Rent Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Classic Zombie Horror - Night of the Living Dead review by GI

Reputed to be the most profitable independent film ever made, made on a shoestring budget and hugely influential this is still a classic of the horror genre and set the rules for zombie films ever since. Despite claims on it's behalf this is not the first real zombie film (for example Hammer Films had released Plague of The Zombies two years earlier) but it certainly included narrative tropes that have been part of the zombie culture ever since, such as cannabilism, they only die by head shot etc. In 1968 the cannabilistic elements in this film were truly shocking and the film is still today very gory and tense. It's a simple story, yet very well told with a completely unknown cast, a brother & sister visit their father's grave where a strange old man attacks them. The girl escapes pursued by the man and seeks refuge in an old farmhouse where a group of strangers are also hiding from an epidemic of recently dead corpses which are coming alive and have a craving for human flesh. They soon become besieged and like all films where a disparate group are trapped the dynamic is in their fight with each other in the stress of trying to survive. Director George A. Romero cleverly cast a young black actor (Duane Jones) in the lead, a very bold move in the USA at the time and his character dominates the group. Like all great horror films this is about the state of American society in the 1960s and it's a sharp condemnation. As a film, today, it's a masterpiece of simple film making and one of the best American horror films of all time.