Night Of The Living Dead

''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is under assault by an enlarging group of flesh-eating, undead ghouls.

Having gained experience through directing television commercials and industrial films for their Pittsburgh-based production company The Latent Image, Romero and his friends Russo and Russell Streiner decided to fulfill their ambitions to make a feature film. Electing to make a horror film that would capitalize on contemporary commercial interest in the genre, they formed a partnership with Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman of Hardman Associates called Image Ten. After evolving through multiple drafts, Russo and Romero's final script primarily drew influence from Richard Matheson's 1954 novel '' I Am Legend''. Principal photography took place between July 1967 and January 1968, mainly on location in Evans City; aside from the Image Ten team themselves, the cast and crew consisted of their friends and relatives, local stage and amateur actors, and residents from the area. Although the film was his directorial debut, Romero utilized many of the guerrilla filmmaking techniques he had honed in his commercial and industrial work to complete the film on a budget of approximately .

Following its theatrical premiere in Pittsburgh on October 1, 1968, ''Night of the Living Dead'' eventually grossed domestically and internationally, earning more than 250 times its budget and making it one of the most profitable film productions ever made at the time. Released shortly prior to the adoption of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system, the film's explicit violence and gore was considered groundbreaking and unprecedented for the time, leading to widespread controversy and negative reviews upon its initial release. It eventually garnered a cult following and acclaim among critics, and has appeared on lists of the greatest and most influential films ever made by such outlets as ''Empire'', ''The New York Times'' and ''Total Film''. Frequently identified as the first modern zombie film and a touchstone in the development of the horror genre, retrospective scholarly analysis has focused on its reflection of the social and cultural changes in the United States during the 1960s, with particular attention being directed towards the casting of Jones, an African-American, in the leading role. In 1999, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

''Night of the Living Dead'' spawned a successful franchise that includes five official sequels released between 1978 and 2009, all of which were also directed by Romero. The film has also inspired several remakes as a result of its public domain status. An official remake, written by Romero and directed by Tom Savini, was released in 1990 and has similarly gained a small cult following.

Plot

Siblings Barbra and Johnny drive to a cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. Their car radio goes off the air due to technical difficulties. As they are leaving, a strange, ashen-faced, stumbling man wearing a tattered suit kills Johnny and attacks Barbra. She flees and takes shelter in a farmhouse but finds the woman who lived there dead and half-eaten. She sees a multiplying number of strange ghouls, led by the man from the cemetery, approaching the house. A man named Ben arrives, secures the farmhouse by boarding the windows and doors, and drives away the ghouls with a lever-action rifle he finds in the closet and with fire, which the ghouls fear.

Barbra, in a catatonic state from shock, is surprised when Harry Cooper and Tom emerge from the cellar. Harry has been taking shelter there with his wife Helen and their young daughter Karen after a group of the same monsters overturned their car and bit Karen on the arm, leaving her seriously ill. Tom arrived with his girlfriend Judy after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal killings. Tom aids Ben in securing the farmhouse while Harry angrily protests that it is unsafe before returning to the cellar, which he believes is safer. Ghouls continue to besiege the farmhouse in ever-increasing numbers.

The refugees listen to radio and television reports of a wave of mass murder being committed across the east coast of the United States by an army of cannibalistic, reanimating corpses, and posses of armed men patrolling the countryside to kill the ghouls. They confirm that the ghouls can be stopped with a bullet or heavy blow to the head or by being burned, as Ben discovered, and that various rescue centers are offering refuge and safety. Scientists theorize that the reanimations are occurring due to radiation from a space probe that exploded in Earth's atmosphere on the way back from Venus.

Ben devises a plan to obtain medical supplies for Karen and transport the group to a rescue center by refueling his truck. Ben, Tom, and Judy drive to a nearby gas pump, holding the ghouls off with torches and Molotov cocktails. However, the gas from the pump spills and causes the truck to catch fire and explode, killing Tom and Judy. Ben runs back to the house on his own and breaks down the door when Harry does not let him back in. Ben beats Harry for his cowardice. While the ghouls feast on the remains of Tom and Judy, the remaining survivors attempt to find a way out. However, the ghouls break through the barricades. In the ensuing chaos, Harry is shot dead by Ben. Karen dies from her injuries, reanimates, begins to eat her father's remains, and stabs Helen to death with a masonry trowel. Barbra recovers from her catatonic state and tries to help Ben keep the ghouls out but is dragged away by a reanimated Johnny and the other ghouls.

As the horde breaks into the house, Ben takes refuge in the cellar, where he shoots Harry and Helen's reanimating corpses. The next morning, an armed posse arrives and begins dispatching the remaining ghouls in the area. Awoken by their gunfire and sirens, Ben emerges from the cellar but is shot and killed when they mistake him for a ghoul. His body is thrown onto a bonfire and burned with the rest of the ghouls.

Cast

* Duane Jones as Ben. An unknown stage actor, Jones' performance as Ben was described in a 1969 review as a "comparatively calm and resourceful Negro"; he was a distinguished gentleman and former university professor in real life. Jones' casting was potentially controversial in 1968, when it was rare for a black man to be cast as the hero of an American film primarily composed of white actors, but Romero said that Jones simply performed the best in his audition. He went on to appear in other films after ''Night of the Living Dead'', including ''Ganja & Hess'' (1973) and ''Beat Street'' (1984) and continued working as a theater actor and director until his death in 1988. Despite his other film roles, Jones worried that people only recognized him as Ben.
* Judith O'Dea as Barbra. A 23-year-old commercial and stage actress, O'Dea previously worked for Hardman and Eastman in Pittsburgh. O'Dea was in Hollywood seeking entry to the movie business when she auditioned. O'Dea remarked in an interview that starring in the film was a positive experience for her. However, O'Dea admitted horror movies terrified her, particularly Vincent Price's '' House of Wax'' (1953). In addition to acting, O'Dea performed her own stunts, which she jokingly claimed amounted to "lots of running". Assessing ''Night of the Living Dead'', O'Dea commented, "I honestly had no idea it would have such a lasting impact on our culture." O'Dea was just as surprised at the renown the film brought her: "People treat you differently. 'mho-hum Judy O'Dea until they realize 'mBarbra from ''Night of the Living Dead''. All of a sudden 'mnot so ho-hum anymore!"
* Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper. One of the film's producers (alongside Streiner), Hardman also provided the voice of the newscaster heard on the radio in Johnny's car.
* Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper. Eastman also played a female ghoul eating an insect.
* Keith Wayne as Tom
* Judith Ridley as Judy. Ridley later played the lead in Romero's second feature ''There's Always Vanilla'' (1971).
* Kyra Schon as Karen Cooper. Hardman's daughter in real life, the 11-year-old daughter Schon also portrayed the mangled corpse on the house's upstairs floor that Ben drags away.
* Charles Craig as TV Newscaster / Ghoul
* Bill Hinzman as The ghoul encountered by Barbra and Johnny in the cemetery. He reprised the role in new scenes filmed for the 30th anniversary edition of the film.
* George Kosana as Sheriff McClelland. Kosana also served as the film's production manager.
* Russell Streiner ''(uncredited)'' as Johnny. Streiner later served as a producer of the 1990 remake of the film, in which he also has a cameo appearance as Sheriff McClelland.
* Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille as Himself. Cardille was well known in Pittsburgh as a TV presenter who hosted a horror film anthology series, '' Chiller Theatre'', on late Saturday nights in the 1960s and 70s. Cardille would later make a cameo appearance as the TV news reporter in the 1990 remake.

Production

Development and pre-production

Romero embarked upon his career in the film industry while attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He directed and produced television commercials and industrial films for The Latent Image, in the 1960s, a company he co-founded with friends John Russo, and Russell Streiner. The trio grew bored making commercials and wanted to film a horror movie during this period. They wanted to capitalize on the film industry's "thirst for the bizarre", according to Romero. He and Streiner contacted Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman, president and vice president respectively of a Pittsburgh-based industrial film firm called Hardman Associates, Inc. They pitched their idea for a then-untitled horror film. A production company, conceived by Romero, called Image Ten, was formed that included Romero, Russo, Streiner, Hardman, and Eastman. The initial budget was $6,000 with the ten members of the production company, investing $600 each for a share of the profits. Another ten investors were found when it was found that another $6,000 was required but this was also soon found to be inadequate. Image Ten eventually raised approximately $114,000 for the budget ($ today).

Writing

Co-written as a horror comedy by John Russo and George A. Romero under the title ''Monster Flick'', an early screenplay draft concerned the exploits of adolescent aliens who visit Earth and befriend human teenagers. A second version of the script featured a young man who runs away from home and discovers rotting human corpses that aliens use for food scattered across a meadow. Russo came up with the concept that they would be the recently dead only because they could not afford to bring long-dead people out of their graves. He also came up with the idea that they would be "flesh-eaters". The final draft, written mainly by Russo during three days in 1967, focused on reanimated human corpses – Romero refers to them as ''ghouls'' – that consume the flesh of the living. In a 1997 interview with the BBC
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