And so we start here at the beginning of the modern zombie era, the movie from which every zombie cliché in the book came from: boarding yourself up into a house, unsubtle social commentary, and an ass kicking black guy in charge.

Romero's black and white classic from 1968 has survived throughout the years regardless of numerous attempts to fuck it up such as the 30th Anniversary Edition of the film and the fact that any person with the time and money can fuck with the film and release it on video. It's a testament to the greatness and importance of the film that it can still be great no matter what filthy cretins put their hands upon it.

If you look back at Romero's filmography these days, it's somewhat apparent that Romero's talent gradually depleted over time. Perhaps it's due to growing older or a depletion of talent, or perhaps it's because he started on top and was always in a struggle to live up to this masterpiece.

The film begins with a scenic drive through the country as Johnny and his sister Barbara are going to visit their father's grave. Johnny considers this a major pain in the ass, probably because he had to drive anywhere with his psycho sister.

By the way she talks you can already tell she's heading for the deep end. This girl would probably go insane and break into hysterics if her coffee was cold at Waffle House. She's also got a bad case of Juliette Lewis hair, meaning that her forehead is tremendously big.

Johnny's a different story. He's got the smarmy attitude, the fashionable suit, and some super pimp driving gloves. Unfortunately, his ultra geek glasses ruin the cool mystique.

Johnny teases his nutcase sister about being afraid of the graveyard. Of course, she's also afraid of spiders, dust mites, and of getting hit by a black man named Ben. Johnny utters his trademark "They're coming to get you, Barbara" line that makes the ladies throw off their panties and the fellas cheer.

Afterwards a crazy guy attacks Barbara and Johnny wrestles with him a bit before getting thrown to the ground and hitting his head on a tombstone. I can't help feeling that this particular fight scene would have had a bit more "oomph" if the zombie had given him a tombstone piledriver on top of the headstone instead. Either way, Johnny's dead and someone is bound to steal those awesome driving gloves.

Barbara retreats into the car where the crazy man (who is moving quite quickly for a Romero zombie mind you) bashes open the window to get to her. She has the awesome idea of releasing the emergency break and rolling down a hill until she hits a tree. She stumbles out of the car and goes looking for a house to go crazy and refuse to speak in.

I think that NOTLD works much better than it's sequels because it still has an element of surprise. No one knows what's going on at this point in the film, and it's not until later that the premise will be revealed. It really works for the film, since you never know anything that the characters don't.

Barbara makes her way to a house that conveniently has a gas pump outside. She looks around the place for a while trying to do stuff like using the telephone, which never works in a horror movie as phones have an automatic kill switch when they detect paranormal activity in the area.

She travels upstairs where she discovers a partially eaten corpse, giving her the incentive she's been waiting for to go insane. As she runs crazily through the house, she runs into Ben, who has just driven up to the house in hopes of using the gas pump.

Barbara is in safe hands because Ben is black, and in all zombie movies black men are the only ones competent enough to kick zombie ass and not get eaten.

I'm not sure what inspired Romero to almost always cast a black man as the hero of his films. I'm guessing it's because black men are rarely the lead characters of horror films, instead they're used as constant fodder. This black man is the opposite of that, being the most determined and smart character in the film.

No one in NOTLD comments on the race of Ben, even though some of the characters really hate him. In the sequels, whenever a person comments on the race of the black lead they're made to look rather stupid (A woman asking the black lead in Dawn of the Dead if he left behind real brothers or "street brothers") or they're just an evil character (Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead).

Back in movie land, there are a few zombies outside the house so Ben goes and takes care of them by bashing their heads in with a tire iron as they slowly walk towards him. It needs to be stated that these zombies are way different from what zombies would eventually become.

They look more like pasty homeless vagrants than anything and don't have any of that trademark zombie rotting look that was to come later with the expertise of Tom "The Moustache" Savini. All the action sequences in this film are also very stilted and awkward. Romero would improve on his technique later on.

Ben, having already established the zombie movie tradition of a black protagonist, goes for a second cliché by starting to board up the house. While Ben is getting useful wood like big planks and doors, Barbara picks up a few tiny pieces of firewood for the effort that might be useful if you were trying to board a zombie mouse up inside his hole.

I think Barbara may actually be setting a zombie movie cliché herself, that of the mentally handicapped character that can do nothing useful. It's a brave portrayal to be sure.

Ben shares his thrilling origin story of how he was kidnapped by the Canadian government and injected with an unbreakable substance known as adamantium. Then he went to a diner that zombies attacked and stole a truck. Barbara shares her story, making sure to emphasize the important parts of the story such as the fact that Johnny really liked candy.

Unfortunately, she leaves out what kind of candy Johnny liked. We need details, Barbara! Eventually she gets to the point of the story but as she's insane she's yelling it out and pantomiming. Ben of course thinks she should just calm down, but Barbara wants to leave and go rescue Johnny.

She goes batshit crazy and demands to go see Johnny but levelheaded Ben stops her from going by doing the levelheaded thing - punching her in the face and making her pass out.

Ben turns on the radio and hears a zombie on the radio. My mistake, it's only Casey Kasem. More zombies gather outside and since Ben is concerned about their welfare, he throws a burning dresser outside to give them some heat.

He decides to explore the house some more and finds a shotgun and some woman's shoes in the closet. His feet are too big for the shoes so he gives them to Barbara.

Meanwhile, the radio announcer has the new information that the killers are eating the flesh of their victims, probably because it's low carb. The door to the basement opens and out come some more human survivors that were hiding downstairs.

Ben understandably gives them shit about not coming up and helping them earlier. Maybe they're Quakers.

Harry Cooper, the coolest character of all, plays the role of a total dick and argues that they didn't hear all the banging around and that they should all go back down into the basement where it's much safer. Harry Cooper will be serving as your very unsubtle portrayal of basic human nature for the duration of the film.

The rest of the survivors are Helen Cooper, her daughter Karen Cooper, and country bumpkin lovebirds Tom and Judy. Tom and Judy really aren't given any personalities whatsoever and are essentially one person.

The 90s remake of the film would go on to flesh out their characters, a move that I really do appreciate. Interestingly enough, the remake was written by Romero, so he probably realized that he should give Tom and Judy some personality. Nice to see a revisionist filmmaker do something right for once (DAMN YOU LUCAS).

Ben and Harry argue about the safest course of action - boarding themselves up in the cellar where there's no escape or staying upstairs and boarding the house up. The boarding people win and so they all start boarding up the house.

Ben declares himself boss of the house and sends Harry's back into the underground where he belongs. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a racially charged statement or not, but Harry Cooper never turns it into one.

Tom gets Judy to come upstairs with him so that they can both eventually die together. Harry goes downstairs where he's bitched out by his wife and her bouffant hairdo. She's taking care of her daughter Karen who is sick after being attacked by one of the creatures as well as having to look at her dad's curmudgeon face for so long.

Helen becomes even more pissed off when Harry tells her about the radio upstairs. After all, she's missing Little Orphan Annie's secret decoder ring message. She puts her man in his place and so both Harry and Helen go upstairs while Judy comes back down to watch over Karen because she's a disposable character with nothing else to do.

Helen spends some quality time with Barbara who keeps up her end of the conversation by burying her head into the couch. Harry takes the opportunity to check out all the stuff Ben has done upstairs and bitch about it while contributing nothing himself. My kind of guy.

Ben and Tom find a television upstairs and bring it back down to hook up. They learn a bit more about the flesh eating and finally it's revealed that the dead are coming back to life and attacking the living.

The announcer tells the viewers that they should make for the rescue station nearest them where armed national guardsmen will be waiting. The announcer also ponders why NASA scientists have been summoned to the White House. It probably has to do with the recent Venus probe that went to Venus and came back with lots of radioactive energy on it and exploded.

We should just be happy that NASA created something that actually worked and came back to us. If nothing else, the whole Venus probe debacle sort of dates this film. It just screams of early 60s cheesy sci-fi.

Helen is forced to tell the others about her daughter being hurt after the TV says that any person injured by the zombies should seek medical attention immediately. Ben orders Helen to go downstairs to watch her child and for Judy to come back upstairs, because after all so much hinges on the life of Judy.

The good guys upstairs make the plan to fill up the truck with gas so they can get the hell out of the house. They make some Molotov cocktails for Harry to throw from upstairs while Ben and Tom drive to the pump and use the key ring they found to try and unlock it. There's only a few people in the world I'd trust watching over me with Molotov cocktails, and Harry Cooper is not one of them.

Tom and Judy share a tender moment upstairs and do the whole kissy kissy thing before Tom goes outside to his possible death. I'm guessing this moment was designed to make the audience sad when the two lovebirds perished, but they did get to die together and it was a happy end since they were never torn apart (Unless you count the zombies ripping apart their bodies as being ripped apart, but that's only in a literal sense).

Tom and Ben run into the truck but Judy has to be retarded and run outside to be with her man and be incompetent. Harry boards up the door downstairs once everyone leaves and Ben keeps the zombies at bay with a makeshift torch he constructed out of a table leg.

The plan quickly goes to shit as Tom pulls the gas pump out and sprays it everywhere, right onto the makeshift torch. [Insert joke about ejaculation here]. The truck catches fire and being stupid Tom and Judy drive off in it away from the pump because they find a potentially exploding gas pump to be more of a hazard than a presently on fire truck.

Judy's jacket gets caught and the truck explodes with the two of them in it. Tom spraying the torch was pretty stupid, but I think even having the torch around was more retarded. Could they not bring another match along on the truck ride to re-light the torch when they were done refueling?

Harry watches this scene unfold from a window and is generally unsurprised that the plan got fucked up because he's a realist. Ben makes his way back to the house with general ease, raising the question of why he just didn't run away from the house (a question that would be addressed in the 90s remake). Zombies aren't exactly Olympic sprinters.

Ben decks Harry a few times for not helping him board up the doors when he returned. Man, woman, Ben decks anyone who pisses him off. Back outside, the zombies treat themselves to some barbequed Tom and Jane. This is probably the only gore in the entire movie as the zombies feast on stuff that's obviously pig entrails and the like. It's not really gore when it's in black and white.

This is the way Romero typically does his zombie movies. He filles the first 3/4ths of the movie with tension building set-up and social commentary, then once he reaches the end he remembers that it's a zombie movie and throws in a bunch of shots of zombies eating people. The eating scenes would become more and more extreme with each sequel.

Seeing these zombies munch on some poorly lit pig parts barely compares to a man being ripped apart at the waist and having his intestines eaten (Day of the Dead). Barbara's going crazy as usual and talking about Johnny and the car again.

On the TV, there's raiding parties of rednecks out shooting zombies in the head. I wonder if they stuff and mount the zombies afterwards. Do you need a liscense to hunt zombies?

The power goes out inside the house and the good guys are left in total darkness. Harry wants to be the man of the house and since he has a small penis, the only way he can accomplish that is by stealing the shotgun from Ben. The zombies are restless and begin attacking the house.

While Ben holds the boards up, Harry seizes the opportunity to steal the shotgun. Ben wrestles it away from him and fills Harry's stomach with buckshot. Helen gets nabbed by some zombies bursting through the door but Barbara decides to make herself useful and rescues Helen.

Unfortunately, she sees her zombie brother outside the door and in her shock gets pulled outside. At least she got to be reunited with Johnny, who is still sporting his awesome gloves but has ditched the stupid glasses. Even though she's been the main female lead of the film for its entire duration, I don't know anyone who feels sorry that she ends up dying. Romero's female leads in his zombie movies would undergo an evolution.

In Dawn of the Dead, the female lead is weak at first and gradually becomes a strong willed woman. In Day of the Dead, the woman lead is the strongest character in the film from the very start. Finally, in the 90's remake of NOTLD, Barbara is the female equal of Rambo. Quite a change from the weakness of the original Barbara.

Harry stumbles downstairs where his daughter has gone zombie and proceeds to eat him. Helen runs back downstairs and is understandably shocked to see her daughter eating Harry's arm. She should just be glad the kid is eating again. Like a spaz, Helen falls down sobbing, giving Karen the opportunity to stab her mother with a gardening tool. They taught that kid well.

Ben is all that remains of the good guy crew. He abandons the effort of holding the upstairs and retreats into the cellar which is free of zombies since Helen wandered upstairs (No way she ate both those corpses in five minutes. Greedy little zombie bitch). He does get the opportunity to plug the Harry and Helen Cooper zombies in the head though.

He waits until morning when he no longer hears noises upstairs. There's a zombie hunting party outside taking care of business and he peeks through the window to get a better view of what's happening. One of the rednecks sees him peek out and since he's not wearing an orange hunting cap, the redneck shoots Ben in the head.

It's a happy ending indeed as the rednecks burn up all the zombie corpses and throw the dead Ben on the fire. Score one for the good guys I guess. The funny thing is, the ending proves that Harry Cooper was right!

The entire house was full of zombies yet they never managed to break down the door. It could be argued that they would have eventually broken through had the rednecks not come to town and that boarding the house up and holding the zombies off for some time was necessary, but I like to think that Harry Cooper was in actuality a super genius.

The bleak ending fits the film perfectly. This isn't a happy horror movie where one good guy lives or a few people escape only to have the villain pop back up for one last scare. It's bleak like life, bleak like any dangerous situation.

The odds were against any of the characters surviving, and it just fits that the last survivor gets killed by a simple misunderstanding by the people outside trying to save him. That's life, and it's what makes NOTLD such a classic.

The other two parts of Romero's trilogy would go on to define the genre further with lots of zombie gore and make-up plus lots of heavy handed social commentary. NOTLD doesn't pause to let the characters deliver a monologue full of commentary, it's right in front of you and as unsubtle as it gets.

It's human nature. It's people who hate each other being forced to work with each other to survive, and even in the face of certain death they still find the time to bitch and backstab each other. In short: it's awesome.