George A. Romero was born on February 4, 1940 in New York City. He is most well-known for his movies focused on the now-typical zombie scenarios classically seen in horror and thriller films. At first he started out with modest origins in short films and commercials, but then moved on to his feature films. Perhaps some of his most famous films include the classic 1968 film Night of the Living Dead and and Dawn of the Dead which came out a decade later. He started up a small film studio with his friends called Image Ten Productions from which Night of the Living Dead was first produced. For the time period, Night of the Living Dead was considered extremely gory and due to this, earned back a great profit on the original cost. Romero is known to film around one of his favorite cities, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Not only has he directed many of the classic horror films seen referenced now, but he also helped produce many thrillers today such as The Crazies which is actually a remake of one of his earlier films. I chose to watch three films directed by George Romano, all from very different time periods in his career.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Night of the Living Dead is your classic Zombie horror story amazingly filmed in black and white on a $100,000 budget. A young brother and sister are introduced driving to a graveyard six hours from their home to honor their dead father. When leaving the graveyard they encounter a man stumbling in their direction. The brother, Johnny begins teasing his sister saying that he is coming to get her. Barbara attempts to apologize to the man for his behavior when he attacks her. Johnny rescues his sister from the man at the cost of his life and Barbara flees into what seems like an abandoned house. Here she meets another young man and eventually a small group of people who had been hiding in the basement. The presumed owner of the house is found dead upstairs. Over time, the characters try to figure out how to survive and a typical power struggle ensues, with two men believing their own survival tactic is best. Eventually through the course of several radio and television broadcasts, the group comes to understand that they are surrounded by what are known as flesh-eating ghouls, which are supposedly the dead who had been raised to life due to fluctuating radiation levels. They are told that the dead can only be immobilized and permanently stopped if they are shot in the head or burned. This way any brain activity would cease and the re-animated body would once again “die.” They are also notified through these broadcasts that they should attempt to reach one of the shelters being set up by the government and rescue services. However, in doing so, their numbers dwindle as two of the group members attempt to retrieve a truck and put gas in it, and are thus killed by the animated dead. From within, a young girl who had been bitten by the zombies is overcome by her injury and comes back to kill and devour her parents. In the end there is one surviving man who survives the night through the house being surrounded and attacked by the zombies. He peeks out the window to see government men shooting at the zombies around the house. They notice him inside and shoot him in the head, thinking he is one of them.

I can certainly understand this being a cult classic and favorite when it first came out but being a bit dated as it is, it wasn’t very thrilling for me and it was difficult to stay interested at times. I do believe however that it definitely served its purpose as the original zombie movie. It is evident that Romero puts a lot of passion into his films and truly had a knowledge for what a person would behave like if they became the “living dead”. The zombies are slow but determined and the suspense increases as the characters report on the number of them outside of the house growing. I feel that at times the acting was over dramatic but in understanding Romero’s feelings behind his first zombie film, I can begin to understand the purpose behind it. Overall this film is deserving of being called a cult classic, but in mind it will remain just that. I do, however, walk away from this film feeling that Romero is nothing short of a genius in his execution of this story. 

Monkey Shines (1988)
Monkey Shines was easily the most interesting film of the three in my opinion. It starts off showing an athletic young man named Allan who goes out for a morning jog but as he is scared by a loose dog, he runs out in front of a truck. Following his operation, he learns that he is now a quadriplegic. Distraught by his inability to function on his own he attempts to commit suicide through strangulation in a plastic bag but it saved before he suffocates. His friend Geoffrey seeks out a woman Melanie known to provide and train service monkeys for quadriplegics such as Allan. She says that she has too many already and no time so Geoffrey offers one of the monkeys from his research lab. She has already had much training and is intelligent so Melanie accepts. She asks Geoffrey if the monkey has been experimented on or genetically altered in any way. Geoffrey assures her that the monkey has not been, when in fact he had injected her with human DNA serum. He hoped that by working with Allan the monkey would show humanistic behavior and higher learning capabilities outside of the laboratory setting. Upon receiving the monkey, Allan is at first very excited. He feels an immediate connection with her and she is extremely obedient and affectionate with him. However as the film progresses, Allan’s thoughts grow increasingly violent and he begins to suspect a somewhat telepathic relationship with the monkey, who is now named Ella. He has murderous thoughts first about his nursemaid’s bird, which mysteriously dies during the night, though the viewer is shown that Ella took the bird out of its cage. When Allan finds out that his ex-girlfriend has left him for his doctor, he once again gets murderous thoughts and finds out the next morning that both have died in a fire. He reveals these thoughts and fears that he caused their death to Melanie and Geoffrey but neither believe him. Over time Allan’s thoughts become more violent and begins to suspect more and more that Ella is acting on his thoughts. Eventually he becomes aware that it is true and fears Ella will murder his mother. Geoffrey comes over and attempts to subdue Ella but she obtains his syringe and stabs him with it instead, killing him within only a few minutes. Melanie calls and hears something going on so she comes over only to be attacked by Ella and is knocked unconscious. Allan is able to force his hand to his tape player and the music temporarily subdues Ella and calms her down. She sits in his lap and he grabs her neck in his mouth and shakes her until she is dead. In the end Melanie survives and Allan discovers that due to an unnoticed abnormality with his spine, his condition was not caused by the accident directly and after a second operation, he is able to walk out of the hospital and go home with Melanie, his love interest in the end.

Overall this was my favorite out of the films and most interesting to watch. It seemed over the top at times but in the beginning was very interesting and the monkey was of course very cute to watch, when it wasn’t murdering people. I liked the idea of a love interest, which isn’t often something seen all the way to the end of a horror or thriller film. I enjoyed the fact that the monkey started off cute and affectionate, and giving everyone the illusion that she was just a typical monkey and there to help out Allan. Even when she becomes a vicious murderer, Allan is slow to believe that his aid monkey could have done such a thing and blames himself more than her. I find it intriguing as an idea, though I do not feel that it is scientifically accurate. I legitimately doubt that injecting a monkey with “human soup” would magically give them human characteristics, abilities, and thoughts. This was my main issue with the film and without that one problem, I would have loved every minute of it. 

Bruiser (2000)
Bruiser is probably the film I had the most difficult time following out of the three. Essentially it is the story of a young man with a fairly difficult life. Henry discovers that his wife of several years is not only cheating on him with his boss, stealing from him, and planning to leave him, but also that his maid and best friend have been stealing from him for quite a while as well. He often lets people walk all over him until one day when he wakes up after having attended a BBQ at his boss’s house. Having created masks the previous day, he wakes up the next morning with what appears to be one of the masks on his face. It is blank and white with only holes for his eyes and nose. Throughout the film the mask changes in appearance from solid white to having red streaks  to red and black streaks and eventually just a red teardrop under one of the eye holes. Having always had murderous and violent thoughts about those around him, Henry at first believes the actions he performs with the mask on are also just his imaginings but after realizing that he truly killed his maid for her thievery, he realizes that he is no longer a simple guy who will let people walk over him. He then seeks out his wife who is having sex with his boss at the time and given a small window of opportunity, he wraps an extension cord around her neck and throws her out of a window. He spends much of the film hiding from the police, white at the same time egging them on and at one point admits to the murder of his wife publicly. He then kills his boss at a company halloween masquerade party which everyone seems to believe is just a show and cheer on the act. In the end he successfully evades the cops and the last shot of the film is showing Henry with a different physical appearance working a new job. He has an angry boss with nothing but insults for him and the other employees. The last scene shows Henry turning around to oblige his new boss with the mask appearing on his face once again.

Out of the three this was honestly one of the most boring, despite being the most recent film. I found it difficult to relate to the characters and overall hard to stay interested, though it had the best effects. I found it difficult to sympathize with the main character. He is unattractive and weak which is necessary for the plot to move along. However, it felt as though he simply let everyone do those terrible things to him and felt liked he didn’t care that he was the victim. He felt too naive for a grown man to be and frankly pathetic as a man. He would keep his vicious thoughts to himself rather than confronting the people closest to him, and as a result, when his murderous side emerged with the mask, he simply killed them. I understand that often a horror movie is lacking in plot or background, but I felt there could have been improvements that would have made the audience empathize with the protagonist more.