Come to Hastings Museum and see the original 1968 horror flick Night of the Living Dead, written and directed by George Romero!
Originally filmed in black-and-white, the film has been recently restored, colorized and converted to 3D. It will be incredible on our giant screen and digital 3D projector!
Check out the trailer below.
Short synopsis: Ben (Duane Jones) and Barbara (Judith O’Dea) are the protagonists of a story about the mysterious reanimation of the recently dead, and their efforts, along with five other people, to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse.
Showing one weekend only!
- Oct. 26: 7:00 and 9:30 pm.
Come dressed as a zombie for the 9:30 show and receive a special discount! - Oct. 27: 7:00 pm
- Oct. 28: 5:00 pm
NOTE: Downtown Hastings is hosting a Zombie Walk on Friday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 pm. Meet at the corner of 3rd & Hastings. FREE make-up at the Hastings Public Library from 5 to 7 pm! Walk like a zombie then come to the Museum for the 9:30 show!
Running time: 96 minutes
Rated: Treat as PG-13
Cost: All seats $6.50
Below is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on “Night of the Living Dead”. I believe the content of this movie is totally inappropriate for anyone under 18, that giving this film an arbitrary PG-13 rating is misleading, and that by showing it at all the Museum is totally undermining its reputation as a family-friendly venue for the people of Hastings:
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. “I don’t think the younger kids really knew what hit them,” he said. “They were used to going to movies, sure, and they’d seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else.” According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately:[41]
“ The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying… It’s hard to remember what sort of effect this movie might have had on you when you were six or seven. But try to remember. At that age, kids take the events on the screen seriously, and they identify fiercely with the hero. When the hero is killed, that’s not an unhappy ending but a tragic one: Nobody got out alive. It’s just over, that’s all. ”
Response from Variety after the initial release reflects the outrage generated by Romero’s film: “Until the Supreme Court establishes clear-cut guidelines for the pornography of violence, Night of the Living Dead will serve nicely as an outer-limit definition by example. In [a] mere 90 minutes this horror film (pun intended) casts serious aspersions on the integrity and social responsibility of its Pittsburgh-based makers, distributor Walter Reade, the film industry as a whole and [exhibitors] who book [the picture], as well as raising doubts about the future of the regional cinema movement and about the moral health of film goers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism…”[42]
One commentator asserts that the film garnered little attention from critics, “except to provoke argument about censoring its grisly scenes”.[43]
Hello James, I appreciate your concerns regarding the rating of NOTLD. There have been many horror films that are very controversial when they are originally released because of content but over time (44 years), are deemed less controversial. I am not saying that was the case here but, that is one aspect which may have lead to this decision. The museum staff did not arbitrarily select the PG-13 tag. The company we are getting the film from (Specticast), chose this rating. Originally, the film was NOT rated by the MPAA (probably due to the costs of going through the ratings process). I agree I would not bring young children to see this film and many adults (who the museum also serves), are probably aware of its contents but because it is a “classic” may want to see it again. Here is a link to the IMDB which also details the content in the film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/parentalguide