I’m an inveterate collector of images.  Some of these I take with a camera that I keep on my person at all times – driving, in the supermarket, strolling the aisles at Target – some that I cut or tear from magazines and newspapers and keep in a spiral-bound “morgue” of a notebook, but most are pictures I find on the Internet and save to an ever-bulging desktop file folder.  More often than not, I don’t have any purpose for appropriating a particular image… I just want it.  I’ve had this frame grab from the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) for some weeks now.  Don’t know where I saw it but I knew I had to have it.  If you know the movie, you’ll recognize the scene:  Barbara (Judith O’Dea) has fled the rural cemetery where her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) has been attacked by a shambling ruin of a man (Bill Hinzman), who knocks Johnny senseless (perhaps killing him) and then pursues her.  Barbara jumps into her car… but Johnny has the keys, so she throws the thing into gear with the hope of coasting out of this derelict’s range.  The man pursues the rolling vehicle with a singularity of purpose that is almost maniacal, his mouth slack, his focus on Barbara as if his own personal safety is less important than his desire to lay hands on her. 

When people saw this movie 40 years ago (exactly) they probably didn’t know where NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was going.  There was no zombie subgenre then and tales of vampirism tended to be Gothic, if not outright Romantic.  The bland familiarity of this film’s Pennsylvania location must have blown the minds of moviegoers looking for a storybook getaway.  The daytime setting of the opening frames surely would have put the audience at ease – sun’s still up, nothing bad can happen until it gets dark.  Having the first attack take place in daylight was just the first of many masterstrokes from the pen of George Romero, a point that may be lost on those coming to the movie fresh in 2008 or just forgotten by those who, like me, can count their viewings of it in double and triple digits. 

The reason this one image speaks to me is that it makes me, in an instant, relive the whole movie in my head.  More than that, it makes me want to go rewatch NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and try to see the whole movie with the new eyes that I bring to this one fleeting instant taken out of context.  I’m at a loss to tell you precisely why I find this one image so evocative  It’s a combination of things, I guess… the natural proscenium of the car window, the distant woods beyond, the ghoul’s white hand pressed so flatly against the glass he is trying to break through and that look on his face, such a weird marriage of fearsomeness and desperation.  The whole of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is expressed in this one simple composition: the horror, the terror, and the ineffable sadness of this puzzle we call life.

So, back to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD for me for the, I’ve lost count, 20th, 25th, 30th time?  All my life I’ve had people look at me like I have two heads because I’ll watch the same movie multiple times (these are usually people who follow professional sports) but sometimes it takes repeat viewings to really see something and to sort out kneejerk reactions from true emotional response.  Haven’t you ever found your opinion of a movie change the second or third time around… love turns to like, like turns to mild distaste or dismissal grows into admiration and admiration into love?  Human beings are chemical reactions, our process is ongoing, and movies, like all kinds of stimulus, change that chemistry.  So based on the alchemy of a single frame, I’m sent back to a movie I’ve spent days watching (if each viewing were to be strung back-to-back) and one I liked the first time.  It may seem like madness to you and maybe it is.  Anyway, my renewed interest is nothing if not well timed, as a brand new transfer of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has just been released on DVD in honor of its 40th anniversary.  I wonder if I’ll ever be done watching this damned thing.