On Night Of The Living Dead (1968) and the Gift/Curse of Public Domain

Welcome to the second installment of my January series inspired by creative laziness! As you might’ve learned last week, I’m now exactly halfway through a four-week film class at Birmingham-Southern College, which means I haven’t been watching much other than the films we cover in class. This week, we covered horror and sci-fi films from the 60s and 70s, including Seconds, Black Christmas, and Soylent Green, which I wrote about in 2021 (even though it takes place in 2022). We also watched today’s film, Night Of The Living Dead, which is streaming almost everywhere. In fact, that’s what today’s newsletter is about. Enjoy!

If you’ve ever watched a low-budget or no-budget horror film from the last quarter century, there’s a very good chance you’ve stumbled upon one of my favorite cheap horror tropes.

I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and I always point at the screen like DiCaprio. Whenever there’s a character watching TV in this sort of film, there’s an approximately 70% chance they’re watching clips from George A. Romero’s masterpiece Night Of The Living Dead.* This is not because the directors or writers or producers are big fans of Romeo or his seminal film—it’s because they didn’t have to pay a cent to use that footage.**

As you probably know if you’re into film history, Night Of The Living Dead has essentially been in the public domain ever since it was first released. It’s a cautionary tale of sorts, one more terrifying than the film’s subject matter. Romero was only 28 when the film (his debut feature) was released, and perhaps not seasoned enough to catch the mistake when his distributor wrongly removed the copyright after the film’s title was changed. What a nightmare, right?

I mean, he did all the right things. He and his producing partners raised the money organically (a little over $100,000 back then, which would be a little less than a million today); he shot the film around his native Pittsburgh; he even made bold story choices like having a Black man play the protagonist of the film. And the film was a hit—it made over $30 million upon release—but because of the copyright snafu, he saw very little of the profits. Which explains why he was still a director-for-hire on things like The Amusement Park years later.

But is it possible that this financial curse was secretly a delayed gift because of the way it shaped his legacy?

I’m sure it didn’t feel like a gift at the time. After Night Of The Living Dead, Romero released four more feature films over the next decade, none of which broke through at the box office if they got a wide release at all.*** It wasn’t until—you guessed it—Dawn Of The Dead 10 years later that Romero broke through again at the box office, grossing $66 million total after spending less than a million in production.****

Romero had his ups and downs from there, but with films like Creepshow, The Dark Half, and four more films in the Dead franchise, he became an established director who has evolved into a horror icon in many eyes. And though many of his other films have become cult classics, his Dead films—the last three of which were his last three films, all released within two years of each other—are the undeniable top level of his legacy.

Would that legacy look different had Romero made money off of Night Of The Living Dead? He clearly had other stories that he wanted to tell, so I’m not sure that he would’ve gone back to that well immediately. (The fact that he didn’t anyway speaks volumes.) But after his next few films didn’t perform well, was it desperation that drove Romero back into the arms of the Dead? Dawn Of The Dead is a fantastic film clearly made with love and skill, but it was undeniably a sequel. Was money his primary motivation?

I know that many victims of the public domain curse don’t get the second, third, fourth, and fifth chances that Romero got—ask Herk Harvey, director of Carnival Of Souls, who never finished another feature film—but I wonder if the ubiquity of Night Of The Living Dead helped Romero’s iconic franchise gather steam. The home video market wouldn’t have really applied to Dawn Of The Dead, but by the third film in 1985, perhaps this was the case.

It’s certainly the case now, at least. Though Romero has now left the mortal plane, Night Of The Living Dead is and will always be everywhere, from $2 DVDs in a Walmart bin (where I first purchased this film) to a fancy Criterion Collection release (my most recent purchase of this film), it’s easier to find than ever. In fact, according to Amazon, there are 13 VHS editions, 130(!) DVD editions, 12 Blu-ray editions, and 56 streaming editions on Amazon Video of Night Of The Living Dead.***** Would the film be what it is today had that one little mistake not happened?

*My editor, John, wants you to know that I made this stat up. He’s a journalist.

**I made a short film many years ago where I intentionally zagged by using footage from a lesser-utilized public domain film: McLintock!, starring John Wayne. That film is not as good as Night Of The Living Dead.

***Most interesting of these four is Season Of The Witch, which Romero describes as a “feminist film.” Ironically, the distributor recut it, retitled it to Hungry Wives, and released it as softcore pornography. What a time to be alive (and directing films).

****Okay, sure, if you factor in inflation, his $640,000 budget would be almost $3 million today. But the fact remains that it was a huge success.

*****There is also one 3D Blu-ray. Given that this film was not shot or released in 3D, I have no idea what this even is.

Night Of The Living Dead is now streaming on HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy, Hoopla, Starz, AMC+, Tubi, Shudder, Mubi, Pluto TV, Fubo, Epix, The Roku Channel, Syfy, Night Flight, Redbox, Fandor, Freevee…I wasn’t kidding, y’all.