Night of the Living Dead - - The cellar or the first floor?

Cafe Society
1

In George A. Romero’s classic “Night of the Living Dead” Ben and Cooper get into an argument about whether they should hole up in the cellar or fight for it upstairs.

At first, turtling up in the cellar seems like the worst idea but when you think about it, they actually would have been better off going down there.

Instead, they all died, and then the only guy still in the house still had to take refuge in the cellar.

What do you guys think?

I personally think the stupid bastards should have tried to make a run for it when they had the chance.

2

Head for the roof. Zombie can’t climb.

3

Well, It depends a lot on how you got to the roof. If you went up on incline, they could probably follow you.

I’d take the cellar, or the upstairs.

Cellar:

Pro: Only one way in. You know where to focus your attention and try to fight them off.
Con: Only one way out.

Upstairs:

Pro:They can only come up the stairs, but not through the walls or windows. You can jump to the ground if all else fails.
Con: Be hard to build a proper barricade on the stairs.

4

Cellar!

After all, Ben insisted on staying upstairs, and look where it got everyone. Then he goes and locks himself the cellar, and he’s safe as a bug in a rug all night (SPOILER ALERT) until he shows his face at the wrong time and gets popped by a gun-crazy hillbilly (END SPOILER)

That was the irony of the whole thing. The common-sense hero was wrong, and the loudmouth villian was right.

5

But then again, if they had all went down to the cellar in the first place, maybe those hillbillies would have never shown up.

Barbara made a run for it and brought them to the house.

6

You’re referring to the 1990 remake, I think. In the original film, Barbara gets killed when the zombies invade the house…her zombified brother Johnny drags her out into the crowd.

7

Okay, in my sick, sad little world, I’ve actually thought quite a bit about this. First we need to look at the facts:

  1. Zombies are slow and stupid. This is a given. They are easily outrun and one or even two can be fended off with bare hands. The danger is in their numbers, and to an extent, their relentlessness.

  2. Zombies are relatively easy to kill- a head shot or consumption by fire will do the trick.

  3. In order to stay alive in such a situation, the best thing to do would be to pick an easily-defensible position with a good panoramic view of the area. From here, picking off the zoms with what weapons, if any, are available is a probably a good plan.

However:

  1. No one could be certain how many zombies there are at any given place or time. This is what makes an escape attempt somewhat difficult- who’s to say there won’t be more zoms and fewer resources wherever you’re heading? This makes it at least an even bet that staying where you are is safer than risking flight to parts unknown.

  2. Barricades seem to work reasonably well as long as they’re well-constructed and and are solid- open boards over the windows leave too much to chance. Locked doors seem to hold up well as long as they’re strong and barricaded.

  3. Zombies have no tactical planning ability, they just mass on their victims. This can go both ways- it’s good to have a single entry point, but what if by sheer force of numbers and weight they manage to break your barricade? You’re screwed. But an escape route out the back is risky too because it means some stray zoms could discover it and you’d be fighting a war on two fronts.

Both the cellar and the first floor have their strengths and weaknesses. But like Miller, I’d have to say a roof or other high point is probably the best bet. If there’s some way to disable any climbing apparatus like ladders or stairs after you’ve gotten up, it could be the perfect defensive position. Escape would prevent problems in this case as well, but a length of rope could solve that.

Failing all this, I say stay on the first floor. The cellar seems like a great idea, but the plans were thwarted by underestimation of zombie numbers and, of course, bringing the bitten girl down thre. Boarding up the first floor and being extra vigilant is good, but not good enough. I say start setting fires several yards from the house and stay within the ring. The zombies can’t cross it, you’re safe for a while, and it might give you time to come up with a better plan for making it to a safer haven.

8

Results of the movie aside, they are still better off upstairs than holed up in the celler. They could block off access to the upstairs just as easily and still maintain an escape route while observing their surroundings. In the celler they are basically trapped and will die in three days of dehydration unless someone rescues them.
Of course the most terifying thing about the Romeo zombie movies is not the zombies. The are like a minless force of nature. The terifying part is being trapped with a bunch of panicked, stupid, irrational, erratic humans who are armed, on the verge of lossing it at any moment and are just as likely to accidently blow themselves (or you) up.

9

Has to be the cellar.
No matter how many zombies there are, only a couple can attack the single opening at one time. And that door is far easier to barricade than the 1st or 2d floors. Thereby negating the advantage of their numbers.
Tho the roof is an option I’ve never thought of before…

10

Every time I see this movie I spend time after looking around whatever residence I’m in determining how safe from zombie attack I am…

I think Ben’s plan to stay upstairs while seeking a way out, with the cellar as a fallback position, is the better plan. The barricades, although makeshift, held off the zombies for several hours which allowed them time to try to formulate escape plans. Recall that they had a good shot at getting away in one of the trucks before the stupid couple set it on fire at the gas pump. The stupid couple died of their own panic. Mrs Cooper was killed by her daughter and Barbara died because she was in shock at seeing her brother as a zombie and so gave up. I can’t remember how Cooper died; I want to say Ben shot him for being an asshole but I really don’t remember. Regardless, no one died as a direct result of Ben’s plan of defending the upstairs and fleeing to the cellar if necessary, and Ben in fact survived the night following that course of action. So I gotta give Ben’s plan the nod.

11

I agree with Otto and Ben. Staying upstairs was a much better plan because, even if you held up in the cellar, you need to make sure the upstairs is fortified. Being in the cellar doesn’t negate the fact that zombies in the house = very bad! Staying upstairs allows you to monitor the house’s defenses, as well as keep an eye out for escape routes. If the zombies get in the front, you can run to the cellar, or use the back/side doors to escape, or even run upstairs. If you lock yourself in the cellar, sure, maybe only four zombies could work on the door at a time, but once it’s open, they’re in, and there’s nothing you can do. Plus, if they tried hard enough, I’m sure they could have gotten through the window in there as well, so it’s not all that secure.

Cooper died because Ben shot him. His corpse was then nawed on by his daughter and came back. Of course, he got about half a sit up in before Ben shot him in the head, but still. And yes, everyone’s death in that movie was through their own stupidity, although even if they had lived, the swarm most likely would have killed them anyway.

Heading up to the roof sounds like a nice idea, except for the fact that THE ZOMBIES WOULD NEVER LEAVE!!! Even if you managed to make it so the zombies could never get up there, you’d die from starvation/dehydration/exposure. And, as Dawn of the Dead/ and Day of the Dead both displayed, just because the zombies can’t get to you doesn’t mean they’re not going to stick around until they do. The same damn zombies sat outside the mall for WEEKS. Unless fresh meat comes by and lures them away, they’re not going anywhere. And you can’t go with the “Well, eventually people got there the next morning, so they would have been fine” way of thinking either because no one knew there would be help on it’s way.

So, yeah, the first floor is the best bet, mainly because it does offer up the possibility for escape. As the remake demonstrated, it’s not all that hard to get away and outrun them, so any chance to get through the crowd could meet with success. Staying upstairs means you have a better means to observe the defenses, and if it comes time to flee, you’ve got a better shot of making it.

12

I think this depends on the overall situation in the world outside. If, as in the original NOTLD, the zombie menace was slowly but surely being overcome by the military/impromptu militia, then holing up in a secure cellar until the danger passed would seem prudent. If we’re talking about things degenerating into a Dawn of the Dead-type breakdown of civilization, then a more active approach is necessary. It seems to me that mobility would be a great advantage, and in order to be able to sieze the moment for moving, being in the main living area of the house would be helpful.

One other factor is involved here – to what extent are the zombies attracted by the sight/smell of live humans? If they are attracted by live persons who they can see moving around in a house, then hiding in the basement might eventually create a relatively zombie-free environment. This seemed to work in Dawn of the Dead. On the other hand, if any structure is going to be subject to casual zombie pass-thrus, then fortifying some useful living space would be wise.

13

First, the remake sucked. Tom Savini needs to stick to doing special effects and (over)acting. His direction and the script changes made the remake so vastly inferior to the orginal that it would best be forgotten.
To answer the original question, the proper thing to do would have been to barricade the downstairs using as much cannibalized lumber as possible, which is what they did in the movie. They failed to take the next step, however which was to fort up upstairs. They should have filled the tub and all available containers with water, hauled all the food and ammunition upstairs and then gone upstairs themselves and pulled the risers off the stairway behind them. They’d have been fine upstairs for at least as long as the food and water held out. Certainly, they’d have made it to daylight with no problem whatsoever. Even if the zombies had made it into the ground floor, with no stairway there would be no way for the zombies to reach the 2nd floor. Our rather quarrelsome and ineffectual heroes would have actually been able to just ignore them. The only problem would have been from the zombie-bit little girl who would have “gone over” no matter where they took refuge.

14

My apartment is half below ground. The windows are at ground level-not a few feet above the ground, at ground level. The enrty hall to the building has a stout, metal door, placed in a glass wall.

There is a cemetery about half a block away.
That’s one of the few nice things I can say about center city apartments. There much safer in case of zombie uprising.

15

As this is my favorite movie of all time (in it’s orriginal incarnation) I have also given this much thought, as well as engaged in lively debate on this subject.

Being as I am, I would have run for it. You can only become trapped when you forgo mobility.

It didn’t take them that long to get to the farmhouse, so it wouldn’t have taken that long to get back to a more populated area. From that point a whole laundry list of possibilities springs up, such as the location of food and water, and hopefully a sporting goods store, which in movie land is always equippped with unlocked high powered rifles.

But if I had to go with one of the scenarios presented in the movie, I would have just shot Cooper right off the bat. I mean, c’mon, it’s not like you’d get caught for it, right? Lord knows you have enough problems to deal with without some jackass like Cooper in the mix. Then head for the high ground. I’m partial to the roof thing myself, but I like the idea Scumpup has with the removal of the stair risers…

16

But what good would waiting till sunlight do? Zombies don’t go away in the daylight, so they’d be stuck up there till food runs out. At which point in time, what do they do? It’s nice to think “Someone will come for us,” but that’s not always the case. When food gets low, people start becoming violently aggressive towards one another, so that just opens up a whole other can of worms.

Not to mention six people stuck together with one toilet! Yeash!

17

There’s one problem with that - there’s foreshadowing in the news reports that the sheriff and his men have been killing other real live people well before they get to the farmhouse.

In the middle of the night, demonstrating that you’re one of us and not one of them before they’ve drawn a bead on you is a dicey proposition.

I think Ben’s idea was basically sound, except that it didn’t work.

18

Why wait to daylight? So that unassing the area becomes a more realistic propositon. During the day, the zombies are more easily spotted and avoided, not to mention the greatly enahnced ease of travel for more ordinary reasons. As for the toilet and so on, IIRC, the utilities were still working in the country house, except for the phone. The stockpiling water was simply a precaution on my part. If/until the power went off, they wouldn’t necessarily have even been particularly uncomfortable.

19

Given the OP gave the option of Roof or Cellar… I choose the roof!

Higher up you can avoid them longer and there are more avenues of escape. Of course given an unlimited choice I choose the nearest Mall :smiley:

20

For all you guys who think that fortifying your defenses and staying in one place is a smart choice, think about this…

As you notice, there are only a few zombies here and there when the movie starts out. Thats a perfect time to run. The longer you hole up, the more zombies show up (hey that rhymes!). Every passing minute, your chances of escape grow smaller and smaller. By the end of the movie running away was basically impossible because there were so many zombies.