Tagline: They’re coming to get you…again!
Night of the Living Dead movie storyline. One of the most important and influential horror films of all time – George Romero’s ultra-low budget debut film shot in grainy black-and-white with an unknown cast reinvented the genre. The film was actually improved by its crude “drawbacks,” since they lent a documentary feel and reality that made the film all the more horrific.
The screenplay was taken from an unpublished short story Romero had written called Anubis, so-named after the Egyptian god of the dead. In the simple yet brutally relentless plot of claustrophobic horror, the ‘living dead’ (re-animated corpses) mysteriously rise from the grave for no known reason (though there are vague references to radiation from a fallen satellite), forcing a group of seven strangers to take refuge from the shuffling, hungry, flesh-eating zombies in an isolated Pennsylvania farmhouse.
A capable black man (Jones) assumes leadership as the army of corpses repeatedly try to enter the house during a terrifying siege, amidst both unspoken racial and generational tensions between him and a less capable, older white family man (Hardman). The images of the film are haunting, from the opening scene in the cemetery, where flighty female lead Barbra (O’Dea) is teased by her brother Johnny (Streiner in an uncredited role): “They’re coming to get you, Barbra!” before being attacked by one of them, to the shot of the zombified little girl consuming her mother (often taken to be a social metaphor for the late 1960s youth of the nation rebelling against their elders).
Meanwhile, news and radio reports from the mass media emphasize the panic and threat. The tragic ending comes from the actions of real mindless zombies — living lynch mobs. While initially considered drive-in schlock, the film gained in popularity and critical respect, and raised Romero to great heights as a horror filmmaker. He would go on to make a zombie trilogy with the successful Dawn of the Dead (1978) and the lesser Day of the Dead (1985), before remaking his own Night of the Living Dead (1990) in color and with subtle changes to the plot, including a reworked beginning and ending.
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, shot and edited by George A. Romero, co-written by Romero and John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O’Dea. The story follows characters Ben (Jones), Barbra (O’Dea), and five others trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is besieged by a large and growing group of unnamed “living dead” monsters.
The film was completed on a $114,000 budget and shot outside Pittsburgh, where it had its theatrical premiere on October 1, 1968. The film grossed $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally, earning over 250 times its budget. Night of the Living Dead has been regarded as a cult classic by film scholars and critics, despite its being heavily criticized upon its release for its explicit gore. It eventually garnered critical acclaim and has been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, as a film deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon, George Kosana, Charles Craig, S. William Hinzman, Frank Doak, Samuel R. Solito
Screenplay by: John A. Russo, George A. Romero
Cinematography by: George A. Romero
Film Editing by: George A. Romero
Makeup Department: Bruce Capristo
Distributed by: The Walter Reade Organization, Continental Distributing
Release Date: October 1, 1968
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