Night of the Living Dead (1968)

I was ten years old, on holiday in Cornwall, rummaging through a charity shop, when I found a VHS of this. The colour version. I bought it, watched it, and something shifted. I didn't fully understand what I was watching then, but I knew it was doing something to me that no film had managed before. Coming back to it as an adult, in its proper black-and-white, I can say without any hesitation: this is a masterpiece. One of the greatest horror films ever made, full stop.

It's almost impossible to overstate what George A. Romero did here. He didn't just make a terrifying movie, he conjured an entire genre into existence. The undead, flesh-eating, shambling horror that has since soaked into every corner of popular culture, it all starts right here, in 1968, on a shoestring budget, shot in grainy monochrome that makes it feel less like fiction and more like found footage from some genuinely horrible event. No 28 Days Later, no The Walking Dead, no Resident Evil without this film. That's a staggering legacy. A world without zombies is genuinely difficult to picture now, and it almost happened.

And speaking of things that are almost too wild to believe: the film fell into the public domain because of a clerical error. A missing copyright notice on the print. One of the most culturally defining pieces of horror cinema ever produced, and anyone can use it, remake it, sell it, screen it, do whatever they like with it. There's something both tragic and darkly poetic about that. Romero built the foundation of a genre that would go on to generate billions, and lost control of the very film that started it all through a paperwork blunder. You couldn't write it.

But let's talk about the film itself, because none of the cultural mythology matters if the thing on screen doesn't deliver. And it absolutely delivers. The black-and-white cinematography gives everything an almost documentary texture, this unsettling, grainy realism that makes the horror feel uncomfortably plausible. My girlfriend refuses to rewatch it. It frightened her that much, and I completely understand why. There's a rawness to it that colour and polish would have smothered.

Duane Jones is the heart of the whole thing. Calm, commanding, quietly magnetic. He carries the film with a gravitas that so many horror performances from this era couldn't manage, and his work here still feels completely modern. The rest of the cast are strong too, but Jones is on another level entirely. He's the reason the film has real weight rather than just atmosphere.

And then there's the ending. I won't spell it out for anyone coming to this fresh, but suffice to say: no happy endings here. Pure, unflinching nihilism delivered like a punch you don't see coming even when, in some sense, you should. Nearly sixty years on and it still hits hard. That's the mark of something genuinely extraordinary.

I've reviewed Survival of the Dead on here, which shows just how far Romero's later work drifted from this kind of raw, uncompromising horror. And I've also written about Creepshow, which captures a different side of his talent entirely. Neither of them touch this.

Four and a half stars. Iconic, chilling, and as essential as horror gets. If you haven't seen it, sort that out immediately.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1968  | Watched: 1999-03-03

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from George A. Romero: Creepshow (1982) · Jacaranda Joe (2022) · BIOHAZARD 2 TV-CM (1997) · Survival of the Dead (2009)
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)