By Vincent Canby
Published: December 5, 1968
Night of the Living Dead is a grainy little movie acted by what appear to be nonprofessional actors, who are besieged in a farm house by some other nonprofessional actors who stagger around, stiff-legged, pretending to be flesh-eating ghouls.
The dialogue and background music sound hollow, as if they had been recorded in an empty swimming pool, and the wobbly camera seems to have a fetishist’s interest in hands, clutched, wrung, scratched, severed, and finally—in the ultimate assumption—eaten like pizza.
The movie, which was made by some people in Pittsburgh, opened yesterday at the New Amsterdam Theater on 42d Street and at other theaters around town.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (MOVIE)
With: Judith O’Dea (Barbara), Russell Streiner (Johnny), Duane Jones (Ben), Karl Hardman (Harry Cooper), Keith Wayne (Tom), Judith Ridley (Judy), and Marilyn Eastman (Helen Cooper).
Tony Todd plays Ben