A genuinely frightening, edge-of-seat suspense horror film, this made the reputation of its director, George A Romero, and led to two Romero-directed sequels, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. All are good, but this is the pick of the bunch, uncomfortably made in black and white. A plague of zombies in the American countryside leads to some truly terrifying scenes, with the main protagonists trapped in a house. The shock moments are very skilfully done, and the horror is presented head-on, allowing the viewer no escape. An excitingly cinematic piece of claustrophobic terror.