If you were going to the movies in 1968, you had a lot on your mind. But chances are, one film that October left an impression that never quite faded: Night of the Living Dead.
The publication Collider recently ranked it the single most important horror film ever made, the one that defined the entire genre. That is a title with some serious competition.
The same list included Psycho from 1960, The Exorcist from 1973, and The Silence of the Lambs from 1991. All four films shaped what horror movies became. But director George A. Romero’s 1968 picture took the top spot.
According to Collider, every zombie film and TV show you have ever seen owes something to that movie. Romero’s picture established the core ideas, the tropes, that the entire undead genre has been borrowing ever since.
The film holds a 95 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 89 on Metacritic. Not bad for something made on a shoestring budget more than fifty years ago.
Here Is the Twist Romero Never Expected
Romero, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 77, gave an interview in 2013 where he admitted something that might surprise you. He never thought he was making a zombie movie at all.
“I thought I was creating a completely new monster, you know, the neighbors suddenly turned into flesh-eaters, ghouls. And that’s what I call them, ghouls, in the film. And I thought they were completely new,” Romero said.
It was not until the sequel, Dawn of the Dead, that he started calling them zombies. That film came out in 1978, a full decade later.
Dawn of the Dead also introduced what became one of horror’s most quoted lines: “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth.” Romero said that tagline was the moment he finally gave in and accepted the zombie label.
So the man who practically invented the modern zombie spent years insisting he had done no such thing. That is the kind of behind-the-scenes story that makes old movies even more interesting to revisit.
