Night of the Living Dead (1968) Movie Review: We Need to Talk About Ben

Official Movie URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/

Rating: 10 (on a review scale: 1 being worst, 10 being best)

Cast & Crew

Directed by: George A. Romero

Duane Jones as Ben, Judith O'Dea as Barbara, Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper — Romero directs with gritty confidence, pioneering a genre-defining vision that would outlive its budget and humble origins.

Ben Was Right... Until He Wasn't

Let’s get this out of the way: Night of the Living Dead doesn’t need another glowing review. It’s iconic. It’s required viewing. It’s horror canon. So, yeah—10/10. But this isn’t just a pat on the back. This is about Ben.

We, as horror fans, have held up Duane Jones’ performance for good reason—and we should. His casting was a seismic shift. But that seismic shift came with a character who, when you actually pay attention, makes a series of terrible, stubborn, emotion-fueled decisions that arguably gets every farmhouse character killed.

Ben as originally written, was a rough, uneducated truck driver to be played by Romero collaborator Rudy Ricci. Romero cast Jones simply because he was the best actor who auditioned. He didn't rewrite the script to suit a more refined persona, but he did allow Jones to adjust the dialogue—effectively transforming Ben into a more articulate and composed presence.

And yet... even with the upgraded dialogue, Ben's behavior remains chaotic at best, selfish at worst. He argues against Harry Cooper's cellar plan—a plan that, in the end, saves Ben's life. He insists on boarding up the house using loud tools and flimsy interior barricades, drawing more zombies than they started with. Then there's the moment he brings a flaming baluster on a mission to fill the truck's gas tank—yes, fire keeps the zombies at bay, but tossing it near the pump is about as boneheaded as it gets. And while that same baluster ends up later in a zombie’s hands during the final breach, it’s Ben’s consistent chain of short-sighted choices that leads to disaster. He picks fights at every opportunity, culminating in some fatal decisions under pressure.

The Case for Harry Cooper

Harry Cooper is framed as a jerk from the jump—and yeah, he’s not exactly charming. He’s controlling, panicked, and verbally cold to his wife. But here’s the thing: he’s also right.

Harry’s plan is to keep everyone in the basement, stay quiet, and wait it out. From a survival standpoint, it’s solid. The zombies don’t get into the cellar. The cellar ends up being the safest place in the house—confirmed when Ben, beaten down and alone, locks himself in there to survive the night. Yet Ben spends most of the movie actively undermining Harry, punching him, and eventually shooting him in anger after their safety is compromised.

Worse yet, Ben’s string of choices escalates further during the infamous gas pump scene. When they realize they don’t have the right keys, Ben decides the best course of action is to shoot the chain off the lock. That’s already a dangerously dumb move, and it’s something the 1990 remake actually leans into—Tom Savini directs that version, and in it, the act of shooting the lock causes an immediate explosion, as it probably should have here. But in the '68 version, Ben somehow survives it. Then, in a wild second act of tempting fate, Ben tosses a flaming baluster directly beneath the truck’s gas tank inlet. And if that weren’t enough, Tom (clearly in panic mode) begins spraying gasoline long before he actually reaches the truck. The combination of an open flame, premature gas spray, and raw terror seals the deal. Tom and Judy drive off in a panic and explode moments later. It’s a mess of decisions (and now body parts), none of which point to Ben being the tactical genius we've built him up to be over the decades.

After returning to the farmhouse, Ben demands Harry help seal the door, only to beat him senseless afterward. As the zombies breach the barricades using tools—including the same baluster Ben had discarded—Ben throws a plank of wood at Harry during the chaos, knocks the rifle from his hands, grabs it, and shoots him. Harry falls into the cellar alive, only to be killed by his now-zombified daughter. Everyone else dies shortly after in horrific, preventable ways.

The only wildcard in this entire debate is Karen. Had the group agreed to ride out the night in the cellar as Harry proposed, there’s no telling how things might’ve unfolded once Karen inevitably turned. In the 1968 version, we see her kill both her mother and father before Ben finally takes shelter in the cellar and kills the zombified Karen and Helen to survive the night. It’s a brutal twist, but it also leaves that unanswered question—how would a group of survivors have responded to a child turning undead in such close quarters? The Walking Dead explored a similar dilemma in Season 4, where the Governor keeps his zombified daughter hidden and fed. Tom Savini’s 1990 remake leans in even further: Helen is murdered by their now-renamed daughter Sarah, who then emerges from the cellar. Ben—played by the late, great Tony Todd—dispatches her with a single, mournful shot to the head. When Harry, played masterfully by Chicago’s Tom Towles, reacts in horror and shoots Ben, the resulting gunfight actually makes more sense than the abrupt conflict of the original. In that version, Ben’s stoicism proves his undoing—not his rage. And while it changes the tone, it’s arguably a more logical chain of events.

What Worked Well

This movie still rules. Full stop.

Duane Jones doesn’t just play Ben—he elevates him. He takes a character written with vague, underbaked working-class grit and injects him with authority, tension, and humanity. His very presence disrupted the norms of who could be the hero in a time of civil unrest and racial violence in America. His calm resolve, even when the script sets him up to fail, adds a weight and dignity that makes the film impossible to imagine without him.

Romero’s choice to film in black and white, mostly for budget reasons, ends up being one of its most defining strengths. The harsh shadows and grainy texture deliver a masterclass in chiaroscuro. This contrast between light and dark doesn’t just set the mood—it builds the genre. It’s why people still look to this movie as the blueprint for zombie horror.

And the ending? Devastating. Brilliant. Inevitable. That final shot stays with you, especially once you realize Ben did everything "right"—and still died. That’s Romero’s gut punch. That’s America in 1968.

The Bitterest Pill

It’s hard to critique a movie this groundbreaking without sounding like you’re nitpicking, but that’s not the point here. Ben’s impact as a character is untouchable. But the decisions he makes within the film are catastrophically bad. What’s fascinating is that this duality doesn’t weaken the movie—it strengthens it. It gives you something to argue about 50 years later.

Ben is a flawed hero. Not flawed like, “Oh, he lied to protect someone.” Flawed like, “He shoots a guy mid-zombie invasion and sets a flaming torch next to a gas tank.” He’s the chaos engine inside a horror machine. And it’s precisely because of that chaos that the ending hits so hard.

So yes, this is a perfect horror movie. And yes, the guy we all celebrate might have accidentally killed everyone.

Keep your coffin cozy and your horror collection cursed—until next time, fiends! ⚰📼

Paul Francis Jones - April 9th 2025