They'll Get You, Barbara

I admit when I was a teenager, watching Night of the Living Dead (1968), I would get so frustrated with Barbara. Her “zombie-like” trance, a product of falling prey to a breakdown, while poor Ben was left to try and board up the farmhouse so that the undead outside wouldn’t get in. I can remember the feeling of this infuriation building—would you fucking help this guy!—and with any masterpiece after repeated viewings, important works that have something else to reveal to us as we grow older in our own human experience, there is always a fresh perspective, just unveiling itself. Barbara, early in the cemetery, as her brother, Johnny, gripes on and on about delivering a decorative piece for their father’s grave 200 miles from home for their mother, who doesn’t accompany them due to her age, vulnerably in her attempted avoidance of his nagging about being afraid of his digs at scaring her (the jump from behind a tree that immediately rattles her) proves that she’s easily spooked. It just doesn’t take much. While Johnny does his memorable, iconic dig of “They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara. They’re coming for you,” which has her trying to change the conversation and get him to quit, it is here we realize that any real push of something major, something heavy, would send her into hysteria. And that is what happens. First, her brother has the run in with the stilting, long-legged, herky-jerky graveyard menace (Bill Heinzman), which results in his head smashing against a tombstone, with Barbara unable to save him. Second, the same walking maniacal corpse pursues with intense intent Barbara, never relenting, following her to the farmhouse. Third, she rushes into the farmhouse, discovering the rotted corpse of (well, we might perceive) to be the building’s owner. No phone service when Heinzman pulls down the line outside fiercely. No car because the key was with Johnny and it runs into a tree, with Barbara having to ditch it due to no fault of her own. Congregating zombies outside the house, and Ben emerging (thank goodness) in his truck to help. But remembering Johnny left behind, recalling the late trip up to the cemetery, and the rush of importance in retrieving him sends her into panic and further hysteria. At the time of my youth I kept having this continuous gnawing in my guts, just wanting her to break the fuck out of her near catatonia, but not everyone responds to crisis the same. I think the Savini remake, while some consider the part an Ellen Ripley caricature, having Barbara, in the performance of Patricia Tallman, different than Judith O’Dea, it tells us that we must never generalize how one woman will react from another. Ultimately, in the 1968 film, Barbara is lost a lot of the time. Almost as much a corpse as those outside trying to get in.

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I recently saw Turner Classics’ clip about TCM Underground, that it now has a programmer who schedules lineups and is in charge of content to be shown during its early Saturday morning hours. I like that TCM Underground has seemingly been treated as less than an afterthought. Before Rob and TCM parted ways less than amicably, a host for this unique program seemed ideal. Someone whose tastes fit the cult schedule showing so late, and it is my hope, much like what TCM has been doing more lately with other programs like Noir Alley and Silent Sunday Nights, that eventually the Underground gets one. I just think it would be beneficial for some of these alternatives to the classics typical of the TCM brand to have an introduction with fun facts and a personality just offering anecdotes. When you have a double feature with a major film as the lead—Night of the Living Dead (1968) or Carnival of Souls (1962) were shown among the many cult properties eventually to air—why not get a different kind of host to provide the specific audience with something particularly for them? I couldn’t help but think of that while watching Night of the Living Dead. I do wish I had went ahead and watched this when TCM aired it Midnight after Friday’s Plague of the Zombies (1966). Some late Monday night, trying to shoehorn it, the film deserves better than that. Alas.

Oh, something about Johnny and Barbara’s conversation about their mother and visiting their father’s grave, far from home, sort of talking about how this annual trip is rather cumbersome and irksome. A grave that they never visit but this one time, and it is because their mother expects it due to not being able to go herself. It is a matter of respect and tradition. And because Johnny gets up late, their trip to this particular area leaves them shit outta luck. Fate, much like when Laurie Strode was in class in Halloween (1978), discussed by her teacher, wasn’t kind to Johnny and Barbara. It was only fitting that Barbara would be dragged to her doom by her brother. Barbara, never to be seen again.