JOHN RUSSO

The Movie (1968)

The following synopsis is provided by IMDb and contains spoilers.

Bickering siblings Johnny and Barbra are traveling by car to a rural cemetery, where they visit their father's 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 pale-faced man who stumbles toward them and attacks Barbra. Johnny pulls the man off of Barbra and struggles with him, but is knocked unconscious and possibly dead after tripping and hitting his head violently on the edge of a gravestone. The man then pursues Barbra back to the car, but Barbra cannot start it because the keys are in Johnny's pocket. 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, behaving in an animalistic way. 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 goes upstairs and 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'. 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 retreats to the cellar with Helen and Karen, and Judy comes upstairs to be with the rest of the group. When his wife, 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 and 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 torch, starting a grass fire that quickly spreads to cover the truck. Judy's sleeve is caught on something inside the truck which 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. As Cooper watches in horror, some of the living dead begin eating Tom and Judy's charred remains.