Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film, directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. It was completed on a $114,000 budget and premiered October 1, 1968. The film became a financial success, grossing $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally. It has been a cult classic ever since. Night of the Living Dead was heavily criticized at its release for its explicit gore. It eventually garnered critical acclaim and has been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, as a film deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The story follows characters Ben (Jones), Barbra (O'Dea), and five others trapped in a rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania, which is attacked by a large and growing group of unnamed "living dead" monsters.

Night of the Living Dead led to five subsequent films between 1978 and 2010, also directed by Romero, and inspired two remakes; the most well-known remake was released in 1990, directed by Tom Savini.

Barbra (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny Blair (Russell Streiner) drive to rural Pennsylvania for an annual visit to their father's grave. Barbra is attacked by a strange man (Bill Hinzman) walking in the cemetery. Johnny tries to rescue his sister, but the man throws him against a gravestone; Johnny strikes his head on the stone and is killed. After a mishap with the car, Barbra escapes on foot, with the stranger in pursuit, and later arrives at a farmhouse, where she discovers a woman's mangled corpse. Fleeing from the house, she is confronted by strange menacing figures like the man in the graveyard. Ben (Duane Jones) arrives and takes her into the house, driving the "monsters" away and sealing the doors and windows. Throughout the night, Barbra slowly descends into a stupor of shock and insanity.

Ben and Barbra are unaware that the farmhouse has a cellar, housing an angry married couple, Harry (Karl Hardman) and Helen Cooper (Marilyn Eastman), along with their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon). They sought refuge after a group of the same monsters overturned their car. Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley), a teenage couple, arrived after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal murders. Karen has fallen seriously ill after being bitten by one of the monsters. They venture upstairs when Ben turns on a radio, while Barbra awakens from her stupor. Harry demands that everyone hide in the cellar, but Ben deems it a "deathtrap" and continues upstairs, to barricade the house with Tom's help.

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Night of the Living Dead (full film)
Radio reports explain that a wave of mass murder is sweeping across the eastern United States. Ben finds a television, and they watch an emergency broadcaster (Charles Craig) report that the recently deceased have become reanimated and are consuming the flesh of the living. Experts, scientists, and the United States military fail to discover the cause, though one scientist suspects radioactive contamination from a space probe. It returned from Venus, and was deliberately exploded in the Earth's atmosphere when the radiation was detected.

The Cooper family hiding in the cellar
Ben plans to obtain medical care for Karen when the reports list local rescue centers offering refuge and safety. Ben and Tom refuel Ben's truck while Harry hurls molotov cocktails from an upper window at the ghouls. Judy follows him, fearing for Tom's safety. Tom accidentally spills gasoline on the truck, setting it ablaze. Tom and Judy try to drive the truck away from the pump, but Judy is unable to free herself from its door, and the truck explodes, killing them both; the zombies promptly eat the charred remains.

Ben returns to the house, but is locked out by Harry. Eventually forcing his way back in, Ben beats Harry, angered by his cowardice, while the zombies feed on the remains of Tom and Judy. A news report reveals that only a gunshot or heavy blow to the head can stop them, aside from setting the "reactivated bodies" on fire. It also reports that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to restore order.

The lights go out, and the zombies break through the barricades. Harry grabs Ben's rifle and threatens to shoot him. In the chaos the two fight and Ben manages to wrestle the gun away and shoots Harry. Harry stumbles into the cellar and collapses next to Karen, mortally wounded. She has also died from her illness. The ghouls try to pull Helen and Barbra through the windows, but Helen frees herself. She returns to the refuge of the cellar to see Karen is reanimated and eating Harry's corpse. Helen is frozen in shock, and Karen stabs her to death with a masonry trowel. Barbra, seeing Johnny among the zombies, is carried away by the horde and devoured. As the zombies overrun the house, Ben fights off Karen and seals himself inside the cellar, where Harry and Helen are reanimating, and he is forced to shoot them.

Ben is awakened by the posse's gunfire outside the next morning. He ventures upstairs; the posse spot him through the window and mistake him for one of the ghouls, shooting him through the forehead. Ben's body is thrown into a pile of bodies, laid next to the original zombie from the cemetery and the bodies are all lit on fire.