Brother and sister, Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) visit their father's grave in a small town in Pennsylvania. When a re-animated zombie kills Johnny, Barbra runs into a farmhouse to escape. There she meets Ben (Duane Jones), a quick thinking, resourceful man with a plan. After a very brief zombie attack, Barbra and Ben learn that they are not the only ones in the house. Hiding in the cellar were Tom (Kieth Wayne), Judy (Judith Ridley), Harry (Karl Hardman), Helen (Marilyn Eastman) and Karen (Kyra Schon). Tom and Judy are boyfriend and girlfriend while Harry and Helen are the parents of Karen. Ben quickly takes charge much to the chagrin of Harry. They make a series of plans to control or escape the bloodthirsty, undead horde on their doorstep and must put aside petty differences in order to survive.
Every cliché you can possibly think of in any zombie movie ever made can easily be traced back to here. The zombies are slow, dull-witted creatures who travel in innumerous groups. The only way to kill them is a bullet through the brain or a heavy blow to the head. The recently deceased must be burned to ashes quickly or they will re-animate and become simply one of the undead. All of this information is related to our characters, and us by extension, through a series of radio and television broadcasts. This helps to expand the scale of the situation without ever having to leave the farmhouse or the central characters. One imagines that many of the events unfolding on the screen are happening a few miles up the road somewhere.
The most important thing about any zombie film is that it be about the human characters survival. Making your characters be zombie hunters whose only purpose is to kill zombies is boring. What did they do before their current situation? What do they do when it's over? How prepared were they for the zombie apocalypse? The best thing about this film is that it is, more than zombies, about a group of seven people surviving a series of horrible events. The character backgrounds in Night of the Living Dead aren't described in any real detail. They all speak briefly about how they came to be at the farmhouse but not any earlier than the zombie's appearance. Still, through their interactions with each other we learn all we need to. You know that these people would have no interactions outside of the house if they could help it. Least of all Harry (who's a pompous ass) and Ben (who's our hero).
A random factoid that you probably didn't know is that Paramount refused to distribute the film due to its black and white cinematography. Thankfully it's still in black and white. Cinematographer George A. Romero (who also serves as editor, director, writer and producer) shows us the outside world as a bright warm world but anytime inside the house is slathered with light and dark shadows. It creates a feeling of claustrophobia and an eeriness that most "trapped-in-a-house" movies forget to have. We're stuck in this small place with people and are not going to be able to leave until it's all over no matter how much we might want to. The gore, which is very tame by today's standards, is given an extra. Red blood is now an inky black and the grisliest of wounds are covered up by the dark shadows I already mentioned.
This film both re-invented a genre and gave it its own additional subgenre that has now been done to death. Get it?
★★★★
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