Forty years on, it is difficult to appreciate just how completely George Romero's taboo-shattering Night of the Living Dead (1968) sucker punched a nation weaned on bloodless Universal monster rallies and the Eastmancolor gloss of Great Britain's Hammer horrors. With only $60,000 in seed money, Romero turned the limitations of his cash-starved production into devastatingly indelible grace notes that would quickly become genre chapter and verse. While cost-saving (and continuity-sparing) black and white cinematography gives the film the queasy urgency of newsreel footage, what puts Night of the Living Dead over the top as a genre milestone is the fearlessness of its nihilistic vision.

Filmgoers expecting cheesy Roger Corman-style shudders or the classy frissons of Rosemary's Baby (1968) were instead force fed a smorgasbord of outrages, not the least of which is an infected child's murder and gory consumption of her bickering parents. Even more novel was the casting of black actor Duane Jones as the film's everyman hero, whose climactic demise at the hands of those who should have saved him is the coup de grace to an expertly modulated descent into the maelstrom, offering audiences neither comfort nor hope.

Producer: Russell Streiner, Karl Hardman
Director: George Romero
Screenplay: John A. Russo (based on a story by George Romero)
Cinematography: George Romero
Editing: George Romero
Production Design: Vincent Survinski
Special Effects: Regis Survinski, Tony Pantanello
Makeup: Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman
Cast: Judith O'Dea (Barbara), Russell Streiner (Johnny), Duane Jones (Ben), Karl Hardman (Harry Cooper), Keith Wayne (Tom), Judith Ridley (Judy), Marilyn Eastman (Helen Cooper), Kyra Schon (Karen).
BW-96m.

by Richard Harland Smith