Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Set in rural Pennsylvania, a returning space probe from Venus is responsible for the sudden resurrection of dead bodies that need human flesh to sustain themselves. Barricaded in a farm house, seven people fight for their lives against the marauding zombies. Directed by George Romero in his feature film debut. It's a crudely made low budget film (but that crudeness works in the film's favor) and the acting is frequently cringe inducing but there's no denying its effectiveness nor its influence on a generation of movies and film makers. Its graphic violence was quite controversial at the time (Variety in its review called it an "unrelieved orgy of sadism") though subsequent horror films have long since gone even further. Whatever one's reaction to it and I'm not the film's biggest fan, it remains an important piece of genre cinema and should be seen at least once by anyone remotely interested in film. With Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman.