Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever by Joe Kane

I’m a sucker for anything and everything Romero so when my wife brought this book home I jumped right in.  Though at this point after years of collecting and reading everything I could about Romero’s career and films there isn’t much that I don’t know.  But I’m always up for a good read.

So lets start off with the things I like about the book.  The book does have quite a bit of information in it about Romero’s entire career.  It is presented in an organized and easy to follow series of chapters.  Mixed in are quotes from those involved in making Night of the Living Dead, though many of these quotes are taken from other sources that I’ve already read.  I also thought it was a nice touch that spread throughout the book are brief interviews or small essays with other filmmakers like Danny Boyle and Peter Jackson about how Night of the Living Dead effected their careers or their experience seeing it the first time.  The author clearly has an affection for Romero and many of his films that I as a reader appreciated. 

But there were a few things that did bug me about this book as well.  First up this is presented as a book about Night of the Living Dead (I mean read the title already!).  While much of the material revolves around this movie, the book plays more as a career retrospective of Romero.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but as a reader I am a bit put off when I don’t get what I was expected.  Another thing that I didn’t expect and honestly didn’t enjoy was how Kane injects his opinion in inappropriate places.  When you are giving information about where, when, and how certain movies were made I don’t think it is the place for the author to take shots at productions.  I mean I don’t disagree with many of the things Kane has to say on the subjects, but this gives the book a “fan boy” sort of vibe and feel that hurts it in the end.  The last thing I wanted to mention is the content of the book.  If you are going to write a book about a movie like Night of the Living Dead I expect you to have some access to those involved in the movie.  As I’ve already mentioned many of Kane’s quotes from the principals are taken from other interviews.  Anyone can hop the on Internet or go to the library and collect interviews this way so I was hoping for more.  The book also cheats a bit with it’s 300 plus page length which I initially was impressed with.  Almost a 1/3rd of this is a reprinting of the original script and when you take out the extensive citing of sources you are lucky to have a couple hundred pages of material.  What looks like a decent book on one of my favorite movies ends up sort of light.

In the end I’d have to say if you are new to Romero and/or don’t know much about his career then this is decent place to start.  On the other hand if you are already a fan then there isn’t anything new here. 

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer