ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, “A Night With Ben: 1960s,” details the great cultural significance of director George Romero’s cult-classic film Night of the Living Dead (1968)—and its sequels. Night is a film that overtly addressed 1960s America’s social problems and racial climate while reflecting on the general sociopolitical upheaval of the decade. Part of that upheaval was the global decolonization process that shifted into high gear during this era, and this chapter discusses how horror cinema reflected the struggles of the mostly Black and Brown colonized nations to achieve independence from their mostly European oppressors, including an increased level of explicit violence and nihilism that would color (no pun intended) the genre for generations to come.
