’ intent and themes. Romero has stated many times that the films are meant to depict the fatal flaws of human interaction. The people in the Dead films succumb to the zombies through their own failure, greed, and selfishness. People are the real threat in the Dead films, not the zombies.
Can I please use this as a sig?
How about appending it to your current sig? 
Yeah, but the devil you know has a couple of thousand flesh-eating zombies in the car park. You may be leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but while there’s no guarantee that you will land in the fire if you jump, if you stay where you are you are most definitely arseholed.
Comments like that are why it began taking that tone. Ware the frumious patronising tone, my son. 
Maybe, but I don’t know how fondly the film would be remembered without it. Ben being black adds a depth to the movie that would otherwise be lacking, as the not exactly competent Harry doesn’t listen to what a black man says no matter how much sense it makes. If a white actor had played Ben, you’d just have had two white guys waving their dicks at each other.
Also, the posses at the end of Night and in the original Dawn both come across as good ol’ boys out huntin’ and shootin’ - in Dawn, they’ve even got themselves some strange fruit. Romero most definitely intended the movies to reflect social issues, and whatever he may say about it being unintentional, he got this one as a bonus.
You obviously never seen The Dead Hate the Living!.
I’ve never seen The Dead Hate The Living, simply because I burned out on nonRomero zombie movies after someone conned me into seeing A Virgin Among The Living Dead. Some movies defy you to figure out why they were ever made. I do have a copy of Zombiethon, from the old Wizard Video outfit, which pretty much includes all the worthwhile parts of every Italian zombie movie ever made…
As to Ben’s color, and why he and Harry would be waving their dicks at each other… well… not once in the movie does anyone use the N word, weirdly enough, which is something I’d expect Harry to do in 1968. I’ve heard Romero’s story about how a black actor just happened to get the part, and I believe it. Ben ain’t no token, nor is he a symbol. He’s just a guy, like everyone else in the movie. Except the women, that is. “Colorblind” seems to be as good a way as any of putting it.
Telling a viral infection from a microbial one can be tricky. Considering the livid blood vessels seen around zombie bites in the remake, my first thought was microbial infection of some sort – blood poisoning, if you will. Viruses generally have a longer incubation period, but tend to be considerably nastier, since most “wonder drugs” have little effect on them – you need a specific, if one exists, for the viral infection in question. This begs the question of why, when Matt Frewer was dying, they didn’t hit him up with a load of penicillin, and hope for the best. Then again, most malls don’t generally carry a lot of penicillin, unless they have a pharmacy handy.
…but considering the incubation period of the zombie disease – if it IS a disease – can be measured in SECONDS, well, I don’t see a lot of evidence for viruses over bacteria. Of course, bacteria generally don’t work that fast, either. I’d rather avoid pathogens entirely, and go with the Romero interpretation of “it’s just the way things are now,” except that the remake denies us this; only people bitten by zombies become zombies.
True, you could use the same interpretation… but it itches at my mind. Why? Why don’t ALL dead people get up and start munchin’? I mean, if we’re going to change the laws of biology, here…
There is also the question of why any sane person would arrange for the Zombie Apocalypse pathogen to trigger simultaneously throughout the world. WTF? This, again, points to a metaphysical cause… which is, again, belied by the fact that only the bitten can arise. Aaargh!
Admittedly, I only saw the movie once, but the only evidence of a diminishing food supply I saw was that whatzisname seemed to have consumed all of a certain kind of coffee. If you wish to drive out through a zillion screaming zombies for a cup of coffee, you have my best wishes, and certainly my prayers. Me, I’m barricading myself back in as soon as you’re out the door, bud. True, they’ve lost power, and the refrigerated stuff isn’t going to last… and you may well have a point. Was there a restaurant in the mall? Anyplace that sold canned food? Even one of those ubiquitous little health food stores that sells Ripped Fuel and protein supplements?
Hard to believe they could have cleaned out the whole food supply in a week… but, then, we aren’t sure exactly how long they’ve been in there, either. Long enough for Luda to go from live to dead, and long enough for Andy to get hungry, anyway.
…but the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to see this as a case of a movie with an “idiot plot.” Sure, the teen girl could have had a bad impulsive moment with the dog… but at one point, Ving Rhames is fully prepared to go kick zombie ass all the way to the military base, all by himself, to find his brother, an act I personally thought of as “not too bright,” and the irritating yuppie guy… well… every time he made one of his pithy comments, I kept thinking, you know, yuppie guy, you are living amongst a gaggle of heavily armed people who’ve lost everything that ever meant anything to them, and are under a great deal of stress. You sure you don’t wanna rephrase that? Hell, I’m amazed nobody capped him before they even left the mall.
True, Romero’s films deal with the dangers of one’s fellow man, and how people under stress get wobbly real quick… but, then, I personally think Romero’s films were more artfully done. Their flow and character actions felt considerably more natural than the mall guard’s sudden conversion from gun-wielding jackass to self-sacrificing hero, just to name one…
Let’s just say I wouldn’t be too damn anxious to leave until I had to. Particularly in view of the complete failure of all broadcast media. THAT would have shaken me pretty good. And, given a choice of places to hole up, I’d have picked a Wal-Mart warehouse over a completely unknown island, any day of the week…
That wasn’t in Dawn, it was in the 1990 remake of Night (I assume you’re referring to hanging zombies from a tree.) In the commentary track for the 1990 movie, I think Tom Savini also mentions how Ben was originally not written as a black character.
The very idea of triggering a Zombie Apocalypse in the first place is insane. But if that is your intent, doing it in a bunch of population centers spread across the globe would be more effective than in just one.
I don’t follow. Why couldn’t a non-biological cause be transferred by a bite? That’s generally the way zombies’ spiritual cousins, vampires and werewolves, spread their curse.
I dareay that’s true of horror movies generally.
As for having sex with the dead, wow, that reminds me of my ex-wife.
Mm… well… basically, I guess it boils down to “in the original movie, it weren’t that way.” My own prejudice, basically. It’s like rewriting vampires in such a way that instead of bites, you have to have sex with one, you know? Sure, it works, but it ain’t canon, dammit…
Gotcha. Maybe it’s changes like this that are the reason Romero wasn’t involved with the remake.
There are vampire-like creatures that do their feeding through sex called succubi (female) and incubi (male).