HORROR IS Relative
The moment I pick up our remote control, my fiancée knows she is in for the painfully familiar guide scroll. She is kind enough to abdicate power, and waits for me to settle on something of interest to us both. I abandon mutual interest when Night of the Living Dead (1968) appears on screen. It matters not upon what scene I enter the story. I am drawn in and absorbed. At the risk of rolled eyes and a sardonic stare, I make a silent plea, and offer a sheepish grin when she acquiesces, preferring another viewing of the movie to the contents of the guide. In 4 years she has seen all the ghouls her eyes care to ingest. Because the film remains in the public domain, it is available to any channel or digital platform, ensuring perpetual availability. Although several DVD versions sit on my bookshelf, I am compelled to drag Gemma into the grainy world with me; a world I visit to help digest childhood leftovers.
Although in the age of high definition and restored film prints, I am charmed by old DVD prints with scratchy film and crackling soundtrack overlaying low key black and white. I have learned to accept and even embrace imperfection. If I can tolerate fatal flaws in family, a worn print of a film is adequate. Home reflects the flaws of its leaders and beneath those leaders are the vulnerable, exposed like flesh waiting for the teeth of threat to bite.
I revel in scenes that depict the mundane in between shots of impending doom. When the impromptu family members stare in horror at the news and squabble over house rules, life seems normal, even in the absence of discourse venturing beyond the superficial. No one knows anyone else, and each person functions as a self-absorbed individual. When watching footage of the mob set out to destroy zombies, I am reminded of the way in which humanity insists on destroying itself. Havoc ensues in the absence of coalition.
Every viewing intensifies my desire to rewrite the ending of the film. I scrutinize it, looking for the moment it all went horribly wrong, and then create a different result. I do not just watch Night of the Living Dead; I process it, and experience a naïve hope the outcome will somehow change for the better, and the makeshift family will remain intact instead of being torn apart. The end remains the same, but I retain my childlike optimism things can be different. I mention only in passing I became a therapist to help my clients rewrite their own endings.
The conclusion of the film best describes my reasons for retreat into the morose. Had Ben decided to walk out of the farmhouse and been rescued, I could be duped by the hope of romanticism. Ben’s death is tragic, but it displays realism, and we only learn to cope with life through the real. Night Of The Living Dead lends perspective by soothing scars I’ve buried in a cemetery of memories where headstones read: family, fidelity, and father.
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