Ben’s Peculiar Thought Process

[BillyRay]

What would we be saying if they'd gotten the truck gassed up and everyone got out of the house safely? "Wow...what a disappointing horror movie." -OR- "George who?"

[Wyldwraith]

Whoa, They all worked together after the initial argument? How about AFTER the errors in execution of gassing up the truck you mention? As I recall there was a violent struggle between those inside and Cooper over opening the door to let Ben back in after the disastrous gas-up attempt. How was that NOT internal dissent? Cooper relenting and going along with the plan? You mean when we browbeat his wife into stopping help the others board up the ground floor and sent her scurrying back downstairs with her tail between her tail? (Yes, meant to write it that way) Or how about Cooper's lame-ass justification for not coming up and helping, and convincing Tom and Judy not to either when Ben had his hands full right after arriving with clearing the pair of zombies out of the house/defending Barbara? Ben's point about that blew Cooper's excuse out of the water, especially after the teenagers admitted they could hear Ben and Barbara's voices down there. "We thought you were more of those things." Says Cooper, bullshit! Plus I would make the case that just because most of the actual verbal conflicts took place during lulls between zombie attacks that doesn't mean the wasted time didn't cost them dearly. More minutes spent working would've meant a longer interval (or them getting in at all) before the zombies breached their improv'd fortifications. BTW, I had serious problems with the fact that zombies who were clearly and unarguably portrayed as being significantly weaker than the living were able to dislodge hardwood doors and cabinets nailed into INCHES of solid wood. Try this sometime. Take a 2x4 and some nails of sufficient length to go all the way through and still have 2-3 inches of length left, then nail it to something solid at each end. Then push all your weight against it for as long as you like. I guarantee the 2x4 won't end up dislodged from what you nailed it to. I would be willing to bet that two very strong men couldn't push, pull, kick or otherwise knock apart (2) 2x4s nailed solidly together without using a tool or lever of some sort. If a pair of healthy strong guys can't manage it, then how can the "weaker" zombies manage it not once, but through EVERYTHING nailed over the windows and doors? Personally I tried nailing a piece of scrap oak a about four feet long, 4-5 inches thick and 3-4 inches wide into the frame of a door at an abandoned never-finished house out in my neighborhood when I was sixteen and was first curious about this issue. When I used nails that were only thick enough to go through the wood and then maybe 3/4ths to 1 inch deep into the doorframe I had no trouble. A few hard kicks and the paneling of the frame gave way. But when I used nails of a similar length to those in the movie, they were long enough to be driven through the surface frame and into the more solid frame of the actual doorway. My feet were hurting like a bitch after 20-25 kicks, and that wood didn't budge. I put forward that if I can't kick it loose with all the time in the world to line up each shot and find the most advantageous angle, then you could pile 7-8 bodies up against it that were simply pushing against each other in their push forward and it either wouldn't budge, or the nails would slowly get worked back out. Whatcha think?

[sandrock74]

Cooper relenting and going along with the plan? You mean when we browbeat his wife into stopping help the others board up the ground floor and sent her scurrying back downstairs with her tail between her tail? (Yes, meant to write it that way) If a pair of healthy strong guys can't manage it, then how can the "weaker" zombies manage it not once, but through EVERYTHING nailed over the windows and doors? First, I want to state that I never, ever, browbeat Helen Cooper into anything. I just want to clear that up. Second, I agree with you on the zombies breaking thru the fortified doors and windows. Obviously, they MUST break into the house for dramatic purposes...otherwise, it wouldn't have been as interesting of an ending. In reality, zombies wouldn't have made their way thru...at least, not without making a hell of a racket and over time, so the people inside could have been fixing any damage. This is an annoying part of zombie movies and fiction to me. There was one story I read, which took place in the arctic. It was an enjoyable story, but at the end, the zombies tore down a solid steel door. WTF?? That completely took me out of the story.

[Trencher]

While I agree on the point that superstrong steeldoor breaching zombies takes me out off the story I would like to point out that the fortifications that Ben had set up were not very good and that the zombies in night where not that weak. Sure they were a bit weaker and slower than a living human but not so much that you can just walk right by them like Barbera did in the remake. Four zombies could rip out a plank just by holding on to it and applying body weight alone. ---------- Post added at 07:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:44 AM ---------- By the way: I love the internet.

[Wyldwraith]

I disagree, While I believe the zombies could have gotten through the more half-assed items used in the fortifications, I simply couldn't buy them knocking in the hardwood doors or the doubled-up hardwood cabinets. Especially not after Ben specifically rejected certain pieces of wood while talking to Tom, and punctuating his point about "the new stuff" being no good by punching right through the upper panel of of a pine door. What was the point of demonstrating clearly that Ben was assessing the quality of the materials he had available to fortify with and rejecting those he considered too weak if the zombies were going to breach EVERYTHING SIMULTANEOUSLY. I mean seriously, the zombies ploughed through every opening at the end like they were pushing through wet cardboard. Each time I get to that point in the movie I'm struck anew by the impression that for even healthy human beings (let alone instinct-driven undead) to breach every boarded-over window and door at the same time that means there was no way those fortifications could've held them at bay for half a day. Just another one of the reasons I prefer Savini's remake. So, whatcha think?

[Philly_SWAT]

Especially not after Ben specifically rejected certain pieces of wood while talking to Tom, and punctuating his point about "the new stuff" being no good by punching right through the upper panel of of a pine door. Just another one of the reasons I prefer Savini's remake. So, whatcha think? I think Ben punching thru the "new stuff" was in the Savini remake.

[AnxietyDilemma]

The remake made it look pretty simple to just simply walk by them, but it didn't seem so easy in the original, which stressed the danger of the zombies grouping up in bunches. It didn't look so easy for Ben to make his way back to the house after the truck exploded. I don't know about anybody else, but I wouldn't want to go wondering through the vast country side that I'm unfamiliar with in the middle of the night, where visibility would be poor, especially when groups of the dead are on the prowl. That's why I never enjoyed the "They're so slow" angle of the remake.

[DubiousComforts]

BTW, I had serious problems with the fact that zombies who were clearly and unarguably portrayed as being significantly weaker than the living were able to dislodge hardwood doors and cabinets nailed into INCHES of solid wood. I would be willing to bet that two very strong men couldn't push, pull, kick or otherwise knock apart (2) 2x4s nailed solidly together without using a tool or lever of some sort. Ben and Tom are shown pulling boards from the front door with their bare hands and a little help from a hammer in preparation for the truck escape. Also, we only ever see the ghouls break through a single door (the front door) and a single window (to the left of the front door). The front door itself came apart due to the being pounded with a table leg and the force of the ghouls. Its only fortification was a heavy closet door hastily nailed across which buckled under the weight of both the ghouls and gravity. In comparison, the window to the right of the front door (with the dining room table nailed across it) remained intact the next morning, which demonstrates that Ben simply became lax in fortifying the barricades as the night progressed and people began dying. The remake made it look pretty simple to just simply walk by them, but it didn't seem so easy in the original, which stressed the danger of the zombies grouping up in bunches. It didn't look so easy for Ben to make his way back to the house after the truck exploded. Excellent point. I've always felt that the original did a great job of establishing a realistic threat in order to trap the characters within the farmhouse. The remake, by comparison, has long stretches where we're shown no ghouls outside the house, and yet the characters have already decided to barricade themselves inside rather than make a run for it.

[Wyldwraith]

I dunno, Maybe it's just the bias in my personal mentality. Even in the original I view their prospects as "Hairy while trying to evade the large pack in the immediate area of the house, but home free if you don't get dragged down in the first twenty-five feet from the door" As for Ben just negligently pulling those boards away, notice my statement about needing to use nails long enough to be driven relatively deep into the frame beneath the weak paneling. For the long boards it looked like Ben was using shorter nails, and using the longer one for stuff like the tables and cabinets. If there's only a half inch of nail in the middle of the paneling a determined 9-year-old could wiggle it free, but get 2-3 inches into that door frame and you'll have better luck just breaking the wood than getting it loose. As for establishing a threat, I feel the incredibly long delay while the group dithered and bickered was responsible for this. It was full dark before the zombie count around the entire house exceeded 10-11. Meaning anytime before then all they'd have needed to do was dart pass 1-2, MAYBE 3 ghouls over a reasonably scattered area, then watch out for any ghouls headed into the area. My bet? By the time they'd covered 3/4ths of a mile if they saw any zombies it'd be one here, one there. Romero kept em in the house to make his plot work the way he wanted, not because it was the most realistic maneuver. I cite the previous poster about the common sense thought not to expect the prompt arrival of help at an extremely remote farm house. Since the few hours of experience with the zombies they did have had told them that the ghouls' numbers were slowly but steadily rising as the hours ticked by, it SHOULD have been common sense to realize that long before help arrives the number of zombies will have reached the required amount of moving biomass to breach their hasty fortifications. Is it *reasonably* to *assume* that EVERYONE in the house, had they thought of the situation in that manner all would have chosen to stay? Look at other monster movies for example. In any random group there's always a couple that want to run away no matter what. The majority has to talk/browbeat them into not going for it. The uniformity of opinion in Night is a tad strange to me, that's all.

[SRP76]

I think Ben punching thru the "new stuff" was in the Savini remake. It was. I just watched it all the way through for the first time (finally). It sucked. But anyway: The zombies don't have to "break through" anything. That's the whole problem with their boarding-up technique: it must be done from outside, not inside. When done from inside, the zombies are simply leaning against the holding force of the nails. Push the nails free, the "fortifications" fall impotently to the floor. Doesn't take much; the boards themselves are natural levers.

[Wyldwraith]

Not necessarily, While I agree boarding from the outside is innately stronger, if you were careful to drive the nail DIAGONALLY through the wood you'd take at least a % of that natural lever-action away. In that case you'd be using force to break apart the wood around the nail, because there's no way the nail is gonna BREAK from leaning on it. If the nails don't have a straight-line path to work back out of the wood, they can't give way until the wood they're in gives way. Which by the way, if you have sufficient bodies to push in order to accomplish, no amount of boarding up was going to be sufficient. Good point though. Hadn't considered that.

[AnxietyDilemma]

As for establishing a threat, I feel the incredibly long delay while the group dithered and bickered was responsible for this. It was full dark before the zombie count around the entire house exceeded 10-11. Meaning anytime before then all they'd have needed to do was dart pass 1-2, MAYBE 3 ghouls over a reasonably scattered area, then watch out for any ghouls headed into the area. My bet? By the time they'd covered 3/4ths of a mile if they saw any zombies it'd be one here, one there. I just don't see where they could expect to go on foot, being in the middle of nowhere at night time and all. Ben only ended up at the house because the truck was running out of gas and he spotted the gas pump at the house. Obviously, he had other plans than to just board himself up in a house, but his attention did get diverted between a catatonic woman and an antagonist who emerged from the cellar. Leaving in the truck was a good idea which obviously went terribly wrong. They should've tried it sooner obviously before things got out of hand, but as you said, George kept them in the house for the sake of internal conflict. I just don't see how fleeing on foot in the middle of nowhere would be a good idea though. To me, it'd be like getting shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean and deciding to swim for shore, rather than waiting/hoping for help. You'll die of exhaustion, dehydration, or drowning long before you could ever hope to reach the shore.

[Trin]

I think a lot of the arguments lose focus on the fact that these people were mere hours into the crisis, knew nothing about zombie behavior, and knew only a little of the situation they were in. They didn't know zombies were relentless, tireless pursuers. For all they knew the zombies would get hungry and go away. Or get tired and fall asleep. Or just collapse after a couple hours because their bodies were only able to endure a short time under this weird condition. Or just wander off because they were so stupid that once they lose sight of humans they'd forget about them. And also look at their decision making in terms of what they knew at the point in time and how much time they had to decide things. When Ben decided to fortify the house it was with only a few zombies outside and a near catatonic woman on his hands. The truck had no gas and he wasn't about to carry her. Later, when they decided to leave the house, it was only after more and more zombies showed up. That's something they couldn't have predicted. Even in retrospect we wonder where they all came from. If it had remained only a few zombies their strategy would've been different. Maybe Cooper, Ben, and Tom simply go burn or bludgeon them all and the house is safe. Maybe they just stay put. We know Ben's mindset on the house changed when he says, "Enough of those things will get in." The whole idea of staying mobile is flawed. Do they take the truck? How far does it go before a flat tire or run out of gas? We know that the diner is overrun. Can they expect to find a gas station still operating and safe? Or would they find other people ready and willing to steal their truck? They were neither well armed nor well manned. Assuming they end up on foot at some point. How far can Barbra reasonably walk/run? Or Cooper for that matter? A couple miles? And are Cooper, Ben, and Tom taking turns carrying the little girl? Do they carry food and water or hope to find it along the way? What about bathroom breaks? I tend to agree that the zombies get into the house at some point regardless of how well nailed the boards are. You or I might push on that board a couple times and think it's pretty solid. A zombie will push on it for 6 hours and slowly work it until it's loose.

[Wyldwraith]

See that's just IT though! Zombies are relentless, but in a STUPID WAY. If you look how the zombies in Night were scrabbling at windows and doors up until the VERY end, it was the exact same pattern repeated over and over. Step 1: Zombies shambles/staggers forward until encountering obstruction between him and food. (In this case windows and doors). Zombie's forward momentum stalls. Step 2: Zombie flails and flops his limbs along/across the windows doors. Stay at them, but DOES NOT continue applying pressure to the same spot/spots, because he/she/it keeps doing stuff like flopping forward against the window and then falling down and needing to get back up. Step 3: Zombie repeats Steps 1-2. Then, as if on some magical Big Daddy March-like cue, a huge wave of undead suddenly shifted tactics and doggedly rush forward and continue *consistently* pushing against the same spots until something gives and they pour into the house. I've watched both versions countless times, and it NEVER felt/appeared or gave any sort of sensory-clue that the near-entirety of their improvised fortifications were preparing to give way en masse. At the end of the movie the zombies completely switched tactics from Individuals who happen to be gathered together, to a united mass that whether unintentional or not, suddenly begins working collectively and relentlessly towards a common goal. I DO see your point about the tendency of many people to stick and hole up during trouble, ESPECIALLY after dark. Yet even their very brief experience with zombies had been enough to illustrate that a) No zombie that's shown up has left, and b) More zombies keep showing up regularly. Now, you're telling me that faced with those two observations, the absolutely most reasonable course of action is to stake your life on the notion that this MAY be a short-term thing, or that help MAY arrive in time? I just can't see it. You're also assuming the group would have been united in fleeing, which nothing in the movie leads us to believe would have been the case. Had Ben gotten Barbara and the teens to go for it, most likely Cooper would've had a hissy-fit and locked himself and his family in the cellar. Certain in his belief that he MUST BE RIGHT, and that walling yourself in down there is the best way to go. Had the group split like that, it's more than possible that the area's zombies would have been divided between those headed for the now-breached house to pound on the cellar door, and those doggedly staggering after the humans running away. Just my .02 though.

[Trin]

As for the zombies being able to get in (and subsequently getting in) I want to look at it from two perspectives. First, what the characters knew. Ben thought they could get in if there were enough of them. I believe that makes sense from their perspective. Remember what they knew about zombies. Barbra saw one break a car window with a rock. Ben saw them turn over a car as a group. Both those behaviors are smarter than flopping against a board over and over. From their perspective what’s to say the zombies won’t find a prybar and start unhinging boards? Or set fire to the house and drive them out? Second, what we know from the other movies. In Day Sarah doesn’t want them visible to the zombies during the day because it gets them riled up. She’s afraid that they’ll get through the fence if they’re incited enough. Consider that the zombies didn’t breach the house until after the attempt to get the truck. Look at the zombies after the truck explosion and the retreat of Ben back into the house. They’re riled up. They’ve had a taste of human. The group of them is excitable. I don’t see it as unrealistic for them to break through at that point. It’s possible that the truck attempt riled up the zombies enough to breach the house and they wouldn’t have if the group had just stayed put. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with the rest of your post. My main point is that the group responded to the situation at hand. When there were fewer zombies they chose to defend the house. More zombies and they chose to get in the truck and move on. I think their judgment was sound in both cases even if the decisions weren’t the best in retrospect. It seems to me that the group chose to stay in the house until the zombie numbers grew to the point that Ben was concerned that “enough of them will get in.” After that the whole group worked towards getting the truck. Yes, Cooper was still of the opinion that staying put was best. But he did help them with the plan. I also think we need to reflect on human behavior. How many people have watched a stock price fall and fall and fall while not selling their stock? In retrospect it’s insane. Why didn’t they sell at the first sign of trouble? Yet it happens all the time. Why? Because the basic human mindset is “The worst is probably over.” The lower the price gets the worse your position is if you sell. So you think, "I can ride this out just a little longer." I can see the Night crew thought process being the same with the zombies as more and more show up. More zombies outside means a riskier venture to leave. So they stay put. And more show up. Which makes the need to leave stronger, but it’s also even riskier. They kick themselves for not leaving earlier even as they continue to not leave. And all the while they never realize that it's going to get worse and worse and worse.