Every Halloween I always watch George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. With the 31 Days of Horror Challenge, I didn’t deviate from this tradition. Night of the Living Dead is my favorite film of all time for a lot of different reasons.  

I wanted to end the month of horror movies with this film because I wanted to see if it stood up to the other 30 horror films. I’m happy to say that it did. Maybe it’s because of the nostalgia I have for the film, but I also think it’s because of the simpleness of the script and plot. There are not many actors in it and the setting is confined to one location.  

The historical impact that the film has had on the genre of horror is also to be admired.  

For those that don’t know, Night of the Living Dead follows a group of seven unlucky Pennsylvania natives who are trapped in a country house. All around them are zombies. Of course, they don’t call them that. They’re referred to as ghouls.  

For those that are wanting to enter into the world of zombies, Night of the Living Dead is the first film you should watch.  

For all of those reasons, this was my favorite night of October. I’m a bit biased so I won’t include Night of the Living Dead on my ranking because I don’t think that would be fair to the rest of the films.  

There’s a reason why after fifty-four years it’s still got a 96% critic score and a 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.