Full Attention - Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Cody discusses every minute of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

Like it says in the intro for the weekly Worth Mentioning articles, I watch several movies a week, and the ones that receive reviews or Worth Mentioning or Film Appreciation write-ups aren't the only ones I watch. For each one that does get written about, there are others that I end up multitasking through or putting on as background noise. So I thought it would be fun to start a new article series here on Life Between Frames that's called Full Attention. In these articles, I will be giving my full, undivided attention to a movie - and proving it by making some kind of comment about every single minute in that movie.

I don't claim to have invented this concept; there are a lot of podcasts out there that examine movies minute by minute, and years ago Brian W. Collins had a column on Birth.Movies.Death. called Minute by Minute. This is just my version of it.

I know that running times can vary depending on regions and formats, so to help readers keep track of where I am in the movie I will talk about what's going on in certain minutes, but a description of events will never be the only thing I have to say about a minute.

For the first Full Attention article, I have decided to go with George A. Romero's immortal classic Night of the Living Dead, which I have also covered for Film Appreciation. Night of the Living Dead is my most-watched movie because it's my default choice to put on when it's time to kick back and relax. Which means I haven't exactly paid "full attention" to it every time it has played out on my TV. I couldn't even try to guess how many times I have drifted off to sleep while the sounds of the movie filled the room. But this time around, I did give it my Full Attention: 

00:00 - 01:00

Night of the Living Dead may have my all-time favorite opening title sequence, even though it's incredibly simple. It's just credits appearing over shots of a car driving along the road. And yet the film draws me in and gives me goosebumps as soon as it begins with its combination of black and white photography, the stunning Pennsylvania countryside locations, and the music. Director George A. Romero scored the film with library tracks, but somehow managed to find pre-existing tracks that were an absolutely perfect match for his movie. Those tracks have been used in other films over the years, but Night of the Living Dead truly took ownership of them.

The title appearing over an image of a winding road cutting through Pennsylvania farmland is up there with my favorite title card shots.

01:00 - 02:00

Within this minute, the car we've been following through the title sequence reaches its destination. The Evans City Cemetery in Evans City, PA. I haven't made any moves to do so, but I have given some consideration to the idea of buying a plot in that cemetery. What better place could there to be to get buried in than the cemetery from Night of the Living Dead?

02:00 - 03:00

A well composed shot of a flag on a grave waving in the foreground while the car drives through the cemetery in the background accompanies Romero's director credit. Romero is one of my favorite filmmakers, a hero of mine.

The car comes to a stop and we're introduced to the occupants, Barbra (Judith O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russ Streiner). Fitting for the setting, and the film's subject matter, their topic of conversation is a dead loved one, their father. A man Johnny doesn't really remember. It's a nice touch to have the characters start off talking about someone who's dead, and Johnny has some great dialogue as he complains about being forced to waste his Sunday on a trip to the cemetery because their mother wants them to put a wreath on their father's grave.

03:00 - 04:00

Johnny continues to complain, and we get our first indication that there are strange things going on in the area, as the car radio picks up a signal from a station that had been knocked off the air by technical problems. If they had taken a moment to listen to the broadcast, maybe they would have heard some information that would change the course of the story. But there's no time to listen to the radio, because Johnny and Barbra have to take a walk through the empty cemetery while creepy music plays on the soundtrack.

04:00 - 05:00

The wreath is placed on the grave while Johnny ponders how meaningful it really is to honor the dead with gestures like this. He suggests the wreaths get recycled and resold, they might have put the same wreath on the same grave multiple times. More great dialogue to get the audience thinking about death and the dead.

05:00 - 06:00

The classic Johnny lines continue. Feeling impatient while Barbra kneels to pray at their father's grave, he tells her that "Praying's for church", and when she replies that he hasn't been to church lately he says it would be pointless. When they were kids, their grandfather told Johnny he'd be "damned to Hell" after he scared Barbra during a cemetery visit. Their dad really has been dead a long time.

While Johnny is talking about praying and Hell, he spots a man in the distance, slowly walking through the cemetery. Audience members who saw Night of the Living Dead at the end of the '60s probably didn't realize they had just gotten their first look at an all-new cinematic monster. Even if they didn't, the shots of this man gradually getting closer while thunder rumbles in the sky are still unsettling.

06:00 - 07:00

One of the most iconic moments in horror history. Johnny realizes his sister is still unnerved by being in the cemetery and starts teasing her. Putting on what Fangoria once described as a "Karloffian leer", Johnny tells her, "They're coming to get you, Barbra."

Johnny suggests that the man slowly walking through the cemetery in a torn suit is "one of them". He's joking, and yet couldn't be more right. When the man reaches Barbra, he attacks her - if we didn't know he was one of the titular living dead, this would be baffling. He attacks her with no reason, without saying a word. He just makes strange growling noises.

The word "zombie" is not spoken in this film, but the actor playing this character would go on be known as "Zombie #1", Bill Hinzman.

07:00 - 08:00

For saving his sister from "Zombie #1", Johnny is rewarded by getting his head smashed on a headstone by the ghoul. This was Streiner pretending to smack his head on a real headstone, and the shot is totally convincing.

The ghoul then looks up at Barbra and we get a good, close look at his face. And since this is a horror movie, lightning flashes to provide some extra illumination. There's some thunder and lightning during the cemetery sequence, but a storm never actually arrives. This production didn't have the budget to fake much of a storm. The thunder and lightning were added in case anyone in the audience noticed that there was a light drizzle of rain falling while they were filming in the cemetery, but that rain doesn't show in the film.

08:00 - 09:00

The zombie chases Barbra back to the car, which she can't start because the keys are with Johnny. While trying to get at Barbra, this zombie proves capable of doing something that the living dead haven't done all that often in the many zombie films that have followed over the decades - this ghoul knows to use tools to accomplish objectives. He picks up a stone to use to smash through one of the car's windows.

Barbra pulls the brake to get the car rolling down the cemetery driveway, but ends up smashing the car into a tree. This was Streiner's mother's car, and she had actually gotten into an accident between filming days, unintentionally providing the film with extra production value since they could now put in this crash. Get the right camera angle, put in a sound effect, and it looks like the car is damaged right before our eyes.

09:00 - 10:00

Zombie #1 also moves a little quicker than the average slow "walker" zombie, allowing for a chase sequence where it continues to pursue Barbra through the countryside. When Frank Darabont was developing The Walking Dead for AMC, he used Hinzman's performance as the template for how his show would present zombies. The cemetery ghoul is an example of a zombie at its peak.

Soon Barbra reaches the farmhouse where the rest of the film will take place. As she runs to the house, she stops for a moment at a gas pump out by the barn, a prop that is going to be very important for the story.

10:00 - 11:00

I love how the overgrown trees around the farmhouse look, and there's also an awesome shot of the cemetery ghoul walking through a field with a line of trees behind him that have no leaves on them at all.

When Barbra enters the house she finds that there is nobody around to help her. There are signs of a struggle, and rooms are filling with shadows as the sun goes down outside. It's eerie in there.

11:00 - 12:00

As Barbra continues to look around the house, Romero attempts to give viewers a jump scare with jarring shots of animal heads mounted on the wall, accompanied by a loud musical sting.

Outside, that zombie is still coming after Barbra, and it awkwardly tears down some low-hanging wire, ripping it from the side of the house. Hinzman really did an excellent job of establishing the unusual, uncoordinated ways in which this sort of zombie should move.

12:00 - 13:00

Only after seeing the zombie tear down that wire does Barbra find a phone to try to use, but today is not her lucky day, because the wire happened to be the phone line. O'Dea does some intense mime acting while dealing with that useless phone.

The next time Barbra looks outside to check on the status of Zombie #1, night has fully fallen... And then, there's a sight that might have been shocking to some of the film's earliest viewers. A couple more ghouls just like that first zombie come walking out of the darkness to join him. That thing from the cemetery isn't the only one of its kind.

13:00 - 14:00

Barbra goes up the stairs to the second story of the farmhouse and finds a woman's corpse that has had its face torn away. The face of this corpse is a pretty awesome gore effect for a low budget production. And it was created several years before Romero would work with Tom Savini for the first time! Romero shoves the horrific sight in the audience's face, doing a quick zoom into an extreme close-up and then lingering on that close-up.

A later entry in the zombie sub-genre would probably have this faceless corpse rise as a zombie at some point, since there's no evidence that its brain was destroyed when it was killed. But this is the first flesh-eating zombie movie, so you have to allow for some oversights.

Finding the body scares Barbra enough that she runs out of the farmhouse and probably would have been eaten by the zombies outside right then, if a stranger didn't pull up in a pickup truck at that very second.

14:00 - 15:00

Duane Jones has entered the picture as Ben, and he seems to take control of both the situation at the farmhouse and the entire movie right away. He appears smart and capable, he says he can handle zombie #1 no problem, but he knows there are "a lot more" zombies out there. If I were Barbra, I would trust him to get me through this ordeal - but at this point Barbra has been scared out of her wits and lost her words.

And there's one thing holding Ben back from getting out of this mess: the truck he was driving is out of gas. The pump out by the barn is locked and he needs to find the key. Since Barbra stopped by the pump earlier, we know exactly what he's talking about.

15:00 - 16:00

Blood from that faceless corpse is seen dripping down from the second floor, an effect that was accomplished with chocolate syrup. Chocolate works perfectly as blood in black and white.

16:00 - 17:00

Apparently zombies don't like bright lights, because there are a couple of them outside smashing the headlights of Ben's truck.

When Ben asks Barbra if there are any other zombies around, she responds by just freaking out. So Ben has to go outside and beat in zombie brains with a tire iron. I knew we could count on this guy to save us.

17:00 - 18:00

While Ben is busy killing zombies outside, a third zombie makes its way into the house and starts walking toward Barbra. This is Romero's co-writer John A. Russo, and he makes quite a creepy zombie.

18:00 - 19:00

Luckily for Barbra, Ben got back in the house in time to save her and make sure Russo's appearance was just a quick cameo. Then another zombie starts coming in through the open back door.

Ben jams his tire iron into the fourth zombie's face, causing it to stumble back outside, and there's a great shot that starts close on that zombie as it moves backwards. The further back it goes, the less of the frame it takes up, so we can see more behind it. This shot is used to reveal that there are four more zombies moving across the yard, toward the house. The situation is getting dire.

19:00 - 20:00

Barbra is fascinated by the sight of Russo's zombie corpse, and his eyes are still twitching in their sockets even after he got a tire iron through the brain.

Ben drags the body out the back door and, to scare off the other approaching zombies, sets fire to the corpse. Russo was apparently wearing the most flammable clothes ever made, because the body goes up real fast and easy with the strike of a match, no accelerant needed. Ben lets it burn right at the edge of back porch, which seems like a bad idea. You don't want to risk burning down your shelter in a zombie apocalypse.

20:00 - 21:00

The back door infiltration (get your minds out of the gutter) has convinced Ben that he needs to fortify the farmhouse, and lucky for him all the tools required are readily available. Toolboxes with a hammer and screwdriver inside are sitting right on the kitchen table, and within seconds he has found a bunch of nails in a drawer. The people who lived here must have been big on home improvements.

21:00 - 22:00

Getting tired of Barbra's space cadet routine, Ben starts to snap at her but catches himself and quickly shifts into a calmer gear. He lets Barbra (and the viewer) know they're going to be boarding the place up.

Jones and O'Dea are playing two very different reactions to what's going on around them, and they're both doing great at it, even if it's very frustrating to watch Barbra walk around in a daze. It's even more frustrating for Ben than it is for the viewer.

22:00 - 23:00

Barbra is supposed to be getting wood to help board doors and windows, but instead she's distracted by a music box. She has basically become a zombie herself, and it didn't even require death or a bite.

23:00 - 24:00

Barbra bringing Ben small pieces of firewood to help board the place up when he has taken down a whole interior door to nail up across the back door is a funny sight. She does manage to help him hold the door up while he nails it in place, though, so she's not entirely useless.

24:00 - 25:00

A dissolve helps us progress past some of the boarding up process. While I enjoy the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead that was directed by Savini (and written by Romero), one aspect of Night '68 I have always preferred over the '90 version is that it gets the boarding up stuff out of the way rather quickly. In '90 the boarding up continues through most of the movie.

Ben is talking to Barbra while he works, but he might as well be talking to himself. Or directly to the audience. He confirms for us that zombies are afraid of fire.

25:00 - 26:00

While dismantling a dining table, Jones begins delivering an unforgettable monologue about witnessing zombie mayhem while he was outside a place called Beekman's Diner. His words paint a vivid picture: a gasoline truck screaming across the road with ten or fifteen of "those things" chasing after it, grabbing and holding on.

26:00 - 27:00

The monologue continues. The gasoline truck crashed through a gas station, "went right through the billboard, ripped over a gas pump, and never stopped moving". It became a "moving bonfire", with the driver screaming inside.

The character of Ben was originally written as an undereducated truck driver, and the role was changed when Duane Jones was cast because he has an intellectual air about him. The change was a good move not only because of Jones' demeanor, but also because this monologue is so much better as is than it would have been otherwise.

27:00 - 28:00

Not sure if the gasoline truck was going to explode, Ben looked back at the diner to see if there was anyone who could help and he saw that the entire place had been encircled by zombies. And he was alone with fifty or sixty zombies standing there, staring at him. So he plowed through them in the pickup truck.

Romero and his collaborators couldn't have afforded to shoot anything like that sequence for the film, but they didn't need to. Jones' delivery of the monologue is incredible and puts that sequence in our heads just as well, if not better, than actually seeing it would have.

28:00 - 29:00

After Ben captivated with his monologue, Barbra makes a sad attempt at delivering a monologue herself, telling Ben the story of what happened to her and Johnny at the cemetery. She is not a good storyteller.

29:00 - 30:00

Ben has lost interest in Barbra's mixed up story. He advises her to keep calm, but she doesn't listen.

Barbra isn't the only thing to listen to here, there's also the cricket chirping track that's laid into the sound design. There is a lot of cricket chirp in this movie.

30:00 - 31:00

O'Dea does impressive work playing Barbra's mental breakdown. It can't be easy to portray a character who is so far out of her head and not feel ridiculous or even look ridiculous, but O'Dea pulled it off. This feels real.

31:00 - 32:00

Barbra is losing her cool, insisting she needs to go outside and get Johnny, refusing to believe that he's dead. When Ben stops her, she slaps him... and Ben has the questionable reaction of punching her right in the face, knocking her unconscious. He really hauls off and gives her a wallop.

32:00 - 33:00

Ben turns on a giant Zenith radio, bringing in one of my favorite aspects of the film, the news reports. We've heard Ben tell the story of Beekman's Diner, we know this zombie outbreak is a major event, but it's the news reports that really get it across to the viewer just how widespread and scary the outbreak is. And the great thing about the news reports is that they sound authentic.

The facts at this point: there is an epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unidentified assassins. There is no apparent pattern or reason.

33:00 - 34:00

The outbreak of violence is so widespread that the mayors of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Miami, and the governors of several eastern and midwestern states are indicating that the National Guard may be mobilized at any moment. Citizens are advised to lock themselves up in their homes, so Ben and Barbra are doing exactly what they're supposed to do.

Hearing that the zombie outbreak is something that's happening in multiple states, not just in the area around the farmhouse, makes the situation even scarier.

Seeing more zombies gathering around the truck outside, Ben decides to scare them with some fire.

34:00 - 35:00

Ben used a match to light a fire in the fireplace. He dumped some lighter fluid on a chair, then created a table leg torch that he lit from the fireplace so he could use it to ignite the chair. He lights up the chair and kicks it off the porch - and again, it seems like a bad idea to have things burning so close to the house. Then he throws the torch after the chair... He could have just dropped a match on the chair instead of wasting a whole table leg torch on it, but I guess he's more concerned about running out of matches than he is about table leg torches.

Note that lighter fluid was necessary to set fire to the chair but it wasn't necessary for the zombie earlier, so zombies are more flammable than chair cushions.

The zombies in the yard let out anguished groans when they see fire. They react to it much like Frankenstein's Monster.

35:00 - 36:00

Like I said, this movie gets the boarding business out of the way as quickly as possible. Another dissolve allows for another time jump and now the boarding up job is pretty much done. While Ben is finishing up, Barbra is finally waking up after sleeping off getting punched in the face... and Ben's movements reveal there's a door in the house he and Barbra haven't noticed.

36:00 - 37:00

Jones gets across the fact that Ben is exhausted from boarding up the farmhouse. Poor guy, the movie is just getting started and he has already wore himself out.

Barbra kicked off her shoes while being chased through the cemetery. Ben must be feeling sorry for punching her, because he finds some shoes in a closet and thinks of giving them to her.

Meanwhile the radio news is going on about "murder happy characters" and "misshapen monsters".

37:00 - 38:00

Ben makes a discovery even better than shoes for Barbra. A rifle and some bullets. These items are going to get plenty of use by the end of the film.

He takes the shoes to Barbra and she's so out of it now that he has to slip them on her feet himself. A strong character she most certainly is not.

38:00 - 39:00

Ben is trying to convince Barbra that things are looking okay for them, but she is lost in space. So after assuring her that she'll be okay for now, he goes to check the second floor of the house. Ben is very nice to Barbra in this scene, he is no longer in punching mode. She's not in slapping mode anymore, either.

39:00 - 40:00

The news reporter has gotten word that "murder victims show evidence of having been partially devoured by their murderers". We've seen zombies attack in this movie, we've seen the corpse with its face torn off, but we haven't actually seen a zombie bite anyone. This report is the first confirmation that these creatures are flesh-eaters.

Speaking of that faceless corpse, Ben moves it when he goes upstairs. It's on top of a throw rug, so he's able to drag it into a room, and as he does this we get a continuity error. We get a look at the corpse's face, and now it has a face. In this shot, the corpse is being played by Kyra Schon, who also plays a different character in the film. At least we can't see the corpse's face clearly enough to know that it's the same actress we'll meet later.

40:00 - 41:00

We're informed that, in all cases, the killers are eating the flesh of the people they murder! Romero and Russo have officially created a new monster. There had been zombies before, but those were people put in a trance by voodoo spells. This film gave the word zombie a brand new definition, bringing us the concept of the dead rising and being driven by the instinct to eat the flesh of the living.

And it added a new definition to the word zombie without even using the word. Romero and Russo didn't even consider these things to be "zombies", when they were making the movie they called them ghouls. But the world decided they should be called zombies.

Just as we're processing that flesh-eating information, the unnoticed door opens and a couple men come rushing into the living room, actually getting a reaction out of Barbra.

41:00 - 42:00

More than thirty minutes of the movie have passed by since Barbra reached the farmhouse, and Ben got there soon after her. For the characters, it has been even longer. All this time and people have been hiding down in the windowless cellar, just listening to all the noise Ben was making as he boarded the place up. He rightfully points out to them that he could have used some help with all that.

The men who have emerged from the cellar are Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) and Tom (Keith Wayne), and Ben instantly butts heads with Harry. So much that he disregards that there are two people giving him different information and blames Harry for the mix-up. Harry says they heard the noises, but thought zombies could have been tearing the place up. He also says they thought they heard Barbra screaming, but for all they knew those things were in the house after her. It's Tom who says they couldn't hear much from the cellar. But Ben says to Harry that he has told him conflicting stories - first he said he couldn't hear from the cellar, then he said he could, so "it would be nice if you'd get your story straight, man." Harry's story is straight! He admitted that he heard things, it was Tom who said it was tough to hear.

42:00 - 43:00

Harry doesn't appreciate the suggestion that he should have risked his life just because somebody might need help. Ben thinks he should have come out of the cellar when he heard Barbra screaming. Harry strongly disagrees. He also thinks Ben is insane for wanting to stay upstairs. Zombies turned over his car, so he's sure the boards Ben has put in place won't last long. He believes the cellar is the safest place.

Ben and Tom do mention a possibility that Harry completely disregards. The same thing that makes Harry believe the cellar is the safest place - it only has one door and no windows - is what makes Ben see the cellar as a death trap. If zombies managed to bust in there, they'd be done for.

I love how these debates are written, and they get the viewer thinking - what would they do in this situation? Who would they side with? Personally, I'd be focusing on retreating to the second floor, not the cellar. Try to block the stairway and then have the option of escaping out a window if that failed.

Hardman does excellent work opposite Jones when their characters are arguing with each other. Hardman brings Harry Cooper to life in a flawless, intense way.

43:00 - 44:00

Ben and Harry argue about how strong zombies are. Ben has been in direct physical confrontations with them and hasn't been impressed by their strength. Harry is stuck on the fact that zombies turned over his car, but that doesn't impress Ben, either. Any five men could accomplish that. But Harry isn't expecting only five zombies to show up, maybe dozens. Maybe a hundred, and the boards won't hold up to that. Ben agrees with that, but if there are that many they're screwed no matter what.

Barbra was really lucky that she only encountered one zombie before reaching the house, because we know Ben saw a lot more than that, and obviously Harry did as well.

44:00 - 45:00

Harry threatens to go into the cellar, board up the door, and not let anyone in no matter what happens. And given what he said about ignoring Barbra's screams, we believe he's telling the truth. He would let everyone else get killed.

Tom decides that Ben is right and they should save the cellar for a last resort, but circumstances don't really back up Ben's argument. The minute starts with him saying there are six or seven zombies outside. Looking out front, Tom sees eight or ten. More are showing up. Ben goes to see how many are out back, and as he's walking zombie arms come reaching between the boards that cover a window. There's no shattering glass here, so apparently Ben boarded up an open window? That wouldn't make sense.

45:00 - 46:00

Tom uses a knife to slash up zombie hands and fingers that are sticking through the window. Now is Ben's first opportunity to use that rifle to shoot some zombies. He shoots one in the chest. It just stumbles back. He shoots it in the chest again. It stays on its feet. Ben shoots it in the head. That finally kills it.

This is the moment when Ben finds out it takes a blow to the head to kill a zombie. Good thing he was always going for the head anyway when he had that tire iron. It makes sense, I suppose you don't go for the heart when your weapon is a tire iron.

46:00 - 47:00

After the re-killed zombie's body hits the ground, the next shot shows that the yard is now getting crowded with zombies. I think this shot of more than dozen zombies walking under the trees in the yard is the first image I ever saw from this film. As I recall, I got my hands on the Stephen King book Danse Macabre when I was a little kid and there was a picture from Night of the Living Dead, a picture of this shot, in that copy of the book. And I was very creeped out by it.

We spend most of this minute outside with the zombies as they roam around the yard. Some of them have been disfigured, including a female zombie who grabs a bug off a tree and eats it. The bug-eating zombie is played by Marilyn Eastman, who we're about to see play a different character.

There's even a nude zombie in the yard, with a morgue tag dangling from her wrist.

47:00 - 48:00

Harry is baffled that Ben still wants to stay upstairs after the window scare. The two argue about whether or not they should go into the cellar, and there's a very simple and sensible compromise they could come to. Wait and see what happens, and fall back into the cellar if necessary. Work together and stay as calm as possible. But Ben and Harry are not capable of doing that. Harry keeps saying he's going to lock himself in the cellar and not open the door no matter what, Ben tells him he can't take any food or supplies with him. So they just yell at each other a lot.

Harry says he has a daughter downstairs who can't be brought upstairs with all the noise and those things right outside... But if they were being reasonable, that would be a senseless argument, because nobody is saying Harry has to bring his kid upstairs anyway.

Ben calls Harry stupid and delivers the awesome line, "It's tough for the kid that her old man is so stupid."

48:00 - 49:00

Before Harry can go downstairs, Tom calls his girlfriend Judy (Judith Ridley) upstairs and into the film. There were a whole lot of people quietly hiding in the cellar while Ben was working and making all sorts of noise, but Harry is the only one he remains upset with.

Tom tries to talk sense to Harry, but that's no use. Tom is a good guy, a voice of reason stuck in the middle between the angry Ben and Harry. It's a little tough to believe that he wouldn't have emerged from the cellar earlier to see what was going on. This was Keith Wayne's only acting credit, and he did so well as Tom that it would have been cool to see him in other movies.

49:00 - 50:00

Trying to get Barbra to snap out of her trance is another useless endeavor.

Ben and Judy don't even get an official introduction. Ben basically ignores her existence while lighting a cigarette and continuing to talk to Tom about Harry.

We join Harry downstairs and meet Marilyn Eastman as Harry's wife Helen. Eastman was Hardman's wife in real life, too. Lying on a "bed" made of a door placed over sawhorses is young Karen Cooper (Hardman's real life daughter Kyra Schon), who doesn't look like she's doing very well. Helen says she feels warm and might be in shock.

It quickly becomes clear that the Coopers' marriage isn't doing very well, either. Helen gets under her husband's skin when she mentions they had heard that girl upstairs screaming and Harry acknowledges they did, but he didn't want to take any "unnecessary chances" helping her. Helen sarcastically replies, "Of course not, Harry."

50:00 - 51:00

Helen has a disgusted reaction to pretty much everything Harry says. She thinks his behavior is ridiculous, and when he mentions that there's a radio upstairs she gets mad that he has boarded them in downstairs, where they can't hear the news.

Harry isn't a likeable guy, so it's easy to like Helen since she clearly doesn't like him, either. It also helps that Eastman is another cast member who delivers a terrific performance.

51:00 - 52:00

Helen literally stands up to her husband and demands that he let her out of the cellar so she can listen to the radio. When Harry looks pissed in response, Helen quiets down and takes a seat. The body language between these two indicates that their homelife must be a nightmare.

Helen has a great line: "We may not enjoy living together, but dying together isn't going to solve anything."

Tom yells down to let them know that Ben has found a TV upstairs, and that makes Helen even more excited to go upstairs. As she stands beside Harry to yell up to Tom, there's a very noticeable jump cut. Apparently there was more dialogue between Harry and Helen here and a cut away to a large group of zombies outside, but that was snipped out and we're left with a jump cut that makes it look like we've only lost maybe a couple seconds in there.

52:00 - 53:00

Judy reluctantly agrees to go downstairs and sit with Karen so Helen and Harry can come upstairs to check out the TV. That "going downstairs and never opening the door" plan of Harry's really didn't work out.

When Judy gets downstairs, Helen is reluctant to leave Karen's side, even though she had just been hyped for the TV. Eastman gets it across how concerned Helen is about whatever's going on with her daughter. We don't know what the problem is yet, but we know it required a bandage.

53:00 - 54:00

Helen also displays clear sympathy when she sees Barbra spaced out on the couch and Tom informs her that the girl's brother was killed. Helen cares about people, so it's no wonder she doesn't enjoy being married to Harry.

54:00 - 55:00

Barbra has a reaction to Helen lighting a cigarette, so Helen tells her not to be afraid in a soothing voice. Then her seething husband comes storming back into the room, complaining about how unsafe the house is. Helen sounds like she could cry when she tells Harry that Barbra's brother was killed, but he just keeps complaining. He bitches that the windows aren't boarded up well enough, and he bitches that he can't see out of the windows. What a pain. Helen is sick of it.

55:00 - 56:00

As Ben and Tom set up the TV, Harry tells Barbra she better pay attention to what they're about to watch and "try to understand what's going on." Like a true dick. Helen tries to deflect by asking the others if she can help, but Ben rightfully yells at Harry to leave Barbra alone.

The problem is the mentality that these guys are "the boss" of anything in this house. Ben told Harry earlier that he can be the boss downstairs and Ben's the boss upstairs. Now he tells Harry that if he stays upstairs he'll "take orders from me!" Nobody should be bossing anyone around in this situation.

Tom ignores the bickering and gets the TV working.

56:00 - 57:00

The TV has been propped up on two chairs and Tom has turned the rabbit ears just right to get a good picture. The main news reporter we see speaking is played by Charles Craig, who had a long career as a radio broadcaster - and he certainly had an awesome voice for the job.

This reporter has some shocking news to share today. A wave of murder sweeping the eastern third of the United States is being committed by creatures who feast upon the flesh of their victims. As the characters in the farmhouse watch, there's some breaking news that makes the night even stranger. The National Civil Defense Headquarters has announced that, "It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder." The dead have been rising in funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals. "The unburied dead are coming back to life and seeking human victims."

The reporter delivers the news like a true pro, matter of factly and with a straight face. He does comment that it's hard for them to believe the report they've been handed is true, "but it does seem to be a fact."

A lot of horror fans seem to get confused about the rules of Romero's zombies, but the information is spelled out right here. Anyone who dies will rise as a zombie, they don't have to have been bitten. But zombies are not rising from their graves, it's the unburied dead who are roaming the countryside.

57:00 - 58:00

People are no longer advised to just lock themselves in their homes. Rescue stations have now been set up that provide food, shelter, medical treatment, and protection from the National Guard. Things are really getting crazy outside of this farmhouse, and hearing this adds a new layer of dread to the film.

Trying to figure out what's going on, the President of the United States has had a meeting with the FBI, the CIA, and "space experts".

58:00 - 59:00

The reporter presents a possible explanation for the zombie outbreak. An explorer satellite made a trip to Venus, orbited that planet, then started to return to Earth, but never made it back down to the ground. NASA was forced to destroy the satellite when they realized it was carrying "a mysterious, high level radiation". Could that radiation have scattered across the eastern third of the U.S. and made the dead rise?

Night of the Living Dead will go on to make it very clear that space radiation is the reason for all of this, an explanation that feels like a throwback to the sci-fi horror films of the '50s in this end-of-the-'60s movie.

The news shows a group of reporters asking experts questions in Washington D.C., and a couple scientists present are convinced the radiation is the cause. It's the only logical explanation. A representative of the military disagrees with the scientists.

59:00 - 60:00

The more a doctor and professor tell the reporters that they believe there's a definite connection between the radiation and the living dead, the more the military representative has to repeat that this has not been proven.

Romero makes an on screen cameo as one of these reporters, and he fumbles one of his lines in spectacular fashion. "Was the wh-- was the satellite, eh... when the satellite was exploded?" When Rifftrax did a comedic commentary track for Night of the Living Dead, Mike Nelson quipped, "That's easy for you to say." That cracks me up.

60:00 - 61:00

Ben and Helen agree that they need to get to a rescue station, with Helen's concern being that Karen needs medical attention. Mere seconds after they say they need to get to a rescue station, the location for the nearest station comes up on the TV screen. The Willard Medical Center.

Willard is the name of my hometown, so I have always loved that "Willard" is a part of this movie.

Tom and Judy are from the area, so Tom knows Willard is only about 17 miles from the farmhouse. Tom tells Ben they were the first ones to reach the farmhouse, as they heard the first reports about the outbreak on Judy's portable radio while they were on their way to go swimming. Even if they hadn't heard the news, their plan to go swimming would have been ruined by that thunder and lightning we saw during the cemetery sequence. They knew the old farmhouse was near, so they stopped there, found the corpse upstairs, then the Cooper family showed up.

Tom and Judy must have been walking to the lake to go swimming, since there's no other vehicle at the farmhouse. But where did Judy's radio go? Why weren't they still listening to that?

Of course, Harry doesn't believe they can escape from the farmhouse. The odds are stacked against them.

61:00 - 62:00

The Charles Craig newscaster is now interviewing a Dr. Grimes (Frank Doak), who stresses that people who have been injured by the creatures should seek medical help immediately. They don't yet know what complications could result from these injuries. Helen is clearly disturbed to hear that.

The doctor goes on to tell that he saw a cadaver that had all four limbs amputated open its eyes and begin to move. "It was dead, but it opened its eyes and tried to move." That's a creepy image to put in the audience's mind.

62:00 - 63:00

Helen goes downstairs and sends Judy back upstairs. Karen didn't speak the whole time Judy was watching her, but the sick little girl is aware enough to tell her mom, "I hurt." That's Kyra Schon's only line in the film.

On TV, the doctor tells Charles Craig that the dead rise as zombies just minutes after they die. The doctor advises viewers to burn their dead immediately, and the reporter is disturbed that people won't have time to make funeral arrangements - which leads to the doctor delivering some dialogue I love, "The bereaved will have to forego the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. They're just dead flesh, and dangerous."

Ben is coming up with a plan that will allow them to move around outside. They're going to make Molotov cocktails. Time for some action!

63:00 - 64:00

Well, almost time for some action, because they need to put the cocktails together first. While Ben plots a run to the gas pump, Harry is actually helpful for a brief second, mentioning there's a big key ring downstairs that might have the key to the gas pump on it. Tom finds that key ring, and it does indeed have a gas pump key on it.

Tom will drive the truck to the gas pump, Harry will cover them by throwing cocktails from an upstairs window.

And I have to take a moment to admire the bruise that Harry sports on his balding head through the whole movie. He got a bump on the noggin when his car got turned over, and there's a fascinating dark spot on his head because of it. When I would watch this movie as a young '80s kid, Harry's bruise always made me think of Mikhail Gorbachev's birthmark.

We don't see it in this minute, but Barbra also has a bruise on her jaw from when she was punched.

64:00 - 65:00

Harry looks nervous about Ben's plan, but he's going along with it and will be making himself useful. Could Harry be redeemed?

We have to wait a little while longer for the action because there's a really sappy scene between Tom and Judy while they get the Molotov cocktails ready. Even the library track that plays over this scene is sappy.

65:00 - 66:00

Judy wishes she could call her folks, but that will have to wait until they reach the Willard rescue station. Going to that rescue station seems like the right move, but it is funny that Tom says he wants to do it because "The television said that's the right thing to do." Judy isn't sure about leaving the house, she feels safe there.

Tom says he has to drive the truck to the gas pump because Ben doesn't know about that stuff. He doesn't know pickup trucks and gas pumps? He drove that truck to the farmhouse just fine, but now he doesn't want to drive it because he's not used to it.

66:00 - 67:00

Tom and Judy have had to run to Willard before, when a big flood hit. She didn't want to leave then, either. Tom reminds her about that. She's so concerned about him going outside that she gives him a hug. He wants her to smile for him and says, "Boy, you're sure no use at all, are you?" Aside from Helen standing up to her husband, the women in this movie aren't the strongest. You can see why Romero decided to turn Barbra into a badass when he wrote the script for Night '90. He had to make up for some of this.

Tom and Judy share a sweet kiss to end the sappy scene. Aww.

That scene was Judith Ridley's best chance to shine, because Judy doesn't have a lot to do in the movie otherwise... And the character is about to start acting like a fool.

67:00 - 68:00

Barbra is taken downstairs for her safety while the gas pump plan is put in motion. She also speaks her first line in a while, "Oh, I'd like to leave. Yes."

Ben and Tom start removing the boards from the front door so they can go outside, and while Jones pulls a board off the upper right corner of the door, the camera gets a glimpse of the fact that the underside of the board has been labeled "Upper Right Corner" so the filmmakers would know where it goes to put it back. The board was stuck there well, it took some effort for Jones to pull it down and inadvertently show us that label. It goes by quick, though.

68:00 - 69:00

Now it's time for some action! Harry takes his position in an upstairs window and tosses several flaming Molotov cocktails down at the zombies that are milling around outside. Zombie #1 is still out there, you can spot him in the group shot.

69:00 - 70:00

This may have been quite low budget, but Romero and his cohorts still got a fire stunt in their movie, as we briefly see a zombie that is caught on fire by one of the Molotov cocktails. That's because the zombie was played by Russo, not somebody who would sue the production if they got hurt.

Tom and Ben run outside, Ben armed with the rifle and another table leg torch. When Ben shoots one of the zombies (in the chest again), we get a nice shot of a squib exploding on the zombie's back. The exit wound.

Judy has been behaving strangely the last couple minutes, and at the last possible second before Harry completes his second task and shuts the front door behind Ben and Tom, she decides to run out after them.

70:00 - 71:00

There's another quick fire stunt, then as the truck drives over to the gas pump there's an obvious day for night shot.

That shot of the zombies walking under the trees from minute 46 is also quickly re-used during this minute.

When our heroes reach the pump, the key that was labeled for it doesn't work for some reason. So Ben makes the very ill-advised decision to shoot the lock off the gas pump.

71:00 - 72:00

Ben's choice to shoot the lock isn't nearly as dumb as Tom letting gas spray from the nozzle as he swings it over toward the truck. I thought he was the guy who was supposed to "know about that stuff" (pumping gas). Of course, Ben was also stupid to set his torch down right beneath the truck's gas tank. Ben and Tom have both turned into bumbling dummies.

And since they've gone stupid, gas splashes all over the side of the truck, hits the torch, and that causes the truck to catch on fire.

Tom decides he needs to drive the truck away from the gas pump, and he sure gets it far away from the pump. 20 seconds pass between him pulling away and finally deciding to stop. When the time comes for them to ditch the truck, Judy can't get out. "My jacket's caught!"

72:00 - 73:00

A bright flash of white stands in for an explosion, but then we do get shots of the pickup truck engulfed in flames, and we're to believe that Tom and Judy are in the truck. They were acting so dumb, it's tough to feel sorry for them. If they can't handle a task as easy as getting a truck to a gas pump and filling its tank, they weren't going to survive very long in this world anyway.

I've never seen such a simple plan fail so spectacularly.

Now Ben is stuck in the yard with a lot of zombies around him. It's a very creepy scenario, and the zombies start moving in on him.

73:00 - 74:00

But Ben still had his torch and the rifle, so he's able to make it back to the front door of the house quickly. He calls for Harry to let him in, but Harry has gone back into coward mode and is hiding in the cellar doorway.

Harry does help Ben get the door closed and boarded again once he's back inside, but it's too little too late for Ben. He gets those fists flying again, and Harry doesn't go down in one punch like Barbra did. Harry takes a beating. I can't feel sorry for him.

74:00 - 75:00

Romero would have very gory and disgusting zombie feast scenes in his future films, and he wasn't slacking on this one, either. The zombies converge on the pickup truck as the flames die down, and they pull the burnt remains of Tom and Judy from the vehicle.

75:00 - 76:00

Zombies chow down on meat that was actually ham coated with chocolate syrup. We see a couple zombies fighting over either Tom or Judy's guts. Another zombie has somebody's arm, and they bite some flesh off of it. Meat is torn off of bones. This is pretty gross. Not stuff you'd usually expect to see in a low budget, black and white movie. But H.G. Lewis had already been making movies like Blood Feast in glorious color for several years by the time Night of the Living Dead was released, so some members of the audience had probably already seen things like this in movies before. Those who hadn't were probably shocked.

Watching through a window as all of this happens, Ben is looking shocked and disgusted. And those crickets are still chirping like this is just another average night.

We see Helen emerge from the cellar and she seems to be over the deaths of Tom and Judy at this point, she's waiting for the next news broadcast to come on.

76:00 - 77:00

Barbra, who mentioned that it was 8pm in one of her first lines of the movie, reacts when she hears that it's ten minutes to 3am. "We better leave soon, it's ten minutes to 3!" She likes to comment on time.

We learn a little more about the Coopers while Ben tries to figure out what their next move should be. They're not from the area, they were trying to get to a motel when the zombies turned over their car. That happened at least a mile away.

Harry now has quite a wound on his left cheek to go with his head bruise.

77:00 - 78:00

Helen and Harry finally tell Ben what's wrong with Karen: a zombie grabbed her and bit her on the arm. Ben doesn't have a hopeful reaction to that, "Who knows what kind of disease those things carry?" The viewer knows. More than fifty years after the film's release, we're well aware of what happens when someone gets bitten by a zombie.

78:00 - 79:00

It's 3am and those zombies outside are still munching on pieces of Tom and Judy.

On the 3am news report, Charles Craig lets us know that everyone is now in agreement that the radiation from the Venus probe is to blame for making the dead rise. The radiation level is being monitored, and is continuing to increase steadily. As long as this radiation is present, the dead will come back to life, no matter what their cause of death was.

In this minute, Night of the Living Dead presents the idea that the Venus probe is the reason for the living dead as fact. Viewers tend to overlook this since Romero didn't stick with this explanation in future films like Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Characters in those films still aren't sure why the dead have risen, presenting theories like "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."

79:00 - 80:00

The news report also reiterates that, since the brains of the ghouls have been reactivated by the radiation, if you kill the brain, you kill the ghoul. Since their weakness is known, the military, law enforcement agencies, and armed volunteers have taken to the countryside to conduct search and destroy missions. They're out hunting zombies.

In Butler County, Pennsylvania, reporter Bill Cardille went out into the field to see one of these zombie hunting squads in action. This one was led by Conan McClelland (George Kosana), a law enforcement officer who is referred to as both "Sheriff" and "Chief" in this segment. Kosana obviously preferred "Sheriff"; if you ever crossed paths with him at a horror convention, you might have heard him informing people, "I was the sheriff."

Kosana delivers a very memorable performance, making McClelland a good ol' boy who really doesn't seem to take his search and destroy mission as anything more complicated than a hunting trip. The men he's guiding through the field have dispatched nineteen zombies by the time the news camera caught up with them; they shoot the ghouls in their heads and then burn their bodies.

80:00 - 81:00

Having Bill Cardille as the reporter who interviews McClelland was a special treat for viewers in the Pittsburgh area, as he was a horror host who presented movies under the name "Chilly Billy" on a Saturday night program called Chiller Theatre. Chilly Billy showed horror movies on Saturday night in Pittsburgh from 1964 until 1983. For people from that area, this would be like having Elvira show up in a movie as a reporter.

McClelland says zombies "go up pretty easy" when you set them on fire, a fact we know for sure.

Cardille and Kosana are responsible for one of the greatest dialogue exchanges in this minute. Cardille asks McClelland if the zombies are "slow moving", and McClelland responds, "Yeah, they're dead, they're... all messed up." Classic. Brilliant. Hilarious.

McClelland declines to speculate whether or not the zombie outbreak will be handled in 24 hours. He and his men will be working their way toward Willard through the night and into the early morning, and once they reach Willard they'll be teaming up with the National Guard. Things are looking promising for people in the Willard area, so maybe there's some hope for the characters in the farmhouse.

81:00 - 82:00

Hope didn't last long, as the power goes out in the farmhouse and things fall apart rapidly from there. Freaking out in the darkness, Harry tells Helen he wants to get the rifle away from Ben. Knowing that Harry is only headed for another humiliating beating, Helen responds: "Haven't you had enough?" The character interactions in this movie are so awesome.

Like I mentioned earlier, the zombies here have the ability to use tools to accomplish objectives. That ability turns out to be the downfall of the farmhouse, as the zombies outside start picking up things like rocks and discarded, extinguished table leg torches to beat on the doors and windows with.

Shots of shadows falling over the faces of the characters inside the house while they listen to the sounds of the zombies busting their way in really make this moment come off as terrifying.

82:00 - 83:00

Struggling to keep the boards in place over a window, Ben drops his rifle... and Harry sees his chance. Rather than help Ben - or Helen, who is at the front door - Harry picks up the rifle and points it at Ben. The coward gets his moment to gloat, he has finally bested Ben and been proven right. Like Helen said, being right is important to him. Unfortunately for him, taking a moment to rub this in Ben's face gives Ben enough time to screw up Harry's triumph.

83:00 - 84:00

While dozens of zombies start breaking into the farmhouse, Ben and Harry's focus is on each other. They fight over the rifle, Ben gets it away from Harry, and his anger drives him to shoot the man. My respect for Ben fluctuates over the course of the film; he's awesome when he first shows up, his determination to get everyone (except Harry) through this situation is admirable, but the way he handles the disagreement with Harry is ridiculous, and going so far as to shoot him is pure idiocy. I could never condone killing Harry, but it's made even worse by the fact that they're now being overrun by the living dead and Ben just added another corpse into this world.

84:00 - 85:00

Harry gets a drawn out, tragic death, stumbling downstairs and making his way to his daughter. Karen is still unconscious on her makeshift "bed", but when Harry collapses beside her she flinches with her whole body. I don't know if Schon was supposed to flinch when her father falls down beside her or if Harry bumped her "bed" on the way down or if Schon actually just flinched, but whatever caused that flinch it really adds to the moment.

The ground floor of the farmhouse is now the stuff of nightmares. Doors and windows are busted and zombie hands are reaching in through the space between the boards Ben hammered in place earlier. Things are so scary and dire, it even forces Barbra to get up off the couch and try to help keep the dead from entering the house.

Things aren't any less nightmarish down in the basement. Just seconds after Harry collapsed, we see that Karen has now risen as a ghoul and is feasting on the right arm of her father's corpse. Helen comes downstairs to see this awful sight, and Karen starts walking toward her mother. Helen doesn't rush to her daugher's side, she can see what Karen is now, and it's really terrible and heartbreaking to see her reaction to this. Backing away from her daughter, starting to cry, she says, "Karen? Oh, baby..." And the way she says this really gets to me.

85:00 - 86:00

One of the greatest, most twisted death scenes in cinema history. There are tools hanging on the wall of the basement, and zombie Karen takes a second to grab a garden trowel before she reaches Helen, who falls down while backing away from her. The little girl ghoul then proceeds to stab her mom to death with the trowel, while the sound of Helen's screams are altered on the soundtrack to make the moment all the more appalling and bone-chilling.

86:00 - 87:00

Ben and Barbra's fight for the ground floor comes to an end when zombies break through the front door. Among the group of zombies breaking in are Zombie #1 from the cemetery... and Johnny. I'm not sure it makes sense that Johnny would come back from the dead - since he died from a blow to a head, I would expect his brain to already be damaged on a level that would kill a zombie. But here he is, and Barbra comes to a horrific end when the ghoul that used to be her brother grabs her and drags her outside. Ben can't do anything to help her before she's swarmed by zombies.

Now Ben has to do what Harry always wanted to do. He has to hide in the cellar. Karen emerges from the cellar just as Ben backs into the doorway, so at least he won't have to deal with her.

87:00 - 88:00

Harry was right. With zombies filling the ground floor, Ben closes and barricades the cellar door, and we find out that the cellar really is the safest place. The zombies can rattle the door, but they can't get through. Whether or not to hide in the cellar never should have been an argument in the first place, it always should have been an option for everyone to fall back into the cellar if the boards on the ground floor didn't hold. This minute really shows how dumb Ben and Harry were being all along.

88:00 - 89:00

Ben probably doesn't mind getting the chance to shoot Harry again when his one-armed corpse rises as a zombie. He even shoots Harry three times, when the first shot was probably sufficient.

Seconds later, the corpse of Helen opens its eyes, and Ben takes care of her with one shot.

89:00 - 90:00

Ben is now stuck in the part of the house he didn't want to be in, but the good news for him is that the zombies quickly lose interest in beating on the cellar door. Since they're not having luck at getting through that door, they just start wandering away.

Night becomes dawn, and things start to look even more promising for Ben when a helicopter comes flying in over the countryside. A shot from the helicopter shows that McClelland's group of police officers and volunteer hunters has now reached the area of the farmhouse.

90:00 - 91:00

A good chunk of this minute is spent on watching the helicopter land in a field the zombie hunters are walking across. Then we get a further look into the way the search and destroy mission operates. Hunters are accompanied by German Shepherds, and McClelland puts together a small group of men to check out the nearby farmhouse.

Surprisingly, Bill Cardille is still hanging out with McClelland and the hunters. He was seen interviewing McClelland during daylight hours, now he's still there at dawn. I would have expected him to go home (or to a rescue station) long before this, but he's sticking with it until they meet up with the National Guard.

McClelland expects to reach Willard in three or four hours.

91:00 - 92:00

Cardille is feeling confident that things are under control. Looks like this "night of the living dead" really was just a one-night thing. I found out about the existence of Dawn and Day years after I first watched Night, and during those years I was convinced that the zombie outbreak had been taken care of by the end of this movie.

McClelland and his men are now so close to the farmhouse that Ben, still in the cellar, can hear the German Shepherds barking, and the sound of guns being fired as the men shoot down every zombie they come across.

92:00 - 93:00

McClelland and his men, including a fellow named Vince who's played by production director Vince Survinski, pass the burnt out remains of the pickup truck and make a flippant comment about someone having "a cookout" there. It was a loss for us when Tom and Judy got blown up, but they and their deaths mean nothing to these guys.

Multiple zombies are gunned down during this minute. The hunters are taking care of this problem like it's nothing.

93:00 - 94:00

Hearing all the gunshots, Ben has emerged from the cellar into the ground floor of the farmhouse, which doesn't have any zombies in it at this point. He goes to a window to see what's going on outside. Help has arrived!

Except Ben isn't saved. Night of the Living Dead ends with a gut punch. Vince hears something moving around inside the farmhouse, and he and McClelland see Ben slowly approaching the window. McClelland advises Vince to shoot him right between the eyes, thinking he's just another zombie... And Vince does it. Ben is shot in the head and falls to the ground dead, not to be resurrected.

McClelland compliments Vince on his "good shot" and tells his men that's "another one for the fire". Ben has been killed and will be burned as if he were a ghoul. A character we've been following and caring about has died from pure bad luck, and nobody will ever realize a mistake was made.

None of the people who tried to make it through the night in that farmhouse survive to the end credits.

94:00 - 95:00

A montage of grainy stills gets across the idea that McClelland's men used meathooks to drag Ben's body outside and toss it on a pile of zombie bodies. Right beside Ben on this pile is the body of the cemetery ghoul, Zombie #1.

The end credits start to roll, and there's no way to feel good about the events we've just seen play out, or about the fates of the characters.

95:00 - 96:00

Night of the Living Dead comes to an end with the sight of the pile of zombies and busted furniture Ben ended up on going up in flames. This is one of the biggest bummer endings of all time, but it's absolutely perfect for the movie that preceded it.

And that's it for the first article in the Full Attention series. I'm hoping this series will be rather interactive, as I'm open to receiving suggestions on what movies I should cover. If there's a movie you would like to see me write about minute by minute, let me know by leaving a comment or sending an email. All suggestions will be considered, although those that are meant to be endurance challenges are less likely to be accepted.