NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) directed by George Romero

“Kill the brain, kill the ghoul.” 

Imagine being a kid in 1968 and having your folks drop you off at a Saturday matinee of the latest horror film. Raised on a steady diet of black & white Universal frighfests, Hammer horrors, and Z-grade monster flicks you grab your popcorn and soda, only to be thrust into arguably the most groundbreaking horror film of the late 1960s. 

Mind. Blown. (No pun intended.) 

George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD raised the bar for horror cinema thanks to its documentary feel, racial and sexual tension, nudity, and gore. Made on the cheap with producers sharing the screen with real actors, it’s one of the great independent films of all time, and a landmark of the horror genre.

Barbara and her brother Johnny bicker as they drive into the country to place flowers at their father’s grave. When they spy a lumbering figure in the graveyard (Bill Hinzman, who turned his brief appearance into a cottage industry), Johnny taunts his sister, only to end up conking his head on a tombstone after the ghoul attacks them (the word “zombie” is never used). The young woman escapes and seeks refuge in a secluded farmhouse, only for it to be surrounded by the shuffling figures.

Ben (Duane Jones) arrives in a truck and helps barricade the home. Eventually, the pair are joined by fellow survivors who have sought shelter in the farmhouse basement: a young couple who were on their way to a swimming hole, and an older couple whose daughter was attacked and bitten by a ghoul. Ben (a young black man) and Cooper (an older white man played by producer Karl Hardman) argue about the safest course of action, bringing the racial and generational issues playing out in the country onto the big screen.

Romero ratchets up the tension between the two factions, and it becomes clear that this is a battle nobody is going to truly “win”.

I’d forgotten that the zombies in this first installment are swifter and more organized than what we’d see years later in DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and DAY OF THE DEAD (1985). They smash car headlights and give the survivors tougher foes to combat than the brain dead, blue-skinned monsters who shuffle through the Monroeville Mall. And, despite our hopes that they’ll band together and survive to fight another day, Romero serves up a nihilistic ending that still delivers a powerful gut punch no matter how many times you’ve seen it. 

A handful of films absolutely changed cinema. This is one of them. — Dan Taylor