The Lingering Horror Of Night Of The Living Dead

While there have been better-made horror movies in the 50 years since (some even directed by Romero himself), and there have been bigger budgets, better actors and more scares, there may not be any single dénouement and message more frightening than the one George Romero leaves us with at the end of ‘Night of the Living Dead.’

They got Barbara. They came, just as Johnny said they would. Dead hands clawing over each other to secure a grip and drag her away from the house. Barbara is lost in the horde of the undead, taken away to be devoured, to become the very thing she feared the most. This, the climax of George A. Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead in which the pretty, young, and good white woman meets a gruesome end would be the shocking downbeat to send audiences home with and fill their nightmares. That is, until what happened next took an even more shocking turn, one that turned a little independent B-movie into one of the most socially relevant horror movies to ever emerge from the darkened corners of America’s history… read more >