And for the most part, it is. The film is brilliantly photographed and edited so as to make it way ahead of its time (late-60s). Yet the middle segment, in which a cross-section of society finds themselves barricaded in a farm-house staving off the imminent zombie attack, is a bit too 12 Angry Men for me, about as chilling as any given "Twilight Zone" episode (which is to say, not all that chilling). The beginning and end are terrific, though, and you have to give props to the progenitor of this plotline, which has been used effectively is many a zombie film. The problem is, Romero's sequel Dawn of the Dead did the same story so much better. That said, Night of the Living Dead is still one of those movies you must watch, if only for a sense of where the whole undead-walking-the-earth-in-search-of-fresh-brains thing came from. Avoid, however, anything but the original version; there are many re-edited, remixed, colorized, and re-soundtracked versions out there which are as much a blight to humanity as any brain-feasting living corpse ever was.
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