Movie Review – Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Back in 1968, George A. Romero and John A. Russo shocked and terrified the world with their low-budget, black & white horror film that brought the dead back to life to kill and feast on the living.
Night of the Living Dead not only won acclaim as a top-rated horror film, but this became a groundbreaking film for the zombie craze as well. Earlier films may have hinted at the notion of using zombies as horror villains, but Night of the Living Dead was the film that really got the craze rolling.
Directed by George A. Romero, Night of the Living Dead was also written by George A. Romero and John A. Russo. The film stars Judith O’Dea as Barbra, Duane Jones as Ben, and Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper. Supporting them are Marilyn Eastman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, Kyra Schon, and Russell Streiner.
It’s a film basically driven by a cast of nobodies, but as we see, the strength of the horror story and the gripping terror of the horde of zombies continue to push this 1968, original version of Night of the Living Dead to not only the status of cult classic but also as one of the top horror films of all time.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Night of the Living Dead begins as brother and sister Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbra (Judith O’Dea) make an annual day trip to deliver flowers to the grave site of their late father on behalf of their mother who lives in Pittsburgh, PA. They place the flowers on the grave and Johnny remembers how the two of them used to play in the graveyard. He teases Barbra and scares her when saying, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”
Off in the distance there’s a strange guy (Bill Hinzman) dressed in a suit and stumbling around the graveyard. Johnny teases Barbra about the strange man being one of “them” when the man suddenly attacks his sister. Johnny tries to fight him but he’s pushed back and knocked unconscious when his head hits a gravestone. Barbra panics and tries to drive away from the cemetery and the strange man, but she doesn’t have the car keys. Johnny does. When the strange man breaks one of the car’s windows and tries to grab her, Barbra releases the parking brake and rolls downhill. The car eventually hits a tree and Barbra flees on foot to a distant farmhouse.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Barbra finds an open door and enters what appears to be an unoccupied farmhouse. The strange man tries to enter but she locks the doors, keeping him outside. Night quickly arrives in this part of the country as Barbra cautiously explores the house, looking for any sign of the former occupants. She’s spooked when ascending the stairs and finding a dead body in the upstairs hallway.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Barbra runs downstairs and opens the front door only to discover that a pickup truck has just arrived. Out pops Ben (Duane Jones), a calm and resourceful man who is seeking shelter from the walking terrors. He spies the strange man still milling around the yard, so he pushes Barbra back into the farmhouse. Ben locks the doors and tries to keep the strange man outside.
A second zombie arrives, so Ben heads outside and fights the two of them. He kills them both after repeatedly striking them in the head with a tire iron. As he’s finishing them, a third zombie quietly enters the house and goes for Barbra. Ben hears her cry and attacks the zombie, killing him by stabbing him in the head with his weapon.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
About a dozen more zombies are now approaching the farmhouse, so Ben retreats back inside the structure. He and Barbra dismantle doors and furniture, using the wood to barricade all the doors and windows. While working, Ben tells Barbra his story about how he first encountered the zombies at a nearby gas station. Once he’s finished, Barbra tells her story about going to the cemetery and then being attacked by the strange man. Barbra becomes hysterical when she wants to go back and find Johnny, but Ben refuses to let her leave. He slaps her across the face and Barbra passes out. He later discovers a radio and listens as the newscaster confirms the story about a widespread case of people suddenly going on a murderous rampage.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Ben discovers a rifle and some ammunition stashed in a closet. After making sure the house was secure, he heads upstairs to get some rest. Once he leaves, Barbra hears something emerging from the cellar and is shocked when two men suddenly appear. Ben hears the commotion and races downstairs. The two people are Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) and a local teenager named Tom (Keith Wayne). Harry was traveling with his wife and daughter when they ran into trouble with the zombies and sought shelter in the farmhouse, and Tom and his girlfriend also sought shelter there when they heard about the news on the radio. They heard the commotion upstairs but chose to stay locked in the cellar while Ben and Barbra fought zombies and secured the house.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Harry Cooper is an overbearing, self-righteous man who insists that everybody should grab food and supplies and stay in the cellar. He says that it’s the strongest part of the house, and since it only has one door, it would be easy to defend. Ben counters Harry’s opinion by claiming that the cellar is a death trap. There’s no escape should the zombies fight their way into it. Nonetheless, Harry insists on staying down there as he believes it’s the safest place. Ben and Barbra remain upstairs, and Tom and his girlfriend, Judy (Judith Ridley), stay upstairs and help defend the house. Harry returns to the cellar to see his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), and their injured daughter, Karen (Kyra Schon). It turns out that Karen was bitten by one of the zombies when their car was attacked, and since then the girl has become more and more sick. Helen is concerned about remaining in the cellar when everybody else wants to defend the upper part of the house, but Harry insists on staying down there. Meanwhile, a growing number of zombies continue to walk to the isolated house.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Ben finds a television set and places it in the living room. Everybody watches the news broadcast as the newscaster confirms that this is not just a case of people randomly murdering other people. Instead, recently deceased people are physically rising from their graves (or wherever they have died) and killing and consuming the flesh of the living. The instructions for survivors have changed and instead of staying put in their homes, people are instructed to make their way to an established shelter in their community. It’s also hinted that a space probe returning from Venus was carrying a high amount of radiation, and that radiation might be a cause for concern.
After seeing the listing of emergency shelters, Tom mentions that the shelter in Willard is less than twenty miles away. They can reach it with Ben’s truck if they can find a way to fuel it. The farmhouse has a gas pump around back, but it’s locked. Helen agrees with the plan as the shelter will have medical supplies that can help her and Harry’s daughter.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Ben quickly forms a plan for fueling the truck. Tom found the gas pump key, and he and Ben will head out and fill the truck with gasoline. Harry will be stationed upstairs and throwing flaming Molotov cocktails at the zombies, using the fire to keep them at bay. Barbra, Judy and Helen will remain behind in the house along with Harry and Karen.
Ben and Tom head outside. Ben fights off the zombies, Harry throws Molotov cocktails to scare them away, and Tom starts the pickup truck. Judy insists on staying with Tom, so she runs outside and jumps into the truck. Her doing so throws off everybody and alters Ben’s plan.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Tom drives Ben and Judy to the gas pump behind the house. The key won’t work in the lock, so Ben shoots and destroys the lock. Tom is sloppy with the gasoline and spills it on the truck and a flaming torch that Ben was using as a weapon. The flames quickly spread on the truck and the ground, inching towards the gas pump. Ben stays and tries to put out the fire on the ground while Tom and Judy drive away in the flaming truck. The truck stops and quickly explodes, killing both Tom and Judy.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Devastated by losing his escape ride along with Tom and Judy, Ben retreats back to the farmhouse. Harry had locked the door and tried to prevent Ben from entering and allowing zombies to enter, but Ben breaks open the door. More than fed up with Harry and his cowardice, Ben fights and beats the man. Outside, the zombies begin to eat the remains of Tom and Judy.
Ben reinforces the barricades inside the home and turns on the TV to hear the latest news. The newscaster reports that the zombies can be killed by either a gunshot to the head or severe trauma to the head. Recently deceased people are to be burned immediately so that they cannot rise again as zombies. It’s also reported that the radiation from the Venus space probe is intensifying, and that radiation is most likely the source of people rising from the dead. The newscaster then shows an earlier report of a local sheriff and his armed posse as they hunt for zombies.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The power goes out and the horde of zombies begins to attack the house again. Ben drops the rifle to hold a barricade, and Harry snatches the weapon. He tries to force his wife to return with him to the cellar, but she refuses. Ben fights Harry and gains control of the weapon again. Seeing how Harry is a danger to everybody, Ben shoots and mortally wounds the man. He returns to helping fight off the zombies as a dying Harry descends into the cellar and takes a last look at his dying daughter before he dies from the gunshot wound.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
A zombie breaks through a window and grabs Helen, but she frees herself and retreats to the cellar. She’s shocked when she finds her daughter Karen not only off the table, but the girl is eating the remains of her now deceased father. It’s too much for Helen to handle. She collapses on the floor and watches in horror as Karen picks up a trowel and then stabs her repeatedly, killing her.
Upstairs, Barbra is horrified when she sees her brother Johnny as a zombie. The woman is terrified and unable to fight back as Johnny and other zombies grab and pull her outside, killing her outside of the house.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The zombies break through the barricades and enter the farmhouse. Ben retreats to the living room, makes his way past the zombified version of Karen, and then locks himself in the cellar. He barricades the single door and stops the zombie horde. Down in the cellar, Ben is shocked as he finds the mutilated bodies of Harry and Helen.
The sun rises and the zombie horde has left the farmhouse. Ben survived the night down in the cellar. He hears the gunshots from a sheriff’s posse, and cautiously heads upstairs. The posse starts to enter the house when one of the members hears the sound of somebody moving. The sheriff orders them to stop and have one of the men shoot the figure moving inside the house. He does and Ben is mistakenly identified as a zombie, and shot and killed.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Night of the Living Dead ends with scenes of the posse putting Ben’s body on a burning pyre, along with other dead bodies. Nobody from the farmhouse survives.
So is Night of the Living Dead any good?
Considering its age and incredibly low-budget, especially in today’s terms, Night of the Living Dead is a fantastic horror and zombie film.
The cast of characters is decent with Barbra being the damsel in distress, Harry is the obnoxious jerk who you love to hate, and Ben is the hero who keeps the group focused on the problem and fighting the zombie horde. Some of the more satisfying scenes in the film are when Ben punches out Harry and then he later shoots and kills the coward. Tom is a local boy who wants to help, but his stupidity destroys their escape vehicle and gets him and his girlfriend killed.
Here’s a question for you: Did Ben intentionally act like a zombie so that the posse would kill him and end the misery that he endured from the previous night, from watching colleagues die to himself killing Harry?
Ben knew that the posse was outside the house. He saw them in the news report and heard the gunshots that morning. He could have easily shouted at them to make them hold their fire, but he didn’t. He instead acted suspicious and was quickly shot and killed. Considering that Ben was the brains of the survival and the leader and dominant zombie fire, it seems strange that he would die from something as preventable as the posse.
One of the more interesting aspects of this 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead is that the zombies are fairly intelligent creatures. The creatures show a fear of fire, they know how to use items such as doorknobs (like when the strange man tries to enter Barbra and Johnny’s car), and they know how to use tools. The strange man uses a rock to break a window, another zombie uses a club to try to break open a door, and the zombie version of Karen uses a trowel to kill her mother. As we know from later films, many zombies aren’t anywhere near this sophisticated or intelligent.
That’s part of what makes Night of the Living Dead so interesting. In addition to setting the bar and making zombies a reputable Hollywood monster, these zombies act more like incredibly low intelligent homicidal maniacs rather than the typical “brain dead” creatures that roam the streets for brains.
In 1999, Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition was released on home video. This version of the film added a few new scenes to the film, namely the beginning and ending. We learn that the strange man from the cemetery was actually a child killer who was recently executed in a prison. A couple of town people are there in the cemetery and unhappy when a priest wants to say a prayer for the executed killer. The people leave, and when it’s time to bury the man in the casket, the strange man suddenly comes to life and walks around. The two men from the prison flee in terror and the movie cuts to Barbra and Johnny driving in the beginning of the regular version of the film.
The 30th Anniversary Edition also has a new scene showing a family of people killed in a bloody car crash now rising as zombies. They are even more zombies walk along a road, presumably towards the farmhouse. At the end of the movie we see the priest again as he finds the strange man and seeks forgiveness, but the strange man bites and attacks him instead. That priest is later interviewed “one year later” as he’s sitting in a hospital and believing that divine powers have saved him from being transformed into a zombie.
Be warned; the 30th Anniversary Edition of the movie stinks. The acting is terrible, the “new” scenes in the beginning and ending are mostly irrelevant, and it’s painfully obvious that you’re watching footage shot at a much later date. The picture quality is much better and the people don’t look, talk or act like they’re in the late 1960s. Avoid this version of the film. Stick with watching the classic version of Night of the Living Dead.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) – movie trailer
As a whole, Night of the Living Dead is an absolute must for zombie and horror fans. Gather your friends and watch this one late at night. Parts of it may seem cheesy by today’s standards, but this is still one solid zombie film worthy of your time.
It’s actually easier than ever to see the original version of Night of the Living Dead. The distributor made an error when the film was released, and now the film is in the public domain. Here you go:
Night of the Living Dead (1968) – FULL MOVIE
Johnny – “They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”