Spooky.pictures

Reviews

Spoilers ahead

John Scoleri, historian:

[Night of the Living Dead is] a classic that has inspired countless imitators, and spawned a sub-genre that continues to be exploited today in film, television, books and video games.

The Criterion Channel:

Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role.

Elliott Stein, Village Voice:

In this first-ever subversive horror movie, the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be killed by a redneck posse, and a young girl nibbles ravenously on her father’s severed arm—disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family is total.

Jon Towlson, BFI:

No other film of the 60s captured the allegorical moment so completely. At the time of Night of the Living Dead’s release, it seemed that America was, itself, at the point of collapse. Apocalypse was happening and there was no reversing it.