History Film / NightOfTheLivingDead1968

->''"Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul!"''
-->--'''News anchor'''

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Johnny and Barbra have shades of this in the beginning when they visit their father's grave with the former complaining about how long it took for them to drive up there and acting rather childishly when taunting Barbra about how the undead is coming to get her and the latter acting more mature and calm about it, even referring to Johnny as "ignorant" at one point.

* DaylightHorror: Despite the movie obviously taking place mostly at night, the first time we see a ghoul attack is during the day. [[spoiler:And Ben gets killed in the morning.]]

* RecycledSoundtrack: The original film's score consists of stock music from Creator/CapitolRecords' "Hi-Q" production library, much of which had previously been used in such earlier B-movies as ''Film/TeenagersFromOuterSpace'', ''Film/TheDevilsMessenger'', and ''Film/TheHideousSunDemon''.

* RecycledSoundtrack: The original film's score consists of stock music from Creator/CapitolRecords' "Hi-Q" production library, much of which had previously been used in other film and TV soundtracks. The opening-credits theme, for instance, had appeared in the (unofficial) ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 Twilight Zone]]'' pilot "The Time Element", among other places; and other cues were lifted from the scores of such earlier B-movies as ''Film/TeenagersFromOuterSpace'', ''Film/TheDevilsMessenger'', and ''Film/TheHideousSunDemon''.

* OhCrap: Barbra's reaction after the graveyard zombie kills Johnny then looks up at her.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Everyone is killed by the ghouls - except Ben. Ben himself is mistaken for a ghoul and shot dead by the militia group mopping up the last of the ghouls. On the bright side, the ghoul apocalypse got cleaned up pretty easily.]]

* TheXOfY: Well, there's no "The" in the title, but otherwise it fits.

The movie has also received [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1990 a]] [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead2006 number]] of remakes, and [[WesternAnimation/NightOfTheAnimatedDead an]] AnimatedAdaptation.

It's worth noting that the "Living Dead" aren't called zombies ''yet''. The film identifies them as "[[OurGhoulsAreDifferent ghouls]]", a corpse-eating creature adapted into Western culture since ''Literature/ArabianNights'' with on-and-off popularity. The "Living Dead" are different from traditional ghouls in that they're the flesh-eating dead whose brains have been reactivated, presumably due to the radioactive fallout from an exploding space probe. It would be Romero's next film, ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 Dawn of the Dead]]'' that would first drop the word "[[VoodooZombie zombie]]", still not actually referring to his "Living Dead", but playing a huge role in getting the public to perceive zombies as flesh-eating corpses. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during the [[TheSixties 1960s]]--as the film demonstrates, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from the undead.

It's worth noting that the "Living Dead" here aren't zombies ''yet''. The film identifies them as [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent ghouls]], a corpse-eating creature adapted into Western culture since ''Literature/ArabianNights'' with on-and-off popularity. The "Living Dead" are different from traditional ghouls in that they're the flesh-eating dead whose brains have been reactivated, presumably due to the radioactive fallout from an exploding space probe. It would be Romero's next film, ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 Dawn of the Dead]]'' that would first drop the word "[[VoodooZombie zombie]]", still not actually referring to his "Living Dead", but playing a huge role in getting the public to perceive zombies as flesh-eating corpses. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during the [[TheSixties 1960s]]--as the film demonstrates, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from the undead.

It's worth noting that the "Living Dead" here aren't zombies ''yet''. The film identifies them as [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent ghouls]], a corpse-eating creature adapted into Western culture since ''Literature/ArabianNights'' with on-and-off popularity. The "Living Dead" are different from traditional ghouls in that they're the flesh-eating dead whose brains have been reactivated presumably due to the radioactive fallout of an exploding space probe. It would be Romero's next film, ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 Dawn of the Dead]]'' that would first drop the word "[[VoodooZombie zombie]]", still not actually referring to his "Living Dead", but playing a massive role in getting the public to perceive zombies as flesh-eating corpses. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during TheSixties--as the film demonstrates, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from zombies.

* DeathBySex: Judy and Tom have sex in Henry's barn, in which their sensual moaning end up attracting the zombies. Tom gets DevouredByTheHorde trying to save Judy who locked herself in a truck, while Judy herself gets [[FacialHorror half of her face eaten off]] by a zombie that managed to grab her through the back window.

* PeekABooCorpse: Barbra finds the chewed corpse of the house's owner upstairs, considering how well it was done with '60s SFX.

* RedHerring: Barbra is near-catatonic and then spacey. She feels warm, says so and takes her jacket off. She flinches at the fire when Mrs. Cooper lights her cigarette. Despite all this, she ''doesn't'' turn into a ghoul before getting dragged out of the house.

It's worth noting that the "Living Dead" here aren't zombies ''yet''. The film identifies them as [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent ghouls]], a corpse-eating creature adapted into Western culture since ''Literature/ArabianNights'' with on-and-off popularity. The "Living Dead" are different from traditional ghouls in that they're the dead whose brain has been reactivated presumably courtesy of the radioactive fallout of an exploding space probe. It would be Romero's next film, ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 Dawn of the Dead]]'' that would first drop the word "[[VoodooZombie zombie]]", still not actually referring to his "Living Dead", but playing a massive role in getting the public to perceive zombies as flesh-eating corpses. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during TheSixties--as the film demonstrated, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from zombies.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: This film invented the modern perception of zombies as cannibalistic monsters -- before it, they were [[VoodooZombie voodoo slaves]]. A keen viewer will also notice that some of the zombies in the beginning don't perfectly fit the "slow, dumb shambler" model that is associated with Romero's zombies. Namely, they reach for a car's door handle, they pick up a rock to smash against a window, they deliberately smash a car's headlights, and oh yeah, one of them ''runs''. [[spoiler:The Coopers' zombified daughter]] also uses a garden shovel to kill [[spoiler:her mother]], and several zombies pick up tools, such as the aforementioned rock, and one uses Ben's discarded makeshift torch to break down the door.
* PeekABooCorpse: One of the more frightening examples is seen when Barbra finds the chewed corpse upstairs, considering how well it was done with '60s SFX.

* PrecautionaryCorpseDisposal: A TropeCodifier -- a news broadcast directs the viewers to drag any corpse out into the street and burn it lest they rise up as a "[[NotUsingTheZWord flesh eating ghoul]]".

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Everyone dies to the ghouls except Ben because of their idiocy. Ben himself is mistaken for a ghoul and shot dead by the militia group sweeping up the last of the ghouls. On the bright side, the ghoul apocalypse got cleaned up pretty easily.]]

** For that matter, unless you shove fire in their faces (which causes them to snarl), the ghouls are [[TheQuietOne completely silent]]. This is in stark contrast to the loud, ghostly moans they make in the sequels and other subsequent zombie fiction.

** The ghouls' eating habits has them either closing their eyes to chew their food or look around rather than the sequels where they have JabbaTableManners and often messily eat.
** The ghouls have a way of giving up on pursuing their victims, even when they knew the living were inside the house, none of them try to break inside or even walk up on to the front porch, instead keeping their distance, even when there isn't fire around. Later when Ben flees inside after the failed escape attempt and him and Cooper close and barricade the door again, the ghouls are battering on the door to get inside. Not long later they seem to give up and wander away. They only attack the house en mass at the end. A far cry from the relentless zombies in ''Dawn of the Dead'' who are still trying to get into the mall as the weeks and months pass, or the zombies in ''Day of the Dead'' outside surrounding the military base's fence and gates still trying to get in.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The title is not using the word "night" in a figurative sense.

* FireKeepsItDead: At the end, after the locals have gained control of the situation they burn the bodies of killed humans so they can't rise as ghouls and "killed" ghouls so they can't rise ''again''.

* KillTheLights: Toward the end of the film the power suddenly goes out. Shortly thereafter the ghouls begin their final attack on the house.

* MenOfSherwood: The heroes turn on the TV and watch a redneck posse shooting their way through ghouls to clear the area for survivors. The posse eventually reaches the house, no worse for the wear, and kills all of the ghouls surrounding the house. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, they also mistake the last survivor for a ghoul and shoot him too]].

* SpinOff: 20 years after ''Night'', ''Film/{{Flesheater}}'' was released with Bill Hinzman pretty much reprising his role as the cemetery ghoul as well as being the film's editor, producer, wroter, and director. Even though the titular Flesheater is freed from a buried coffin, it is clearly intended to be the same character, uttering the same growls and groans, retaining enough intellect to use things as weapons, and even wearing a very similar suit.

* ThematicSeries: The sequels that spawned off this movie were all loosely connected.

* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: The plan to go out of the house, unlock the pump and refuel the truck is clearly explained to the audience. It fails.

* BaitTheDog: Sheriff [=McClelland=] and his posse seem like a good thing when they're first seen on the news but end up [[spoiler:thinking the SoleSurvivor is a zombie, and shoot him]].
* BarrierBustingBlow: In the climax, as a mob of zombies enter the house to pull Barbra away and drive Ben to the cellar.

* BewareTheLiving: Codified here with [[spoiler:Ben's death at the hands of the redneck zombie-hunting posse.]]
* BigBrotherInstinct: Johnny bitches about having to make the trip to the cemetery and teases Barbra mercilessly, but when she's attacked by the first zombie he immediately springs to her defense.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Everyone dies to the zombies except Ben because of their idiocy. Ben himself is mistaken for a zombie and shot dead by the militia group sweeping up the last of the zombies. On the bright side, the zombie apocalypse got cleaned up pretty easily.]]

* BreakTheCutie: Barbra, an attractive [[TheIngenue Ingenue]] who's endearing despite her uptight personality, gets attacked by a zombie, watches her brother die, finds a skeletonized corpse, and then finally goes into a panicked daze.

** Screenwriter John Russo plays the zombie that Ben kills with a tire iron.

* CreepyCemetery: The film opens with Johnny and Barbra arriving at an isolated rural cemetery to put a wreath on their father's grave. Even before the first zombie shows up, the place seems very sinister and unsettling with all the shadowy trees and old gravestones jutting out of the ground.
* CruelTwistEnding: [[spoiler:Ben, the SoleSurvivor, is killed after being mistaken for a zombie.]]

* DamselInDistress: Barbra is often accused of being this, though she does succeed in running away from most of the zombies. It's just that when things calm down, she goes slightly catatonic. Trauma can do that to a person.
* DaylightHorror: Despite the movie obviously taking place mostly at night, the first time we see a zombie attack is during the day. [[spoiler:And Ben gets killed in the morning.]]

* DeathGlare: Ben gives the cowardly Cooper a withering one after kicking in the locked door after Cooper refused to open it for him. With the zombie horde right behind him, Ben waits long enough to lock and barricade the door again before acting on it.

* DramaticThunder: The appearance of the first zombie in the cemetery is heralded by this.

** Unlike the subsequent films in the ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'', this one is in black and white and lacks the subtle humor and action elements of the sequels. More notably, there is at least a HandWave given for the zombies' existence (exotic radiation from an exploding space probe) while the sequels don't even bother with that. The first zombie seen is also able to move fast (for a corpse) in contrast to the later zombies, who have an obvious ZombieGait.
** The very first zombie in the film picks up a rock and uses it to break open a car window to get to Barbara. Every other instance of zombies interacting with inanimate objects in the sequels are done with no real reason outside of muscle-memory, and even then that's just a theory that survivors are working with. The only exceptions to this were Bub from ''Day of the Dead'' (who was being domesticated) and Big Daddy from ''Land of the Dead'' (whose intelligence went beyond mindlessly hunting living humans).
** For that matter, unless you shove fire in their faces (which causes them to snarl), the zombies are [[TheQuietOne completely silent]]. This is in stark contrast to the loud, ghostly moans they make in the sequels and other subsequent zombie fiction.
** While Ben is fending off a small group of zombies, he strikes one in the face with a tire iron. The zombie in question clutches at its face, as if in pain, or even just acting upon reflex. They also back away in fear in the presence of fire. All later films in the series depict zombies as having no survival instincts of their own, completely indifferent to any sort of damage (enacted or potential) their bodies receive.
** The zombies' eating habits has them either closing their eyes to chew their food or look around rather than the sequels where they have JabbaTableManners and often messily eat.
** The zombies have a way of giving up on pursuing their victims, even when they knew the living were inside the house, none of them try to break inside or even walk up on to the front porch, instead keeping their distance, even when there isn't fire around. Later when Ben flees inside after the failed escape attempt and him and Cooper close and barricade the door again, the zombies are battering on the door to get inside. Not long later they seem to give up and wander away. They only attack the house en mass at the end. A far cry from the relentless zombies in ''Dawn of the Dead'' who are still trying to get into the mall as the weeks and months pass, or the zombies in ''Day of the Dead'' outside surrounding the military base's fence and gates still trying to get in.

** In general, the zombies as portrayed in this film are something of a cross-breed of the original African tribal legends of the VoodooZombie, and the moaning, groaning FleshEatingZombie type popularized by this film's sequels and imitators.
* EmergencyRefuelling: The film has a group of people trapped in TheSiege with the zombies outside, who have a truck that could help them escape. Unfortunately the truck has no fuel and the gas pump on the outside of the house is locked shut, so a significant side-plot is the frantic search for the keys to the pump's lock all over the house. Once a set of keys that may be the pump's have been found, the survivors implement a plan to refuel the truck. [[spoiler:Except they discover, too late, that the keys are ''not'' for the pump.]]

* FireKeepsItDead: At the end, after the locals have gained control of the situation they burn the bodies of killed humans so they can't rise as zombies and "killed" zombies so they can't rise ''again''.

* FullFrontalAssault: As shown in the poster, there's a brief scene of a naked female zombie among the horde that invade the house. It's shown from behind so you don't really see much.
* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: In part because of its public domain status, this film has been a popular choice for computer colorization. There are actually ''three'' known colorized versions, all radically different from each other, and each tending to be inaccurate in different ways. For instance the version Hal Roach produced in 1985 colored Barbra and Johnny's car yellow, the Anchor Bay version in 1997 colored it blue, and the 2005 version from Legend Films colored it red. The real color of the car? Green. The 1985 and 2005 versions also featured green-skinned zombies while the 1997 version went with regular flesh tones.

** The zombie attacking Barbra and Johnny in the cemetery also counts. The first few minutes of the film are just a brother and sister bickering. We know it's a horror film, but we just assume that the shocks will come later on and this opening scene is going to be PlayedForLaughs... except, no, that creepy guy really is a murderous zombie. Even if you've seen it multiple times, it's still very jarring.

* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Ben is mistakenly shot by zombie hunters.]]

* HopeSpot: [[spoiler: Ben survives the night in the basement, comes up the stairs to find the house empty of zombies, and it seems clear he's about to be rescued by Sheriff McClelland and his zombie-hunting posse. Then they mistake him for a zombie and shoot him through the head.]]

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The living characters seem to prefer either being at each other's throats, lacking any common sense, or both to mount any credible offense against the zombies. [[spoiler:And then there's the ending where Ben, the SoleSurvivor, gets shot by a posse of policemen who couldn't bother to check if he's still alive]].
* HungryMenace: The zombies seem to exist only to devour the flesh of the living.

* {{Irony}}: Cooper orders Helen to go back down into the cellar in the third act, wanting to keep her safe. [[spoiler: At this point their daughter has become a zombie.]] The irony comes that if Helen had stayed upstairs [[spoiler: she probably would have survived]].
** And of course, the biggest one of all. [[spoiler: After spending the majority of the film flatly refusing to consider holing up in the basement as Cooper suggests, and deriding Cooper as an idiot for wanting to do so, when his boarding up of the house completely fails, not only is that where Ben finds safety, but we discover that Cooper was right all along, and even though a horde of zombies swarmed the house, they were unable to break through the door to get to Ben.]]
* ItCanThink: In contrast to the usual pop-culture depiction of Romero zombies, the ghouls here actually show a fair amount of animalistic intelligence. They understand simple tools (they use rocks and clubs to smash through obstructions like windows and doors, others use rocks to clumsily smash the lights on Ben's truck, [[spoiler:Karen uses a trowel to stab her mom to death after turning]]) and have the ability to move quickly (for the undead, at least) to pursue food. They don't feel pain, as shown when several zombie hands are cut to pieces by the defenders during one attack, but they clearly recognize obvious dangers and have some limited degree of self-preservation, recoiling from bright lights and especially from fire.

* KillItWithFire: Fire is one of the only things zombies are afraid of, and is one of the methods used to make sure they either stay dead or the recently deceased don't become them.

* KillTheLights: Toward the end of the film the power suddenly goes out. Shortly thereafter the zombies begin their final attack on the house.

* LosingAShoeInTheStruggle: Barbra loses ''both'' shoes while fleeing the cemetery zombie.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: The very first zombie in the movie can be seen shambling around the cemetery well before it attacks Barbra and Johnny.
* MenOfSherwood: The heroes turn on the TV and watch a redneck posse shooting their way through zombies to clear the area for survivors. The posse eventually reaches the house, no worse for the wear, and kills all of the zombies surrounding the house. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, they also mistake the last survivor for a zombie and shoot him too]].

* NegatedMomentOfAwesome: Barbra finally snaps out of her catatonia and runs to save Mrs. Cooper from the zombie horde breaking into the house, but [[spoiler: goes back into her catatonia the moment she sees her zombified brother Johnny, who drags her outside into the horde, where she is presumably devoured almost immediately afterward]].

* NotAZombie: The first zombie we see in the film is supposed to look like just some random person wandering around the cemetery, until he attacks Barbra.
* NotQuiteSavedEnough: This film is perhaps the prototypical example. In a movie filled with groundbreaking departures from tradition, this trope was perhaps the most significant. [[spoiler: After a heroic struggle, Ben is left the only survivor of a night of mayhem and horror in the farmhouse. The next morning he awakes to the sound of a rescue party approaching the house, but as he peers through the boarded-up windows for a glimpse of his potential saviors, they mistake him for just another zombie and perfunctorily shoot him in the head. The movie ends with a sequence of still images of Ben's lifeless, anonymous corpse impaled on a meat hook and dragged to a human bonfire. No one ever knows who he was or what he went through to survive the night . . . of the living dead.]]
* NotUsingTheZWord: The undead cannibals are referred to as "[[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]]" or "flesh-eaters" by the radio and TV people and as "those ''things''" by the main characters, but the word "zombie" is never used. In fact, Romero and Russo themselves never thought of the creatures as zombies, since the popular idea of zombie-as-cannibal had not yet been formed, making this a proto-TropeMaker.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Ben's story of running down zombies with a truck and his clash with them at Beekman's Diner, which would clearly have been far beyond the film's budget to actually show.

* OnlySaneMan: There's been serious debate about who fits this trope, if anyone does. Ben is the most level-headed and competent character in the movie, who does the most to fight back against the zombies and survive... but he's also ''wrong'' about what to do, and his decisions [[spoiler:get everyone but him killed]]. Cooper is an angry, irrational, [[DirtyCoward cowardly]] {{Jerkass}} who at one point threatens Ben with a gun... but he was ''right'' about hiding in the basement, even though nobody listened to him. It could be argued, then, that ''no one'' in the film is perfectly sane -- which is a big reason for the DownerEnding.

* PoliceAreUseless: Subverted with the sheriff's posse effectively taking down the zombies with very little problems. Also an inversion in proving they're a little ''too'' good at it when they [[spoiler:mistakenly shoot Ben and never realize he wasn't a zombie]].
* PracticalVoiceover: Radio and television broadcasts are used throughout the film to outline the contours and extent of the zombie outbreak.

* RedHerring: Barbra is near-catatonic and then spacey. She feels warm, says so and takes her jacket off. She flinches at the fire when Mrs. Cooper lights her cigarette. Despite all this, she ''doesn't'' turn into a zombie before getting dragged out of the house.

* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler:Zombie Karen eats her father's corpse, then kills and (presumably) eats her mother.]]

* TheSheriff: Sheriff [=McClelland=], who heads the local zombie-hunting posse.

** Bill Hinzman, who played the cemetery zombie, based his shambling gait on Karloff's in ''Film/TheWalkingDead1936''.
* TheSiege: The characters board themselves inside from the zombies outside.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:In ''ComicBook/EmpireOfTheDead'', commissioned by Romero himself, we learn Barbra was ''saved'' by Zombie!Johnny, who dragged her away from the rest of the undead horde to keep them from eating her.]]

* TaxidermyTerror: Barbra wanders into the house's trophy room, where the mounted heads [[CatScare seriously freak her out]]. Although not as much as the corpse. Or the zombie. Or Ben. (Of course, given all that Barbra has just been through in the previous few minutes, the trophies of dead animals would be a justifiably startling sight.)

** One powerful FridgeBrilliance interpretation has the film as a metaphor for the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement. A black man taking the role of hero, variously opposed, aided, betrayed, or ignored in his struggle to survive against the zombie hordes by the white people around him.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Tom and Judy are pretty separated from the other characters and the story at large. They hardly interact with anyone else but each other, and the only thing very memorable about them is [[spoiler:their fiery explosive death and the sloppy zombie clean-up crew]].

* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:Barbra gets over her catatonic state and saves Mrs. Cooper from the zombies that grab at her. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of her own life.]]
* TragicMistake: Ben, our hero, believes that they must defend the house from the zombies. Harry Cooper, our unsympathetic antagonist, insists that they should flee to the basement and barricade the basement door. Ben wins the argument, but Cooper was right. Ben's plan to defend the house [[spoiler:leads to disaster, and after everyone else is killed he does in fact flee to the basement, where he survives the zombies]].

* ZombieInfectee: [[spoiler:Karen Cooper was bitten by a zombie before she was taken to the basement. After taking a long time dying, she rises up, eats her father's corpse and kills her mother.]]

->''"They're coming to get you, Barbra!"''
-->-- '''Johnny'''

''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 horror film directed by Creator/GeorgeARomero, who co-wrote the screenplay with John Russo. Romero's first feature film and the first entry in the ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'', it became one of the most influential horror films ever produced, while inaugurating the ZombieApocalypse subgenre in the process.

Prior to ''Living Dead'', zombies had traditionally been depicted as [[VoodooZombie creatures of voodoo]], which obeyed their masters. Romero did [[OurZombiesAreDifferent something completely different]]: he offered no explanation for their existence (save a speculative {{hand wave}} regarding an exploded space probe and radioactive fallout), gave them no masters, and endowed them with an insatiable appetite for the flesh of living creatures. His FleshEatingZombie creation has come to be synonymous with the word "zombie" in popular culture. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during TheSixties--as the film demonstrated, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from zombies.

* PeekABooCorpse: One of the more frightening examples is see when Barbra finds the chewed corpse upstairs, considering how well it was done with 60s SFX.

* NotUsingTheZWord: The undead cannibals are referred to as "[[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]]" or "flesh-eaters" by the radio/TV people and as "those ''things''" by the main characters, but the word "zombie" is never used. In fact, Romero and Russo themselves never thought of the creatures as zombies, since the popular idea of zombie-as-cannibal had not yet been formed, making this a proto-TropeMaker.

The movie has also received [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1990 a]] [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1990 number]] of remakes, and [[WesternAnimation/NightOfTheAnimatedDead an]] AnimatedAdaptation.

* RecycledSoundtrack: The original film's score consists of stock music from Creator/CapitolRecords' "Hi-Q" production library, much of which had previously been used in other film and TV soundtracks. The opening-credits theme, for instance, had appeared in the (unofficial) ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 Twilight Zone]]'' pilot "The Time Element"; other cues were lifted from the scores of such earlier B-movies as ''Film/TeenagersFromOuterSpace'', ''Film/TheDevilsMessenger'', and ''Film/TheHideousSunDemon''.

Prior to ''Living Dead'', zombies had traditionally been depicted as [[VoodooZombie creatures of voodoo]], which obeyed their masters. Romero did [[OurZombiesAreDifferent something completely different]]: he offered no explanation for their existence (save a speculative {{hand wave}} regarding an exploded space probe and [[NuclearNasty radioactive fallout]]), gave them no masters, and endowed them with an insatiable appetite for the flesh of living creatures. His FleshEatingZombie creation has come to be synonymous with the word "zombie" in popular culture. Romero also commented on the increasing social tensions manifest in America during TheSixties--as the film demonstrated, the living had as much to fear from each other as they did from zombies.

* NuclearNasty: Played straight or lampshaded, depending on how you look at the argument between the scientists, after one of them mentions the satellite crash.