A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.
Barbra and Johnny visit their father's grave in a remote cemetery when they are suddenly set upon by zombies. Barbra manages to get away and takes refuge in what seems to be an abandoned farm house. She is soon joined by Ben who stopped at the house in need of gas. Beset by the walking dead all around them Ben does his best to secure the doors and windows. The news reports are grim however with creatures returning to life everywhere. Barbra and Ben are surprised when they realize there are 5 people hiding out in the basement: Harry, Helen and Karen Cooper; and a young couple, Tom and Judy. Dissensions sets in almost immediately with Harry Cooper wanting to be in charge. As their situation deteriorates, their chances of surviving the night lessen minute by minute.—garykmcd
Many years ago in the quiet Pennsylvania countryside, the dead began to walk. Fuelled for an insatiable hunger for human flesh, the ghouls ghastly quest inadvertently brought together six strangers whose inability to unite would ultimately lead to their tragic downfall.—Makala
The dead come back to life and eat the living in this low budget, black and white film. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.—Mark Logan <[email protected]>
Chaos descends upon the world as the brains of the recently deceased become inexplicably reanimated, causing the dead to rise and feed on human flesh. Speculation rests on a radiation-covered NASA satellite returning from Venus, but it only remains a speculation. Anyone who dies during the crisis of causes unrelated to brain trauma will return as a flesh-eating zombie, including anyone who has been bitten by a zombie. The only way to destroy the zombies is to destroy the brain. As the catastrophe unfolds, a young woman visiting her father's grave takes refuge in a nearby farmhouse, where she is met by a man who protects her and barricades them inside. They both later discover people hiding in the basement, and they each attempt to cope with the situation. Their only hope rests on getting some gasoline from a nearby pump into a truck that is running on empty, but this requires braving the hordes of ravenous walking corpses outside. When they finally put their plans into action, panic and personal tensions only add to the terror as they try to survive.—Curly Q. Link
Bickering siblings Johnny and Barbra are traveling by car to a rural cemetery, where they visit their father's grave. Johnny complains that the drive is too long for the simple act of placing a flowered cross on the grave. Johnny teases his sister's fear of the cemetery after dark, saying "They're coming to get you, Barbra!" They are approached by a tall, pale-faced man who stumbles toward them and suddenly attacks Barbra. Johnny pulls the man off of Barbra and struggles with him, but is knocked unconscious and possibly dead after the man thrusts Johnny's head violently on the edge of a gravestone. The man then pursues Barbra back to the car, but Barbra cannot start it without Johnny's keys. She takes the car out of gear and it begins to drift away on its own, but she accidentally steers it into a tree. She abandons the car and runs down a roadway to a nearby farmhouse, with the man still pursuing her. She discovers the house seemingly deserted, and the phone is out of order. Her attacker stumbles around the outside of the house looking for her, and is joined by several others. They all seem to be in a kind of trance. Exploring the house further, Barbra makes a gruesome find at the top of the stairs: a human body that seems to have been partially devoured by something.
In a panic and attempting to flee the house, Barbra is intercepted by Ben, who arrives in a pickup truck and attacks the mysterious figures with a tire iron. Barbra is further driven into hysteria when she sees Ben violently smashing the skulls of the strange men who keep trying to get into the house. Ben urges her into action and the two of them begin boarding up the doors and windows from the inside with dismantled furniture and scraps of wood. They awkwardly trade their stories; Ben seems to be a drifter who was passing through the area when suddenly a wave of unexplained violence began unfolding. He tells Barbra about a scene of mayhem that he encountered at a diner, and Barbra tells him about the incident with Johnny in the cemetery. When Barbra becomes hysterical and wants to go out after Johnny, she strikes Ben and Ben hits her in the face. Barbra passes out in shock.
Ben finds a rifle and a radio as Barbra lies incapacitated on a couch in the living room listening to the radio report. Emergency broadcasters tell stories of widespread violence and mayhem being committed by people who seem to be in a 'trance'. Ben continues to board up the doors and windows with anything he can find: he finds a hammer and nails and uses the interior doors, part of a dining table and an ironing board. He also makes a lucky find with a lever-action rifle and cartridges. Suddenly, Barbra is startled when the cellar door opens and two men emerge from the basement. Ben is attracted by her screams and they confront the newcomers. An older middle-aged man introduces himself as Harry Cooper, and the younger man is named Tom. Harry says that he has his wife, Helen, and his daughter, Karen, are in the basement as well. Karen has been hurt and cannot be moved. Tom has a girlfriend named Judy, also in the cellar.
Immediately the group begins bickering. Ben is furious with Tom and Harry for not coming out earlier to help him barricade the house. Harry is an irrational and domineering man who insists that they all barricade themselves in the cellar and wait for help. Ben refuses, saying that if their attackers ever got into the cellar, it would be the end of all of them, as there is only one entrance -- if they stay upstairs they have a "fighting chance" to hold off their attackers outside. Harry angrily says he's going back to his family in the basement and will barricade the door. Ben angrily agrees, saying that he'll defend everything in the upper part of the house. Tom calls his girlfriend Judy upstairs. Harry bars the door while Tom tries to reason with him, saying they can defend the house if they all work together. Harry gloats that they'll be safer down there, but when Helen learns about the group and that they have a radio that keeps them informed, she insists that they go upstairs into the house to help out.
Radio reports explain that an epidemic of mass murder is sweeping across the eastern seaboard of the United States. Later, Ben discovers a television and the whole group watches the emergency broadcaster who reveals that the murderers are recently deceased human beings who have returned to life and who are consuming their victims' flesh. Experts including scientists and military generals are not sure of the cause of the reanimation, but one scientist is certain that it is the result of radiation emanating from a Venus space probe that exploded in the Earth's atmosphere. The report instructs that a gunshot or heavy blow to the head will stop the "ghouls" and that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to restore order.
The TV broadcast provides a constantly scrolling list of local towns that contain "rescue stations" to provide citizens with protection and necessities. Ben notices a nearby town called Willard which Tom and Judy recognize since they're from the area. Ben devises a plan to escape using his truck, but it needs refueling. While Harry throws Molotov cocktails out a second floor window at the walking dead outside the house, Ben exits the house armed with the rifle and a flaming torch. Tom and Judy offer assistance, but when they arrive at a fuel pump near the house, Tom carelessly splashes gasoline on the truck and torch, starting a grass fire that quickly spreads to cover the truck. Judy's sleeve is caught on something inside the truck when it explodes with Tom and Judy inside. Ben runs back to the house to find that Harry locked him out. He kicks the door open and forces his way inside, and after Harry helps him board up the front door again, he punches Harry repeatedly for his cowardice, furiously telling him he should throw Cooper out the front door and let the zombies eat him. As Cooper watches in horror, some of the living dead eagerly begin eating Tom and Judy's charred remains.
A little later, another broadcast comes on the television, showing a local news reporter (Bill Cardille) interviewing a local sheriff (George Kosana) about the search and rescue operations that are underway in the area. Another news report indicates that the levels of the "mysterious radiation" in the area have been increasing, suggesting that the phenomenon is going to become even more widespread than it already is, but also that the situation is going to be under control soon. The reporter asks if ordinary people can fight off the attacks and the sheriff confidently tells him shots to the head, blows to the head with blunt objects and fire are all effective against the hordes. At that moment, the house goes dark when the area loses power. Perhaps triggered by the darkness, the ghouls surrounding the house begin to attack, attempting to break through all of the boarded up the doors and windows of the house. Ben manages to hold them back, but drops his rifle. Harry seizes the fallen rifle and turns it on Ben. Cooper orders his wife to go down to the cellar. Ben manages to wrest the rifle away from Harry and then shoots him. Harry stumbles into the cellar and dies, approaching Karen's seemingly lifeless body.
Helen also attempts to hold off the zombies, whose great numbers are beginning to overwhelm the barricades over the windows and doors. Barbra suddenly comes out of her catatonic state throws herself into the battle, and Helen escapes back into the cellar, where she discovers that her daughter has been transformed into one of the living dead and is consuming part of Harry's corpse. Karen stabs her mother repeatedly with a cement trowel, killing her, before going upstairs.
Meanwhile, the undead finally break into the house and Barbra sees her brother Johnny among them. The resultant shock causes her to lower her defenses and she is carried away into the zombie horde. (Barbra's fate is not shown, but it is strongly assumed that she is eaten alive by the mob of flesh-eating ghouls). Then, the zombie Karen comes up from the basement and attacks Ben, but he throws her aside and retreats into the cellar, locking the door behind him (which, ironically, was Harry's plan all along). When Harry and Helen Cooper reanimate, he shoots them both. With nowhere to go, Ben crouches in a corner of the basement with his rifle ready to make his last stand, while the undead walk through the house as well as pound on the boarded up basement door. The reinforced door holds and the ghouls give up trying to force their way into the basement.
In the morning, the undead mob has left the house and disbursed. A posse approaches the house and kills the remaining zombies lurking around the house. Hearing the commotion and gunshots, Ben cautiously goes up the cellar stairs into the living room and peers out the window. The sheriff from the newscast sees Ben and orders one of his men to shoot him, having mistaken him for a zombie. His body is carried from the house and burned in a large bonfire with the rest of the zombie corpses.
