This oddly short documentary gives us a history lesson on the iconic groundbreaking Night Of The Living Dead (1968) Though the interviews are mostly with Romero that is no issue for me as the man always delivers intelligent concise points on whatever he's talking about.The documentary covers the films origins through its production and to the legacy that it created. Truly the movie was genre defining and a lot of what we see today on stage and screen wouldn't exist without its presence.What this feature covers extensively as well is the race issues touched upon in the film and that were raging through America during the 1960's. This though nothing not seen before is informative and hard hitting.Short, sweet and competently made this is a decent effort and a must watch for fans of Romeros work.The Good: Romero interviews are excellentWell constructed The Bad: Tad short Things I Learnt From This Documentary: The guts and intestines being eaten by the zombies were real!

(Classic movie quote) - "They're coming for you, Barbara!" To fully appreciate and enjoy this documentary (that takes an in-depth look at the 1968 zombie-flick "Night Of The Living Dead" and the vast impact that it has had on the zombie genre ever since), I think one really needs to watch said-movie first in order to remain interested in this DVD's content.Through interviews (with, among others, a 73-year-old George Romero), as well as vintage film clips and stills galore, the viewer gets a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this classic, low-budget horror film (whose costs totalled $114,000) that was solely responsible for rebooting the tired zombie-movie genre, and, to date, has earned itself over $30 million.Naturally, there are people out there who want to read hidden, political messages into this film's gruesome, little story, especially since its protagonist was a black man who, at one point, actually resorted to slapping the face of a white woman.For the most part - I did not feel, in any way, let down by this 76-minute documentary. In its generally good-natured way, it certainly delivered the goods on a truly haywire movie that literally terrified me silly when I first saw it on late-night TV as an impressionable kid.

While I am certainly no fan to zombie films in general because the genre has been WAY over-saturated in recent years, I have enjoyed a few of the films and understand that they still are very popular and important films despite my misgivings about many of the recent films. So, because of this, the new documentary Birth of the Living Dead is well worth seeing and is rather timely. It is THE granddaddy of all modern zombie films—the one that led to subsequent generations of such pictures. In fact, it's one of the most important movies of the 1960s and it's one every film student and horror fan should see and appreciate. It managed to overcome its low production values and humble origins to become a cult favorite.Not surprisingly, the creator of the original film, Night of the Living Dead, George Romero, is featured in this documentary. When he's being interviewed is when the film is at its best. His tidbits about the making of Night of the Living Dead are really interesting and I wanted even more of this than Romero provided. Additionally, a variety of experts are interviewed and they discuss what they love about the movie. Also not surprisingly, various clips from this seminal film are shown throughout this homage. Among the topics covered are the director's expectations as well as how he made the film, the impact of the film on pop culture, the reaction of the critics (both immediately after the film was released and later after many re-assessed the movie), the political and racial themes in the film (whether intended or not) and how the film was groundbreaking as well as how it mirrored the times in which it was made.This documentary certainly is well worth seeing and I recommend you see it provided you first see the old film it's based on—otherwise it might be a bit confusing. However, it's not a perfect making of film and could have been a bit better. As I mentioned above, the inside information from Romero was great but too often various 'experts' (and I have no idea what constituted this in many of the folks chosen to discuss the film) talked a lot more about hidden social significance (something that Romero revealed is NOT always in the movie) and the times instead of talking more about the original movie itself and how it was made. Still, despite this, the film is reasonably well made and kept my interest throughout. For horror fans and film students, it certainly should be a film to watch.

If you read the "storyline" description of this Documentary you would assume it's about the production of the film "Night of the living dead", and yes we get maybe 15 minutes of some interesting tidbits on the investors and players involved BUT the remaining 60 minutes is pure drivel. I give it 3 stars for the 15 minutes of somewhat entertaining stories. It loses 7 stars from the somewhat laughable metaphoric connections to the late 60s in terms of racial violence and the Vietnam war. They could have spent 5 minutes on how it was somewhat unusual to cast an African American in the lead at the time and how some of the shooting visuals looked a little like riot and war footage. Instead we get an hour of Vietnam and race riot footage and trying to connect it to different scenes in the movie. The taglines and plot descriptions on various websites like IMDb and vudu look like it's targeted to 'Romero' fans but should only be shown in a political science class and that's a stretch.