Night of the Living Dead (Rifftrax style)
I enjoy these Rifftrax screenings (for the uninitiated: 3 of the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 provide live comedic commentary over the movie) but it's generally best if the movies being showcased are bad. To make fun of a movie like Birdemic or Plan 9 From Outer Space can be entertaining, but to mock a movie as good as Night of the Living Dead (or their last target, Starship Troopers, a movie that knows exactly what it is) is a fairly fruitless endeavor. Sure, I laughed (they are a funny gaggle of dudes), but it mostly left me cold.
What's great about George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is that it manages to retain its power 45 years after it was released, even with a comic commentary going on over the soundtrack. It's still a smart, scary movie that puts most others in the overly-crowded zombie sub-genre to shame. I go back and forth between this one and Romero's follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, the one I prefer is usually the one I've seen most recently.
Night is a stark, cynical masterpiece that also happens to feature one of the best (if bleakest) endings of all time. It's not surprising that once this particular screening reached that ending it was difficult for the Rifftrax performers to keep things light. The live audience that they were performing in front of was mostly silent for the last few minutes, their only sound an audible gasp as a particular moment (trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible despite the age of the movie) unfolded. Turning that ending into comic fodder is nigh impossible, though they tried their best to make it funny. Their next show in a couple of months is going to be Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, that should be more the right speed for a Rifftrax event.
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