1968 Film Was Just Named the 'Most Important,' Genre-Defining Horror Movie

Due to the genre’s usually upsetting subject matter and often metaphorical themes, the likability of a specific horror movie is entirely subjective. However, most horror enthusiasts can point out a few films that have been undeniably influential to the genre.

For instance, Collider recently released a ranking of “the four most important horror movies that define the genre” that featured the films 1973’s The Exorcist, Psycho from 1960, and The Silence of the Lambs, released in 1991. The list’s top spot went to 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, directed by George A. Romero. According to the publication, fans of zombie flicks and TV shows can thank Night of the Living Dead for several tropes regarding the undead.

Night of the Living Dead has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95 percent and a Metacritic score of 89.

George A. Romero Said He Didn’t Intend for the Creatures in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ to be Zombies

While Night of the Living Dead is a major zombie movie, Romero, who died in 2017 at the age of 77, revealed he actually considered the creatures in the film “ghouls.”

“I thought I was creating a completely new monster, you know, the neighbors suddenly turned into flesh-eaters ghouls. And that’s what I call them, ghouls, in the film. And I thought they were completely new,” said the director in a 2013 interview with Grolsch Global.

He clarified that he began calling the creatures zombies in the Night of the Living Dead‘s sequel, Dawn of the Dead, which premiered in 1978. He also explained that it wasn’t “until the second film” in the spooky franchise that he established the undead monsters were wandering souls that Hell rejected.

“‘When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth,’ and that was actually the tagline for the second film, when I finally gave up and decided to call them zombies,” said the director.