To be sure, movies about zombies had been around long before Night of the Living Dead. Among the early films involving the dead coming back to life were White Zombie (1932), The Walking Dead (1936) and I Walked With a Zombie (1945).

It took an ambitious young filmmaker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named George Romero to fully bring zombies into the public consciousness.

Along with PSYCHO, Night of the Living Dead must surely rank as one of the most influential horror films of the 60's. It's bleak depiction of dread and isolation along with the uncompromising (for its time) gore, make this an unmistakable classic.

Romero produced the film with his company Latent Image, in conjunction with an advertising company called Hardman Associates. He also did the cinematography, editing, and co-wrote the screenplay with his friend John A. Russo.

Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) have driven miles to a cemetery to lay a wreath at their father's grave. It's still light outside on this early Spring evening, and a storm is headed their way. The two are not alone however. In the distance is a pale-faced stranger (played by Bill Heinzman) lurking among the headstones.

Johnny teases his sister about how she hates going to these places and taunts her by saying "they're coming to get you Barbara!" He adds, "look there's one of them now," and points to the stranger. Barbara starts to walk away and bumps right into the ghoul, who then grabs her. She screams and Johnny tries to help her. The two men struggle and Johnny falls to the ground, his head slamming on one of the headstones.

Now the ghoul comes after Barbara again, who runs to her car and loses a shoe in the process. She doesn't have the key to start up and can only lock the doors. The attacker is persistent and knocks at the car. He then takes a brick and breaks one of the windows. Finally Barbara puts the car in the drive mode and is able to move the car downhill. She gets out sees a farmhouse in the distance.

When she gets there, she quickly locks the door and picks up a knife for defense. She appears to be the only one in the house and when she tries to use the phone, she discovers it's disconnected. The ghoul has been joined by others, but they're unable to get inside.

Barbara goes up the stairs and discovers the decomposing corpse of an old woman. Screaming, she runs outside and right into the glare of a truck's headlights. The vehicle belongs to Ben (Duane Jones), who she mistakes for a ghoul until he whisks her back to safety. His truck is almost out of gas and after he sees the body, Ben tell Barbara they have to leave. Barbara is in shock and unable to speak at first.

Finally, she demands to know what's going on. Before Ben can answer, he hears the sound of his headlights being smashed. He grabs a crowbar and smashes the heads of two ghouls. Another enters the house and Ben saves Barbara just in time from an attack. He then drags the body outside and sets it on fire, just as another group descends on them.

As Ben looks for tools to barricade the house, he instructs Barbara to turn all the lights on. She's so shaken she can barely do anything. In the living room, she becomes entranced by a music box. Ben does most of the boarding up himself and tells Barbara about his experiences earlier in the night: how he was trapped in a diner with 50 or 60 of "those things" as he call them, surrounding the place, and how he got into his truck and drove right through them.

Barbara tells her story about Johnny and the cemetery and becomes hysterical. She's under the illusion that her brother is still alive and implores Ben to help her find him. Ben stops Barbara from leaving the house and she smacks him. Ben responds in a gentle fashion by punching her in the face, which knocks her unconscious.

He then turns on the radio to listen to listen to the reports. An announcer calls the carnage an "epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unidentified assassins." It appears the mayhem is widespread, affecting cities and towns alike. Furthermore, the announcer warns people not to leave their homes for the time being.

Ben makes a torch using a cloth wrapped around a bedpost and drags a sofa chair outside. He sets it on fire and the ghouls react by stepping back away from the house.

The radio coverage continues, as we hear that the President has convened his cabinet and top scientists to try and contain the situation. Ben finds a rifle and ammunition in one of the closets. Barbara wakes up in time to hear the most horrific development so far: the murder victims show evidence of having been partially devoured by their killers.

It turns out Ben and Barbara are not alone in the farmhouse. They're joined by Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) and a guy name Tom (Keith Wayne) who have been in the cellar with Harry's family and Tom's girlfriend all along. Ben is furious they didn't offer any help, but the two men did not want to risk their own safety to help anyone else. As they argue about what part of the house is safest, more and more zombies appear.

Finally, after Tom brings his girl Judy (Judith Ridley) out of the cellar, Harry decides to go back down and bolts the door. His wife Helen (Marilyn Eastman) is tending to their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon) who was hurt during their initial struggle to safety. Helen is furious at Harry for keeping them isolated and away from the only radio in the house. She talks him into letting her go up for a little while. Judy agrees to go back down into the basement temporarily and keep an eye on little Karen.

Ben drags a TV into the living room and the group are able to watch a newscast. The anchor (Charles Craig) reports the latest: it appears the unburied dead are coming back to life. Survivors should make their way to rescue stations housing doctors and medical supplies and which have been set up around the country.

There is also a possible reason for the unfolding events. An explorer satellite which orbited the planet Venus, may have brought radiation back to Earth. As a precaution, a scientist tells viewers to make sure all dead bodies are cremated.

Ben sends Helen back down to check on her daughter, while the men figure out a way to fill the truck with gas. They decide to keep the zombies away by having Harry toss molotov cocktails from the second floor, as the women wait in the cellar. Judy refuses and rushes into the truck to join Tom.

With Ben holding a torch in the back, Tom drives to a nearby gas pump. However, gasoline is spilled and a fire is started. Tom and Judy drive away from the pump but it's too late. The truck blows up, killing the couple. Their bodies are then torn apart and eaten.

A large group of zombies encircle Ben, but he manages to get back to the house. Harry is reluctant to help him board up the front door, but has a change of heart and gives Ben a hand. Ben, angry again at Harry's cowardice, knocks him around a couple of times and tells Harry he should have fed him to the ghouls.

Later, Ben wonders why Karen is so sick and Helen tells him she was bitten by a zombie after their car was overturned. Another TV report instructs viewers to shoot at the heads of the undead, since the radiation has activated their brains. Just then, the power goes out in the house and the zombies outside are getting more aggressive.

Harry grabs the rifle and tries to get Helen to go down with him into the cellar. Ben struggles for the rifle and ends up shooting Harry in the stomach. Harry makes it down to the basement and falls next to his daughter. When Helen goes down she finds the grisly spectacle of Karen eating her father. Before she can react, Karen picks up a blunt object and repeatedly stabs her.

Back upstairs, the zombies have entered and Barbara is abducted and presumably killed. Ben goes into the cellar where he finds Harry and Helen about to come back to life. He responds by shooting them both in the head.

Morning arrives and Sheriff McClelland (George Kosana) and a large posse, including other officers, arrive at the farm. Ben can hear the gunshots outside and figures it's safe to come out. As he approaches a window, one of the men takes aim and fires, mistaking Ben for a zombie. Ben is shot between the eyes and the sheriff says "good shot! Okay he's dead, lets go get him. That's another one for the fire!"

What works about Night of the Living Dead is that it is, after all, an old-fashioned monster movie. The stark black and white photography doesn't detract from the horror and in fact adds something that might have otherwise been missing if it were shot in color. These ingredients make it feel like an update of an early Universal Film in fact.

The initial reviews in America were negative and the film had a modestly successful run. It wasn't until it played as a midnight movie and word of mouth spread, that it became a sensation. It should be noted that the Europeans were kinder and the British publication Sight and Sound selected Night of the Living Dead as one of the year's ten best!

Hunter: This movie was legendary when I was a little kid. My mother would talk about it as if it were the scariest thing ever made, which of course made me want to see it! I must admit, when I finally saw it a few years later it didn't make much of an impression on me. I had already been exposed to the gorier sequel and my expectations were high.

My opinion has of course changed, and I have to say the movie gets better each time I watch it. The taut direction and superb story-telling makes it hard to believe this was someone's first feature. The ending is still quite shocking, and since Ben is black, one can't help but think of the fact that it almost looks like a lynching.

Jason: Ah, the classic. This one did for zombie films what PSYCHO did for slasher films. A fun film on all fronts, really. What I've always enjoyed about this movie is what I call its "public domain" factor; for years, this movie was seen on late night TV, bad cable channels, etc. Growing up, it truly made you feel like this was everybody's movie. It was just *always* playing...somewhere!

Little homages to this sort of thing pop up all the time in both good and bad slashers; like the quick shot of a Haddonfield resident in Halloween II napping away as Michael borrows a knife and as NOTLD plays on in the background...