NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Siblings Barbra and Johnny Blair drive to a cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave, where a pale man in a tattered suit kills Johnny and attacks Barbra. Fleeing to a nearby farmhouse, she finds the resident's corpse lying half-eaten on the stairs. A growing horde of ghouls surrounds the house as a stranger, Ben, arrives and initially mistakes Barbra for the homeowner. After driving back several ghouls, he boards the windows and doors. While searching the home for supplies, he locates a lever-action rifle upstairs.

A nearly catatonic Barbra is surprised to find people already taking shelter in the home's cellar. Harry Cooper, his wife Helen, and their young daughter Karen fled there after ghouls overturned their car and bit Karen on the arm, leaving her seriously ill. A teenage couple, Tom and Judy, took shelter after hearing an emergency broadcast while they were at a nearby lake. Tom and Ben secure the farmhouse while Harry protests that it is unsafe aboveground, before returning to the cellar. Tension rises in the group as more of the ghouls arrive to besiege the farmhouse.

Through radio and TV reports, the survivors learn that cannibalistic corpses, referred to as "ghouls", are reanimating and committing mass murder across the East Coast of the United States and that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to exterminate the living dead. Reports confirm that the ghouls can die again from heavy blows to the head, bullets to the brain, or being burned. Various rescue centers offer refuge and safety, and scientists theorize that radiation from an exploding space probe returning from Venus caused the reanimations.

Ben devises a plan to obtain medical supplies for Karen and transport the group to a rescue center by refueling his truck at a pump on the farm. Ben, Tom, and Judy drive there together, holding the ghouls off with torches and Molotov cocktails. However, spilled gasoline catches fire and causes the truck to explode, killing Tom and Judy. Ben makes it back, but when Harry refuses to unlock the door, Ben breaks it down.

The remaining survivors debate possible options, pausing when the 3 a.m. news broadcast airs. As they watch the update, the power fails, and the ghouls break through the doors and windows of the unlit home. In the chaos, Harry grabs Ben's gun but is disarmed and shot by Ben. Harry staggers down to the cellar and dies beside his daughter.

Karen dies from her injuries, becomes a ghoul, feeds on her father's remains, and stabs her mother to death with a masonry trowel. Barbra tries to help Ben keep the ghouls out, but freezes upon seeing the reanimated Johnny, who drags her into the horde. As the horde pours into the farmhouse, Ben retreats to the cellar, where he shoots the reanimated Harry and Helen.

In the morning, an armed posse arrives to dispatch the remaining ghouls. Awakened by their gunfire, Ben emerges from the cellar, but, mistaking him for a ghoul, the posse shoots him. His body is thrown onto a bonfire and burned with the other corpses.

Ben survives the night barricaded in the cellar, but is mistaken for a ghoul and shot dead by a posse the next morning.

The film ends with a grim reversal: after surviving both the undead and internal conflict, Ben is killed by those meant to save him. This bleak conclusion underscores the film's themes of mistrust, the breakdown of social order, and the tragic consequences of fear-driven action. The final montage of Ben’s disposal blurs the line between horror and social commentary, leaving a lasting, unsettling impact.