Very, very few films can truly claim to have wholly created a new sub-genre. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) is such a rare beast. It is truly the year zero moment for the zombie film as we understand it today. Sure, there had been sporadic examples of zombie films before Night but they all focused on a decidedly different type of thing. The early zombie, both in cinema and literature, was a sort of sleepwalking being in a deathly trance. Romero's film was the first example anywhere to postulate the idea that bodies returning from the dead would be rotting corpses who relentlessly pursue human beings in order to rip them apart and eat them. Nowadays, of course, zombies are simply everywhere. In the last decade in particular the idea of the Romero zombie has become so well known that it is a cultural reference that practically everyone understands. For this reason, it goes without saying that Night of the Living Dead is easily one of the most influential and important horror movies ever made. And that's only part of the reason why.Birth of the Living Dead is a very good focus on the making and impact of this seminal film. It looks at the social climate of the time and considers how this influenced the making of the movie. The late 60's were one of the most dramatic periods in American history. The counter-culture was in full swing but about to come crashing down, political distrust was widespread, racial tensions were resulting in violence and the deeply divisive Vietnam War rumbled on ominously in the background. All of these elements and more led to the crumbling of the Hollywood studio system whose movies no longer connected with the rapidly changing times, this of course led to the brief but glorious New Hollywood years where many personal and left-field films were made by the big studios.While all this was going on a bunch of inexperienced film-makers from Pittsburgh were putting together a low budget horror movie, so low budget that it was being shot in black and white. This very fact was a serious obstacle back then given that the move to colour was pretty widespread by 1968. But this independent film went against the grain in other ways too. For one thing it had a black lead actor. Not only that, but the film never even made any reference to this and dealt with it in a matter of fact manner, making the decision seem all the more bold. This may not sound like much now but in the 60's it was still quite a hurdle and ultimately transgressive. Also, the film brought in a unique seriousness to its b-movie material. Everything is played completely straight. The influence of the European New Wave can be detected in the television scenes of the news reports detailing the carnage. They are messy and naturalistic in a manner like an actual news-feed; this of course added to the urgency and realism and magnified the fear factor. With this more serious framework, Romero introduced graphic violence which added to the overall terror. Gory violence had been a staple of some schlock horror of the earlier 60's in the form of the films of H.G. Lewis and his imitators but these films always essentially had their tongues in their cheek. Romero removed the humour safety valve and so the visceral violence is all the more terrifying as a result. We have zombies eating human remains and a little girl bloodily murdering her mother in full on sequences. The film even had the nerve to end on an incredibly bleak and ironic note with the hero Ben being killed at the end when a gung-ho mob shoot him thinking him a zombie. But this hero also had survived by doing the one thing he advocated against the whole film, so this was a film that presented the viewer with many questions and gave few easy solutions.The documentary interviews many of those involved in the making of the film. We get to understand the financing problems and the way that everybody involved had a variety of roles in the creation process in order to save money. We also learn how difficult it was to sell the movie afterwards, even exploitation distributors AIP only wanted to release it if it had a happy ending added. When it did eventually get a distribution deal it met with initial hostility and only later did many actually understand it. It was ahead of its time in truth. It also is notable for falling immediately into the public domain for not having a © mark on it, leading to the film-makers who made this incredibly influential work not making a cent on it! This film details all this and much more, it's essential viewing for anyone at all interested in this most important of horror movies.

(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.

Birth of the Living Dead (2013) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Did we really need yet another documentary about NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD? Probably not but this one here is so entertaining and gives us some fresh looks on the subject that fans of the George Romero classic will certainly want to check it out. Director Rob Kuhns interviews Romero who touches on familiar subjects like his early career, how the story came up and the impact the film had once it was released. Where the documentary sets itself apart is that it focuses in on some of the more political moments in the film including what was going on in the world at the time. Vietnam and the Civil Rights are certainly discussed here. You might be saying that we've heard these stories before and that's true but this documentary manages to throw out some good information and even better is that we get some professional critics who discuss the impact of the film and their memories of seeing it as children. Elvis Mitchell has some great stories about the first time he watched the film and there's some great stuff dealing with how the distributor pretty much threw this film into kid matinées. There's even a great sequence where people discuss how everything zombie wise pretty much goes back to this film and Romero. Even more interesting is the talk of the lead black actor and the type of movies Sidney Poitier was doing at this thing. I really wish Romero would have commented on this part of the subject but he doesn't. With that said, this is certainly a highly entertaining documentary, although it does run a bit short at just 75-minutes.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was the very first movie I ever bought (on Beta, for $50) and when I took it home to watch it- alone-, it spooked me so bad that I had to call up a buddy and have him come over to watch it with me. (And that was AFTER I'd seen it several times in theaters- at a midnight showing and on a double bill with the remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.) It remains, to this day, one of my all-time favorite films. Like the boxing documentary CHAMPIONS FOREVER, BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD delves into the turbulence of the 1960s that might've played a part in the overall FEEL of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. (And it's an even more valid approach to a fright film in THIS day and age, with the Middle Class literally having been CONSUMED by The Greedy Politicians and Lawyers who own and run this company- er, country...)I've long wondered why someone- the original creators themselves, for instance- hasn't made a movie about the making of a horror classic like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The behind-the-scenes contretemps (as chronicled in many a book and article and behind-the-scenes commentary over the years) would no doubt make for an interesting (and funny) film. Hell, I'd even settle for an audio autobiography by Romero: he has the easy-going conversational style that would make for a fascinating evening's listening. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD still resonates with power because of its uncompromising integrity. Elvis Mitchell sums it up nicely in BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD: "It's completely terrifying- and the perfect ending." The bonus features on the DVD should've been incorporated into the documentary itself: an extended interview with Romero, a Monroeville Mall zombie walk with the late Bill Hinzman, and the audio from the June 6, 1970 Museum of Modern Art Q&A with Romero.