Night of The Living Dead - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Barbra (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) drive to rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. In the graveyard Johnny teases Barbra that "They're coming to get you, Barbra" and then they are violently attacked by a strange man (Bill Hinzman). Johnny tries to rescue his sister, but is killed after he falls and cracks his head on a gravestone. Barbra flees with the zombie in pursuit to a farmhouse where, to her horror, she discovers a woman's mangled corpse. Running out of the house, she is caught between the house and strange menacing figures that are akin to the zombie in the graveyard. A man named Ben (Duane Jones) arrives in a car and takes her back inside the house. Ben asks Barbra if she lived in the farmhouse, but Barbra is slowly going into shock.

Hiding in the cellar of the farmhouse are married couple Harry (Karl Hardman) and Helen Cooper (Marilyn Eastman) and their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon), who sought refuge after a group of zombies turned over their car; and teenage couple Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley) who arrived after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal murders. Ben turns on a radio while Barbra awakens from a stupor. Harry asks everyone to hide in the cellar, but Ben deems it a "deathtrap" and remains upstairs.

Harry returns to the cellar to Helen and Karen. Karen has fallen seriously ill after being bitten on the arm by one of the zombies. Radio reports explain that a state of mass murder is sweeping across the East Coast of the United States. When Ben finds a television, the emergency broadcaster reports that the recently deceased have become reanimated and are consuming the flesh of the living. Experts, scientists, and the United States military do not know the cause, though one scientist suspects radioactive contamination from a space probe returning from Venus that exploded in the Earth's atmosphere.

When news reports reveal local rescue centers offering refuge and safety, Ben plans to leave and obtain medical care for Karen. Tom states that the closest center is 17 miles away in the town of Willard. Ben and Tom then go to refuel Ben's truck while Harry hurls Molotov cocktails from an upper window to keep the zombies at bay. Fearing for Tom's safety, Judy follows him. At the pump, Tom accidentally spills fuel, setting the truck ablaze. Tom and Judy try to withdraw the truck to avoid further damage; but it explodes, killing them both.

Ben returns to the house but is unable to enter because Harry has locked the door behind him. He pounds on the door and shouts without result, and is finally forced to kick the door down only to find Harry retreating to the cellar. Angered by Harry's cowardice, Ben attacks him, while the zombies feed on Tom and Judy outside. In the house, a report on the television reveals that, aside from setting the "reactivated bodies" on fire, a gunshot or heavy blow to the head will stop them, and that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to restore order.

Moments later, the zombies attempt to break into the house. Harry grabs Ben's rifle and threatens to shoot him, but Ben takes back the gun and shoots Harry, who stumbles into the cellar to collapse next to Karen, who has died of the infection of her injury. The zombies begin to pull Helen and Barbara through the windows; but Helen frees herself and goes down to the cellar to find a reanimated Karen consuming Harry. Helen falls and Karen kills her with a masonry trowel. Barbara, distracted by seeing Johnny as one of the zombies, is carried away by the horde and pulled through them. The undead break into the house, and Ben heads into the cellar. He knocks Karen out of the cellar, and he seals himself in the cellar. He shoots Harry and Helen just as they reanimate.

The next morning, Ben is killed by a member of the posse, who mistakes him for a zombie, and placed onto a burning pyre along with other dead bodies.