Filmed in rural Pennsylvania on a low six-figure budget by first-time 28-year-old filmmaker George Romero, this now-definitive zombie flick was effectively dead-on-arrival when it first premiered in cinemas at the end of 1968. Too frightening for family matinees and too raw for general audiences, Night of the Living Dead first found its diehard fans at a Washington, DC revival house in 1971, followed shortly by a near-continuous midnight run from 1971 through 1973 in New York City at both the Waverly (now IFC Center) and the now-shuttered Olympia and Bijou theaters.