Night of the Living Dead

1968 HorrorThriller 96 minutes Directed by George A. Romero

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About Night of the Living Dead

Barbra and Johnny are attacked at their father's grave in Pennsylvania, Johnny is killed, and Barbra reaches a farmhouse where Ben boards the windows. Harry and Helen Cooper, their bitten daughter Karen, and teenagers Tom and Judy join them as radio and television blame a Venus probe. A truck escape ends in a fire. By morning a posse shoots Ben, mistaking him for one of the ghouls.

Cast & crew

More about Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero directed, photographed, and edited a script he wrote with John A. Russo, and Russell Streiner and Karl Hardman produced it for Image Ten. It opened on 1 October 1968. Wikidata lists the cost as $114,000 and a box-office figure of $30,087,064, with the farmhouse work around Evans City, near Pittsburgh.

Themes

  • A graveyard attack
  • A boarded farmhouse
  • A bite inside the cellar
  • A posse that shoots the survivor
  • Ben
  • Barbra
  • ghouls
  • farmhouse
  • Evans City
  • Venus probe

In film history

The National Film Registry selected it in 1999.

Reviews

Roger Ebert wrote about a Saturday audience of children, many of them in shock, watching the film in a neighborhood theater.

Look

Romero shot the Evans City farmhouse himself, in black and white 35mm.

Music

The score is built from library cues. Wikidata names William Loose. A cue often identified on the soundtrack is Spencer Moore's Eerie - Heavy Echo, from the Hi-Q library.

Preservation

Missing copyright notices put the film in the public domain. Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Duane Jones plays Ben. Judith O'Dea is Barbra. Karl Hardman is Harry Cooper. Marilyn Eastman is Helen. Kyra Schon is Karen. Keith Wayne is Tom. Judith Ridley is Judy.
  • The copyright notice was left off the prints, and the film fell into the public domain.
  • The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1999.
  • Wikidata also lists a box-office figure of $12,087,064.
  • Walter Reade is named as a distributor on Wikidata. The theatrical release went out through Continental.

Scenes

  • Johnny is pulled down among the graves.
  • Karen attacks her mother in the cellar.
  • The morning posse shoots Ben and drags him with hooks.

Influenced

  • Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (night_of_the_living_dead)
  • Wikimedia Commons (Night of the Living Dead (1968).webm)