10 Fascinating Facts About George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’

Over fifty years ago, a small collective of filmmakers from Pittsburgh set out to create a terrifying film. With a tight budget, a minimal crew, and a cast that included several unseasoned actors, they journeyed to a remote farmhouse in Pennsylvania to begin working on what would become a genre-defining horror film.

Now regarded as the ultimate zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead didn’t have such a glorious beginning. Originally conceived as a quirky alien film, the project underwent multiple rewrites, key casting choices, and even a bit of literal fire before it became the iconic horror film we know today.

1. Initially, the concept was for a comedy about aliens.

In the early months of 1967, George A. Romero, writer John A. Russo, and actor Rudy Ricci, working together at their Pittsburgh-based commercial film company, Latent Image, decided to venture into feature filmmaking. Although their project eventually resulted in Night of the Living Dead, their initial ideas were quite different. Russo originally conceived a horror comedy titled The Mess, centered around alien teenagers who arrive on Earth, mix with human teens, and cause chaos, aided by a cosmic pet. Due to financial constraints, this idea was scrapped. Instead, Russo proposed a concept about a boy who runs away from home only to stumble upon a field of decomposing corpses under glass, which alien creatures would eventually devour. Romero took a strong interest in the gruesome, flesh-eating angle of the story.

2. George Romero drew significant influence from I Am Legend.

With Russo’s flesh-eating premise in hand, Romero began crafting the script, combining it with an apocalyptic tale he had been developing. Romero admitted that the story was “essentially a rip-off” of Richard Matheson’s dystopian horror novel I Am Legend. According to Russo, Romero later returned with “about 40 really excellent pages,” including the cemetery opening and the arrival at the farmhouse. Russo then added his touch to the rest of the script, and Night of the Living Dead started to take shape.

3. Duane Jones improvised his character’s lines.

Originally, the character of Ben was envisioned as an angry, rugged truck driver with a tough, often crude, dialogue to match. However, when Duane Jones joined the cast, he took the initiative to rewrite his lines. “As I recall, I believe that Duane himself upgraded his own dialogue to reflect how he felt the character should present himself,” said actor and producer Karl Hardman, who portrayed Harry Cooper, later recalling.

4. The blood on set was made using whatever was available.

Night of the Living Dead was produced on a budget under $150,000, so cost-saving measures were essential in every aspect, including props and sets. Since the film was shot in black and white, the color of the blood didn’t matter. As a result, the crew used either red ink or chocolate syrup, depending on the specific shot’s needs. For the scene where Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) starts devouring her father’s body, the leftover lunch from the crew was put to use.

“Earlier in the day, we were eating hamburgers or meatball sandwiches, so they just smeared chocolate syrup all over it and that’s what I was biting into,” recalled Schon.

5. The scene with a nude ghoul caused quite a stir among the onlookers on set.

Believing that at least some of the “ghouls” (Romero never referred to them as zombies) would have arisen from the morgue and wandered off in their birthday suits, the crew decided to feature one naked extra in the film. They hired a local artist’s model to play the role. Once news of the planned nude scene spread, local residents were apparently eager to get a glimpse during one of the night shoots.

“The night they filmed the nude ghoul, all of Evans City found out about it. They set up their lawn chairs around the perimeter of the property,” said Judith Ridley, who played Judy. “It was amusing to watch the other zombies trying hard not to look at the obvious spots on the nude one.”

6. Three different crew members accidentally set themselves on fire during filming.

To enhance the realism of the zombie attack scenes, both Russo and actor Bill Hinzman—who famously portrayed the “Cemetery Ghoul” in the film’s opening—volunteered to be set on fire. Russo was ignited during the sequence where the survivors are tossing Molotov cocktails at the undead, while Hinzman doused his suit in lighter fluid so he could be set ablaze in the scene where Ben defends himself with a torch. Both fires went according to plan, but one was started unexpectedly by accident.

For the scene where Ben sets a chair on fire to distract the ghouls, crew member Gary Streiner offered to drench the prop in gasoline. The first take went smoothly, but on the second attempt, Streiner ran into trouble when he tried to add more fuel.

“I just went over and started to pour the gas on, and the liquid found a hot ember somewhere, causing a flame to shoot up into the container I was holding,” he said. “I jumped back, and suddenly I was on fire!”

Hinzman quickly stepped in and put out the fire before Streiner could be seriously harmed.

7. Romero and Russo both made cameo appearances in the film.

The co-creators of Night of the Living Dead made cameo appearances in their own film. Russo appeared as one of the ghouls who tries to break into the farmhouse, only to be struck down with a tire iron. Meanwhile, Romero himself appears in the Washington D.C. scenes as a reporter.

8. Duane Jones pushed back against an alternate ending for Ben’s character.

One of the most iconic aspects of the film is its bleak ending, where Ben, having made it through the night, is shot by a zombie-hunting posse led by the sheriff and thrown onto a fire. At one point, a more optimistic ending was considered, but Jones fought against it and prevailed.

“I convinced George that the Black community would prefer to see me dead rather than saved, considering everything that had happened, which would have been corny and confusing symbolically,” Jones explained. “In American movies, the heroes never die. The shock of that, combined with the shock of the hero being Black, felt like a double whammy.”

9. Night of the Living Dead ended up in the public domain due to a mistake in the credits.

Night of the Living Dead is arguably one of the most famous public domain films in history, even though it was never intended to be. The Walter Reade Organization, which handled its distribution, had originally planned to release the film under the title Night of the Flesh Eaters. However, lawyers representing the makers of the 1964 film The Flesh Eaters threatened legal action, prompting a title change to Night of the Living Dead. Unfortunately, the updated title wasn’t accompanied by a proper copyright notice in either the opening titles or the end credits. Despite efforts by the filmmakers to rectify this in federal court, the film remains in the public domain.

10. The film’s creators approved both a remake and a revision of the original, but neither was well received by audiences.

In 1990, Russo, Romero, and other members of the original film’s team reunited to create a remake, hoping it would help reinforce their copyright claims. Russo took on the role of producer, Romero updated the original script, and Tom Savini, a makeup effects expert who would have contributed to the original if not for his service in Vietnam, was brought in to direct. The film featured a solid cast (including Tony Todd as Ben) and more advanced makeup effects, but it failed to achieve the same iconic status as its predecessor.

Then, in 1998, Russo, Hinzman, Hardman, and actor/producer Russ Streiner (who played Johnny) decided to revisit the film for its 30th anniversary. Inspired by the Star Wars Special Editions, Russo wrote and filmed new scenes for the project, including an origin story for the Cemetery Ghoul. Unfortunately, the revision wasn’t well received. Romero, though not involved, expressed that there was “no bad blood” between him and his former collaborators.

Additional Sources: Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever, by Joe Kane; One for the Fire: The Legacy of Night of the Living Dead (2008)