So I'm a bit of a fan of Night of the Living Dead. It's a great horror movie that relies on the situation to scare you, not gore and jump scares. I like my situational horror. It's not cheap. Blair Witch Project is great because it relies on the situation to scare you, and Night of the Living Dead is one of those horror movies that is situational horror. There's a reason why the original black and white movie is considered one of the best horror movies of all time. Even by today's standards and effects, this 1968 movie is creepy. I watch Night of the Living Dead every Halloween since 2011.
Well, as with many black and white movies, it was colorized, in order to make it more appealing to modern audiences. I don't know what colorized version I watched, but I know that it's in color. So how does it compare. Well...it doesn't. Plain and simple, it just isn't as good in color. Yes, the colorization that this movie went through is quite impressive. I would have thought that it was filmed in color if I didn't know better. It even works rather well when it comes to a bulk of the movie with the character development. However, when it comes to the ghouls, it just doesn't work. In black and white, the difference between humans and ghouls was kind of felt more than seen, with the fact that their faces just didn't feel right. They looked like humans, but just didn't feel like humans. Now with the color, you can tell it's make-up. Sure, you could tell it's make-up in black and white with today's special effects, but it was less jarring and felt like it was part of what the ghouls looked like. In color though, well it just doesn't look good. Then there's a couple of death scenes, that while a little badly acted, they felt almost "I'm so scared I can't behave logically" in black and white, but in color they feel like "I can't act."
If you're going to watch Night of the Living Dead, watch it in black and white. It's just much better in black and white. The images are creepier which more than makes up for the dated effects and lower quality acting from some. Color just hurts it. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and Happy Halloween.
