RIP Charles Craig

[bassman]

Charles Craig, who portrayed the television newscaster in the original Night of the Living Dead, passed away on Sunday. He was also a real newscaster, and I believe one of the ghouls(?), but he is of course most well known for delivering the all-time classic dialogue on the TV in Night. We’re all too familiar with his lines and could probably repeat them verbatim in our sleep.

[JDP]

Gotta love how the news reports keep emphasizing the "have been partially devoured" and "are eating the flesh of" their victims bits of info. Those lines forever changed the zombie genre.

[UndeadHippo]

"It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact." That right there is the single most important statement in the zombie genre. RIP Mr Craig. please don't come back.

[JDP]

"It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact." That right there is the single most important statement in the zombie genre. I have to disagree on that, as quoted. Zombie movies before Night of the Living Dead already featured those elements mentioned in the above lines. But it is the "consuming" parts of their victims bit that totally changed the genre. Before Night zombies were not cannibalistic or vampiric, they only killed people (and also were controlled by some evil voodoo priest or mad scientist.) After that movie practically all zombie movies made involve some form of "feeding on their victims", whether it's flesh-eating, brain-eating or blood-sucking (plus there's usually no evil character controlling them, they do their own thing just because they are zombies, no one tells them how to act or what to do. They are evil themselves!)

[bassman]

It’s all equally iconic and important to the film and genre. A large part of that importance is Craig’s delivery.

[blind2d]

It’s all equally iconic and important to the film and genre. A large part of that importance is Craig’s delivery. Agreed, absolutely. RIP, Mr. Craig.

[JDP]

It’s all equally iconic and important to the film and genre. A large part of that importance is Craig’s delivery. The part about the dead coming back to life and attacking the living (under the command of some evil character who controls them) is just standard zombie lore. Romero et al. had nothing to do with that, they just used it in their movie, except they left out the part about someone controlling them. The really original and "game-changing" part was the cannibalistic aspect, which zombie movies up to that time did not have. This is Romero et al.'s doing. Zombie movies would never be the same after Night because of that.

[bassman]

The point of it is to praise Craig’s iconic role in the film. Whatever came before or who did what first is really irrelevant to the impact of the man’s role in Night and his having a part in making film history.

[Zombie Snack]

Rip....

[Moon Knight]

The point of it is to praise Craig’s iconic role in the film. Whatever came before or who did what first is really irrelevant to the impact of the man’s role in Night and his having a part in making film history. Damn right. RIP.

[JDP]

The point of it is to praise Craig’s iconic role in the film. Whatever came before or who did what first is really irrelevant to the impact of the man’s role in Night and his having a part in making film history. That's not what I was replying to and addressing. No one is questioning his iconic role in delivering the lines. But what was quoted in post #3 is not really "the single most important statement in the zombie genre". The "devouring/eating" the "flesh of their victims" part is, though. Those are the lines (and the accompanying gruesome visuals of zombies eating body parts later on in the film) that totally changed the genre, and therefore can be more justifiably said to be the most important statement ever said in a zombie film. The part about the dead coming back to life and attacking the living was just the standard zombie lore. The cannibalism part was not. It is this last part that divided zombie movies into BN (Before Night) and AN (After Night) Yes, Night of the Living Dead is the "Jesus" of the zombie world!

[EvilNed]

Iconic. Night of the Living Dead really introduced so many tropes that are still in play to this day.