The 4th Annual Spooky Classic Movie Blogathon: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

In the pantheon of fictional monsters, the zombie has been around for almost a hundred years. The first popular reference to these resurrected corpses dates back to the book The Magic Island, published by William Seabrook in 1929. Seabrook was an American occultist (and an alcoholic) who found success travelling to various parts of the world and publishing exaggerated accounts of witchcraft and satanism. Written after a trip to the Caribbean island of Haiti, The Magic Island supposedly details Seabrook's real-life encounters with the walking dead. The section dealing with zombies is titled «Black Sorcery» and it colourfully narrates a story a local told to Seabrook about voodoo rites used to revive the dead as soulless slaves to work in the sugar cane fields.

 

Now in the Public Domain, The Magic Island was praised by critics at the time of its original release for its characterization of the Haitian people and culture, as well as its exploration of voodoo. Although Seabrook's credibility and the accuracy of the material were questioned, readers were not interested in exploring the veracity and logic behind the undead phenomenon. The book quickly became a best-seller, and soon the media began circulating more stories about seemingly very real dead humans roaming amongst the living.

 

The Magic Island illustrations by Alexander King, depicting the zombies described by William Seabrook.

 

In 1930s and 1940s, the zombie began to be exploited as a plot device in a series of low-budget movies, many of them inspired by elements of Haitian culture and religion. The first attempt was White Zombie (1932), which was actually based on Seabrook's book. Directed by Victor Halperin for United Artists, the film starred Bela Lugosi, just a year after his career-defining performance in Dracula (1931), as an evil voodoo master who transforms a young woman into a zombie. White Zombie received generally negative reviews from critics, who complained about poor acting, but it was highly profitable at the box office, leading to a follow-up titled Revolt of the Zombies (1936). The resuscitated dead continued to appear in such «B» movies as King of the Zombies (1941), Revenge of the Zombies (1943) and Voodoo Man (1944), all produced by Monogram Pictures. Exceptions to this Poverty Row fare included I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Zombies on Broadway (1945), both made by RKO, and The Mad Ghoul (1943), from Universal Pictures.

 

In the post-war years, independent filmmaking introduced a new wave of horror productions, and the zombie itself was altered in so many ways that it barely resembled the original concept. Much of the evolution was inspired by the tumultuous events of that time, notably the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the space race between the two nations. As such, zombie movies and other horror pictures began incorporating exaggerated atomic scares and alien menaces into their plots. Films like Voodoo Island (1957), Zombies of Mora Tau (1957), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and The Dead One (1961) all featured some form of the walking dead monsters, but it was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) that forever changed the rules of the zombie movie. The production not only cemented zombies' main identity as the dead returned to life, but also imbued their personalities with ghoulish characteristics, including the consumption of living human flesh as their meal of choice.

 

LEFT: Frederick Peters and Bela Lugosi in White Zombie. MIDDLE: Christine Gordon and Darby Jones in I Walked with a Zombie. LEFT: Tor Johnson and Maila Nurmi (billed as Vampira) in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Night of the Living Dead begins when siblings Barbra and Johnny drive to a cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. While there, they are attacked by a pale, disheveled man, who kills Johnny and attacks Barbra. She is able to flee to a nearby farmhouse, where she discovers a horribly mutilated corpse. Just as a horde of ghoulish figures begin to surround the house, a stranger, Ben, appears and fights them off, before barricading the windows and doors. Ben, who is seeking refuge from the wave of unexplained violence he encountered while passing through the area, finds a radio and they learn of further mayhem being committed in other parts of the country by people who seem to be in a «trance.» Ben and Barbra then realize that they are not alone in the house, as other people are already taking shelter in the basement: Harry, his wife Helen, and their young daughter Karen, who fled there after ghouls overturned their car and bit the girl in the arm, leaving her seriously ill; and Tom and Judy, a young couple who had hid in the farmhouse after hearing an emergency broadcast.

 

Meanwhile, as ghouls continue the besiege the house, Ben discovers a television set and the whole group watches a report announcing an epidemic of mass murder that is sweeping across the eastern seaboard of the United States. The broadcaster explains that the murderers are recently deceased human beings who have returned to life and are consuming their victims' flesh. Scientists theorize that radiation emanating from an exploding space probe returning from Venus caused the reanimations. The report also instructs that the ghouls can die again from a gunshot of heavy blow to the head, or by being burned. With this information, Ben devises a plan to escape. However, while trying to refuel his truck, spilled gas catches fire and causes the vehicle to explode, killing Tom and Judy, who are then devoured by the ghouls. Later, when the ghouls finally burst through the barricades, Ben accidentally shoots Harry, Barbra is dragged away by her reanimated brother, and Helen is murdered and eaten by her infected daughter. By morning, Ben is the only survivor and is now hiding in the basement. An armed posse approaches the house and kills the remaining ghouls. Awakened by the commotion, Ben cautiously emerges from the basement, but is shot through the head after being mistaken for a ghoul. His body is carried from the house and burned in a bonfire with the others corpses.

 

Stills from Night of the Living Dead. LEFT: Judith O'Dea and Duane Jones. MIDDLE: The cast of ghouls. RIGHT: Marilyn Eastman and Kyra Schon.

 

The idea for the Night of the Living Dead originated with a story by George A. Romero, which in turn was inspired by Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend, a post-apocalyptic horror tale about the lone survivor of a pandemic that has turned humanity into undead, vampiric creatures. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Romero had directed and produced a number of television commercials before founding the company Image Ten Corporation with Russell Streiner, John A. Russo, Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman. After creating a high-budget commercial for the Calgon brand detergent that spoofed the science-fiction film Fantastic Voyage (1966), Romero and Streiner became interested in pursuing movie production. Given the fact that Image Ten was an independent company, and therefore was low on funds, the producers needed to find a project that could be made cheaply.

 

After numerous discussions, the group came up with the notion of a horror comedy about monsters from outer space, but that concept was scrapped once they realized they could not afford the props and special effects required to create a convincing spaceship. Russo then began exploring a darker idea that involved cannibalistic creatures that fed off human corpses, which Romero quickly developed into «forty really excellent pages of an exciting, suspenseful story.» According to Russo,

«Everybody in our group loved it. We all decided this had to be it — the movie we would make. It was the first half of Night of the Living Dead.»

Russo reworked Romero's story into screenplay format and completed the second half of the script, but much of the dialogue was eventually altered, rewritten, or improvised by the cast during filming. The most notable of these changes involve the fate of the characters of Ben and Barbra, who both survive in the original version. Ultimately, however, Ben ends up being accidentally killed by the posse that should have saved him, and Barbra is dragged away from the house to be devoured by her infected brother.

 

Scenes from Night of the Living Dead. LEFT: Russell Streiner and Judith O'Dea. RIGHT: Karl Hardman, Duane Jones and Marilyn Eastman.

For his initial script for Night of the Living Dead, Romero borrowed the survivalist angle from Matheson's I Am Legend, but drew inspiration for his monsters from another source. They were modeled not after vampires, not even zombies in the traditional sense, but after ghouls. Originating in Arabian mythology, a ghoul was a demonic creature with shapeshifting abilities, who dwell in graveyards and ate human flesh. As time passed, all the supernatural elements were forgotten, and by the time the works of American author H. P. Lovecraft popularized the ghoul in the early 20th century, the term applied to any entity who robbed graves or engaged in acts of cannibalism. Romero's monsters were also distinct from earlier depictions of zombies, in the the sense that they were not controlled by a mad scientist of a voodoo master; instead, they were shown to follow their own will, moving as a group with the sole purpose of feeding on the flesh of the living.

 

The Night of the Living Dead ghoulish creatures in two scenes from the movie. The term «zombie» is never used in the film.

Night of the Living Dead was shot intermittently over a period of seven months, between July 1967 and January 1968. Initially, only $60,000 was available for production, but the filmmakers were able to defer some payments until the movie had been released, raising the effective budget to $114,000. Lacking the money to build or buy a house for the main set, they rented a farmhouse in Evans City, Pennsylvania, that was scheduled for demolition. Although there was no running water, some crew members slept there during the shooting, taking baths in a nearby creek. The house did not have a suitable basement for filming, so they decided to shoot the cellar scenes on a set built beneath the production company's headquarters. The opening sequence was filmed at Evans City Cemetery. Romero, who took the director's chair, complained of the bad weather they experienced while shooting, and the lack of production facilities and skilled laboratory technicians, but stated that filming under those conditions was advantageous because it allowed him artistic control over the project.

 

The props and special effects used by the filmmakers were simple and restricted by the meagre budget. The blood, for instance, was Bosco Chocolate Syrup poured over the cast members' bodies, while the human flesh consumed by the ghoulish creatures consisted of meat and offal donated by a butcher shop. The costumes were picked from old clothes lying in people's attics, and the makeup, done by Hardman and Eastman, was initially limited to white skin and blackened eyes, but it evolved to wounds and decaying flesh created with morticians' wax. The scant funds also led Romero to shoot entirely on 35 mm black-and-white film.

 

Cast and crew of Night of the Living Dead in the cemetery and farmhouse in Evans City during the making of the film.

Similarly, the small budget impacted the casting choices, and no well-known actors were featured in the film. The cast consisted of members of Image Ten, actors who had previously appeared in their commercials, acquaintances of Romero, and local stage performers. Pittsburgh native Judith O'Dea, who had done commercial work for Hardman and Eastman's former company, Hardman Associates, made her screen debut as the alternatively catatonic and hysterical Barbra. At the time they were casting Night of the Living Dead, O'Dea was in Hollywood pursuing a film career and was called back to Pittsburgh to audition for the part, which she eventually got. Despite having no prior film acting experience, Streiner took on the role of Johnny, Barbra's brother, while Hardman and Eastman co-starred as the married couple Harry and Helen Cooper. Hardman's real-life daughter, Kyra Schon, portrayed their on-screen daughter, Karen, as well as the mangled corpse on the farmhouse's upper floor that Ben drags away. Keith Wayne, a singer with some acting training, and Judith Ridley, the production company's receptionist, were cast as the young couple Tom and Judy. Bill «Chilly Billy» Cardille, famous in Pittsburgh for being the host of the popular late-night horror anthology series Chiller Theatre, made a cameo appearance as a television reporter.

 

Judith O'Dea, Keith Wayne and Judith Ridley as Barbra, Tom and Judy in Night of the Living Dead.

The role of the film's hero, Ben, was originally envisioned for Rudy Ricci, a friend and associate of Romero and Streiner, but Duane Jones was ultimately cast. A Bachelor of Arts graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Jones had studied in Norway and Paris, before training as an actor in New York City. When he signed on to star in Night of the Living Dead, he was in process of completing a master's degree in Communications at New York University. At the height of the civil rights movement, the casting of an African-American as the story's protagonist was seen by some as radical. In interviews about the film, Romero denied any political intent behind his decision to hire Jones, claiming that he was simply the best person for the job. The director asserted,

«We had no preconceived notion as to the role being a black role, Duane came in, he looked right, he read well, so we used him. We never took any further note of it. It's not mentioned in the script at all.»

Jones was initially uneasy about taking on the part, fearing that he might be exploited in some way. At the time, films with a black actor in them usually had a racial theme, but Ben's ethnicity is never alluded to in the movie.

 

Being a well-educated man who spoke multiple languages, Jones took issue with Ben's original dialogue, which, according to Hardman, was that of a stereotypical lower-class, uneducated person. Hardman remembered, 

«Duane simply refused to do the role as it was written. As I recall, I believe that Duane himself upgraded his own dialogue to reflect how he felt the character should present himself.»

Jones's interpretation of Ben as an intelligent, competent man with strong survival instincts was met with approval by the filmmakers, who also praised the actor's professionalism during shooting. His role in Night of the Living Dead marked the first time an African-American actor was cast as the star and hero of a horror film, and one of the first times that a black actor was hired to play a non-ethnic-specific starring role.

 

Duane Jones as Ben in Night of the Living Dead. His casting was controversial at the time.

The production was completed as «Night of the Flesh Eaters,» but the name was ultimately changed to avoid confusion with the similarly named low-budget splatter film The Flesh Eaters (1964). Distributed by Continental Pictures, Night of the Living Dead premiered on October 1, 1968, at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh and expanded to other locations across the country on December 4. Because the film was not released by a major studio, it was not bound by the rating system that had been recently implemented by the Motion Picture Association of America. As such, tickets were available to moviegoers of all ages, including children, which caused concern among critics. Writing for the Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert was appalled at «how parents can willing send their children to a film sadistic, violent and truly terrifying.»

 

Contemporary critical reviews were largely negative, condemning the film's new standard of violence as immoral and disgusting. Lee Beaupre of Variety was particularly harsh in his assessment of Night of the Living Dead, labeling it as an «unrelieved orgy of sadism» and calling into question the «integrity and social responsibility» of the filmmakers, distributors and fans of such a «repellent» production. Similarly, Vincent Canby of The New York Times dismissed it as a «grainy little movie [...] made by some people in Pittsburgh.» One of the few positive notices at the time came from the Los Angeles Times, whose reviewer praised the film's effectiveness and imagination, and another from critic Rex Reed, who boasted, «If you want to see what turns a B movie into a classic [...] don't miss Night of the Living Dead.» 

 

Premiere event of Night of the Living Dead. LEFT: Marquee at the Fulton Theatre. MIDDLE: Kyra Schon and Karl Hardman. RIGHT: Duane Jones.

Despite the initial critical backlash, Night of the Living Dead was a financial success, becoming one of the top grossers for both 1969 and 1970. The film not only attracted the usual horror movie audience of mainly teenagers, but it may have also connected with the public on a political level. At the time, the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War, which many Americans opposed. The war was brought home to them every day in nightly news segments, eerily echoed by the film's emergency broadcasts about the murderous ghouls. The characters on screen listen anxiously to the television and radio reports, which present suspiciously evasive comments from government officials. Viewers saw parallels between the wartime government of the United States and the government in the film, shown to be ineffective in protecting its people. 

 

Over time, Night of the Living Dead developed a cult following and spawned five sequels released between 1978 and 2019, all directed by Romero, as well as a number of adaptations and remakes. In 1999, it was deemed «culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant» by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. In its induction, it said, «Director George A. Romero's debut ushered in an entire entertainment industry – the zombie film. [...] With tight editing and an unapologetically matter-of-fact approach to its violence and gore, the film subtly and surprisingly injects sociopolitical commentary into what most initially saw as a superficial exploitation film.» Two years later, it was included in the American Film Institute's list of the one hundred most thrilling movies in American cinema.

 

Original half-sheet poster and lobby card for Night of the Living Dead.

 

Although considered dated by today's standards due to its black and white photography and formulaic plot, Night of the Living Dead has been frequently identified as the foundation of the horror genre. The creatures created by Romero and Russo were never referred to as «zombies,» but the movie's influence on the subgenre is undeniable. Night of the Living Dead forever redefined what it means to be a zombie. 

 

 

This post is my contribution to The 4th Annual Spooly Classic Movie Blogathon hosted by Kristen of Hoofers and Honeys. To view all entries to the blogathon, click here. 

 

 

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SOURCES:

Assault of the Killer B's: Interviews with 20 Cult Film Actresses by Jason Paul Collum (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015) 

The Dead That Walk: Flesh-Eating Stories edited with an introduction by Stephen Jones (Ulysses Press, 2009)

George A. Romero: Interviews edited by Tony Williams (The University Press of Mississippi, 2011)

The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1960s and 1970s by Scott Aaron Stine (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001)

Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever by Joe Kane (Citadel Press Books, 2010) 

Night of the Living Dead: The Official Novelization by John A. Russo (Titan Books, 2025) 

Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Glenn Kay (Chicago Review Press, Incorporated, 2008)

«'Night of the Living Dead': Film Review» by Lee Beaupre (Variety, October 15, 1968) 

«Night of the Living Dead (1968) - History» at AFI Catalog of Feature Films

«Night of the Living Dead» by Vincent Canby (The New York Times, December 5, 1968)