Night of the Living Dead

Year of Release:  1968
Director:  George A. Romero
Screenplay:  John Russo and George A. Romero
Starring:  Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Kyra Schon
Running Time:  96 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Barbara (O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) drive out to rural Pennsylvania to lay a wreath on their father's grave.  At the cemetery they are attacked, seemingly at random, by a strange man who kills Johnny and chases Barbara.  Barbara flees to an apparently abandoned farmhouse, where she encounters Ben (Jones), who barricades the doors and windows.  They also meet an angry married couple: Harry (Hardman) and Helen (Eastman) and their injured eleven year old daughter Karen (Schon), and teenagers Tom (Wayne) and Judy (Ridley), who are all hiding in the cellar.  All of them have heard about or experienced strange, random attacks. As the farmhouse comes under siege, it soon turns out that their attackers are the recently deceased who have been returning from the dead and attacking and eating the living, who quickly become "ghouls" themselves.

The "zombie apocalypse" subgenre has become almost ubiquitous in the last fifteen years or so, although it seems to have fallen out of favour somewhat in recent years (despite The Walking Dead (2010 - current) TV series still shuffling on, seemingly forever) there are still plenty of these movies being made and almost every horror movie festival is bound to throw up more than one new example.  But this is really where it all started.  Despite being inspired by the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, Night of the Living Dead is probably the first proper zombie apocalypse film, and it is surprising how much was there right from the start:  The small group of survivors being besieged by hordes of the Living Dead, yet having more to fear from each other than from the hungry ghouls.  It also created the modern idea of the zombie, originally a creature in Haitian folklore, as a shuffling, undead cannibal (although the word "zombie" is never mentioned once in the film, where the creatures are termed "ghouls").  The film was made on a very low budget with facilities from his production company, which made TV commercials and industrial films.  It's set in the present day, using mostly found locations, most of it takes place in the house; there are no recognisable faces in the cast, and special effects are kept to a minimum.  The film has definitely dated, and some of the acting isn't great, but it is still powerful, and the grainy, low-budget black-and-white gives it a rawness that still packs a punch.  The fact that Duane Jones, an African-American actor, is the hero of the film, would probably still be remarked on if it was made today, let alone in 1968. 
The film's downbeat conclusion packs just as much of a punch now as it did over fifty years ago. 

They're coming to get you:  Ghouls on the rampage in Night of the Living Dead