The reason this particular movie failed upon release is that it’s not very good.
George Romero had a nice little idea about reanimated corpses attacking and eating people, but then he got silly.
That’s all, really…he was never much of a writer, or a director; aside from ‘Night’ and ‘Land’, he’s made mostly cheezy, occasionally interesting cr@p.
A few interesting-creepy moments half an hour in here, a few more intermittently throughout. Besides them, it’s cr@p.
Upped a notch for the superior remake it inspired.
Particularly lame: the cutaways from a poorly-written military highups convo to really stupid military ACTION! bits.
Pretty d@mn bad: The writing in general.
Almost as bad: The acting in general…but then again, it’s hard to act well given these lines. Also, George has a habit of hiring non-actors to act: one from here reappears as a dumb-a$$ in ‘Dawn’, another moves on to bigger and better-acted things as Frankenstein in ‘Day’.
Fav bad bit: Persistent suit-muffled dialogue.
Inspirational Defiance: Ted Striker goes berserk.
Inspirationally Dated Song: The end theme.
Inspirational Monotone Quote: “Stop where you are…”
Grade: D-