George Romero’s first film fits firmly into the tradition of horror and science fiction, notably The Twilight Zone and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast.  It also demonstrates how much you can do on an extremely limited budget, using really only one set and a few characters, but clearly drawing the stakes and conflicts and pacing out a relentless 96 minutes.  It’s daring in a way a lot of other films from 1968 wouldn’t be, by setting a black man (Duane Jones) at the center of the story.

Of course, all these things can get overlooked because of Night of the Living Dead‘s historical importance:  the film that defined the modern zombie movie.  Romero and others would come back to this story many many times (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the, Land of the, Diary of the, Shaun of the, The Walking, Fear the Walking, so forth) but it’s really always about a small group of conflicted survivors facing off against the shambling, flesh-eating, headshot-vulnerable chompers.  It’s a story that’s proven at times to be exciting, satiric, end-of-the-world horrifying, and occasionally a little silly, but our culture would be something different and lesser without it.

Patient Zero of this (currently) 47-year contagion, Night of the Living Dead, airs at 10.40am Eastern and Pacific on TMC.