Night of the Living Dead--in color [two]

In moments of crisis, you can see actions and reactions not the typical norm of people who have a tendency, when not under such duress, to repress feelings, keep them from spilling out. I think we see in Night of the Living Dead, when Barbra insists (now fallen prey to hysterics) her and Ben go find and rescue her brother Johnny, not under the emotional control to understand what she’s asking, two slaps occur, the final slap sending her into unconsciousness. It is understandable that Ben only responded due to a sort of reactionary impulse. She slaps him in the face and he responds accordingly. But at that time, I guess such a scene on film might have brought a stunned guffaw. She needed to be quieted, though, if just so he could concentrate and work to somewhat secure the farmhouse for the time being until a more elaborate escape plan could be established. You know, I was thinking about Barbra, once she awakens from being slapped into a momentary sleep, and she must have always been emotionally fragile. Losing your brother is certainly difficult to adjust to, and being attacked, finding a body dead upstairs in the farmhouse, and no way to call out for help certainly give her reason enough to be shaken, but once she’s slapped into unconsciousness, something changes in her whole emotional state. She remains damn near moot and lost until something *snaps* and she springs to life to help in a fruitless attempt to hold off the horde starting to gain advantage. By then, Johnny, the person who was the catalyst in her emotionally cataleptic state, is to greet Barbra, and she is to be pulled away into the horde never to be seen by us again. Of course, I like that Ben really looks as if he had boarded all of those potential hazards for zombie intrusion; the sweat and exhaustion, damn near collapsing onto the couch, before lighting a cigarette, Ben has to gather himself before taking a long look at the house he’s a prisoner. The shotgun is found in the closet, Barbra now having sat up on the couch, almost shut down from her surroundings. I recently read a post on the imdb horror board that considered Ben the villain of the film, responsible for the horrors that eventually befall them. I don’t hold that opinion, if just when he finds some shoes in the closet, talking to Barbra (with some guilt for having to slap her, I felt) about the gun located, placing the shoes on her feet. It is a gesture of good will, and I’m sure was out of pity for her. This isn’t the actions of a villain. What befalls them, I thought, was the circumstances out of control, two men who couldn’t stand each other fall prey to their very hostile feelings.

Ben was in quite a spot, with Barbra seemingly gone as he was explaining that he felt (as words of encouragement and comfort) they were in good shape for the moment with the doors and windows a bit secure, promising to reinforce them later, and talking to her, you can sense how frustrating it must have been. She just appears useless. It won’t exactly get any better for Ben, either.