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Ghouls of Night of the Living Dead

Also called: Romero zombies
FilmUndeadShamblesRadiation1968 to 1999

Romero's ghouls are recently dead people who get up and eat the living, and they can be stopped only by destroying the brain or burning the body. The film is seen as the launching pad of the modern zombie film and of the splatter subgenre. Romero drew on I Am Legend and later cited EC horror comics as an influence.12

⚔️ Battle it
First appeared
1968
Released 1968
Source work
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
George A. Romero
Age rating
X (UK); released in the US just before the MPAA rating system began
Made in
USA
What causes it
Radiation
Scientists in the film theorise about radiation from a space probe returning from Venus; no cause is confirmed.
How you become one
A bitten person dies and reanimates.
How it moves
Shambles
Described as the slow, lumbering kind.
Intelligence
Mindless
Weak spots
  • heavy blow to the head
  • bullet to the brain
  • burning

When did it first appear?

Ancient world
Middle Ages
1500 to 1899
1900 to 1967
1968 to 1999
2000 to 2009
2010 to today
1968

Released 1968

field notes

What the sources say

1

The film never uses the word zombie; they are called ghouls, as in Romero's script12

2

Their cannibalism became the dominant idea of the zombie in the United States12

3

Makeup was white skin and darkened eyes, with mortician's wax for wounds and chocolate syrup for blood12

4

Shot in black and white for about 114,000 dollars and grossed about 12 million in the US12

5

A missing copyright notice put the film in the public domain12

6

Added to the US National Film Registry in 199912

Could you outrun it?

Speed class from how the sources describe it (shambles), not a measurement.

Ghouls of Night of the Living Dead about 3 km/h
You, walking about 5 km/h
You, jogging about 10 km/h
A fit adult sprinting about 24 km/h
A fast cyclist about 37 km/h

Sources

  1. Night of the Living Dead - Wikipedia
  2. Zombie - Wikipedia

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at hello@zombiewiki.app.

More from Night of the Living Dead

Zombies of Dawn of the Dead (1978)Dawn of the Dead (1978)BubDay of the Dead (1985)Big DaddyLand of the Dead (2005)Plum Island undeadSurvival of the Dead (2009)Zombies of Diary of the DeadDiary of the Dead (2007)

Same era: 1968 to 1999

Thriller zombiesMichael Jackson's Thriller (1983)DeaditesThe Evil Dead (1981)Jiangshi of Mr. VampireMr. Vampire (1985)Re-animated corpses of Re-AnimatorRe-Animator (1985)Trioxin zombiesThe Return of the Living Dead (1985)Zombies of BraindeadBraindead (1992)