Night of the Living Dead (1968)

They won't stay dead!

Barbara finds herself in perhaps the least fortunate of places, a graveyard, on the very day when for reasons unknown, the dead rise from their graves in search of warm human flesh. She manages to escape to a house out in the country side where she meets Ben, another zombie survivor. They soon find out that a family, the Coopers, are hiding out in the basement with a young couple named Tom and Judy. Now this unlikely group of allies must try to work together to fend of hordes of the living dead who are intent upon devouring whatever live flesh they can get their teeth into.

In 1968, the modern zombie film was born thanks to George A. Romero, and this film. To this day, the greatness of Romero's films remains unsurpassed. A hallmark of his work, starting with Night of the Living Dead, was his mixture of social and political commentary with horror. It was because of this that his film was referred to by  historian Adam Rockoff as "subversive on many levels." In the case of Night of the Living Dead, Romero's "subversiveness" included the films implied criticism of 1960's American society, as well as the horrendous war in Vietnam which was still raging at the time of the films release. It also took on patriarchy and racism by placing a woman and a black man as the films brave heroes who worked together to survive, which was contrasted by the slightly villainous, cowardly, individualistic, and abusive conservative white male head of the Cooper family. The film was also attacked by critics of the day for its graphic content which was beyond anything that mainstream audiences had yet seen on the big screen.

Night of the Living Dead kicked off Romero's "Dead series" which now includes six films. The film was never copyrighted, leading to numerous unauthorized and illegitimate "sequels" and "remakes". Tom Savini made an excellent remake of Night of the Living Dead with Romero's blessings in 1990, but the Return of the Living Dead series was also originally intended to act as a series of sequels to Night of the Living Dead despite having no actual connection to the series or to Romero... and despite being far inferior to the legitimate series directed by Romero himself.

5 They're coming for you Barbara's out of 5
Rated 18A/R for violence/gore, brief nudity, mild profanity.

Watch the Night of the Living Dead trailer.

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