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About This Quiz
Horror legend George A. Romero gave his blessing to this colorized remake of the film that launched zombies into the pop-culture stratosphere. Show off your zombie savvy with our quiz!
Where does Night of the Living Dead open?
a cemetery
A brother and sister are paying their last respects. Only one of them will make it out alive.
a farmhouse
a morgue
a space station
In which year was the original film released?
1957
1962
1966
1968
The 1990 movie has several nice homages to its '60s roots. In the cemetery scene, Johnny and Barbara both wear dated clothes - for her, a cardigan sweater, blouse, and skirt. Later, a survivor watches news reports on a black-and-white TV, on which a stoic white man in a suit - very '60s! - reads reports from sheets of paper, not a teleprompter.
In which US state is the movie set?
Massachussetts
New York
Pennsylvania
It's not made explicit that the action takes place in this state, the same one was the original movie. But Tommy's Steelers cap is one tipoff.
Rhode Island
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What is the name of the movie's protagonist?
Barbara
In the original version, the name was spelled "Barbra" in the credits, like the famous singer, Streisand. The 1990 script used the more conventional spelling, one of a few small changes in an otherwise faithful remake.
Christine
Judy Rose
Zelda
What kind of car do Johnny and Barbara drive to the cemetery?
a Cadillac
a Chevrolet
a Mercedes
It must be a very large cemetery. The Mercedes seems to go around and around its narrow paved roads before reaching the right grave - all the better, so we can hear Johnny and Barbara bicker all the way.
A Volkswagon Beetle
Who are Johnny and Barbara visiting at the cemetery?
their father
their mother
The trip to the graveyard is a point of contention between the two siblings. Johnny complains that his mother never travelled 200 miles to visit anyone, and that she had herself buried "miles from the nearest glass of beer" just to be an annoyance.
her former fiance
their grandparents
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How does Johnny die?
he hits his head on a gravestone as he's fighting a zombie
Johnny has been teasing his sister mercilessly, but he does defend her when she's attacked. Unfortunately, he falls and hits his head on a grave marker. Later, Barbara will recognize the zombie responsible and kill him.
he's run over by the Mercedes, being driven by a zombie
he's run over by a hearse driven by a frantic fleeing mortician
we never actually see this
Since Johnny had the car keys, how does Barbara escape the attacking zombies?
she releases the parking brake and lets the car roll down the hill
The car rolls rear-end-first into a tree. The DVD commentary says that someone sent Mercedes a copy of the scene, noting that the airbag did not deploy, and they got a new car out of it!
she sets the car on fire
she honks the horn repeatedly, which scares the zombies off
she simply jumps out and runs
Who played Ben, the de facto leader of the survivors?
Morgan Freeman
Laurence Fishburne
Ving Rhames
Tony Todd
In the very first shot of Todd's Ben, he is holding a hook in his hand. It seems like a homage to his role in Candyman, but that movie hadn't been made yet.
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With what weapon does Ben kill the first zombie we see him dispatch?
his hook
a handgun
a trowel
his truck
Ben mows down a zombie walking up the road toward the farmhouse. Kinda irresponsible: from the back and at high speed, how'd he know this wasn't just a shell-shocked survivor, moving slowly?
With what weapon does Barbara kill her first zombie?
a kitchen knife
a fireplace poker
Barbara buries the poker into the zombie's head. Ben has just done the same to another zombie with his hook. They're getting close to the discovery that the brain is a zombie's only vulnerable area.
a nail gun
a shotgun
How many survivors are down in the cellar?
three
four
five
The cellar-dwellers are the argumentative Harry Cooper, his wife Helen, their daughter Sarah, Tom, and Tom's girlfriend Judy Rose. Sarah is "sick," which turns out to mean bitten by a zombie, but we don't learn that until 48 minutes in.
six
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Where were the Coopers coming from when their car broke down?
a charity benefit
Sarah's parent-teacher night
the movies
we never learn this
Harry only says that the car broke down "on the interstate." They must have been somewhere nice, because all of them are in formal clothes - Harry wears a cummerbund with an untied bow tie around his neck.
Which of the characters has a connection to the farmhouse?
Ben
the Coopers
Judy Rose
Tom
Tom's uncle Regis owns the house, and his cousin Satchel lives there. (Well, not anymore ...)
How did Tom's cousin Satchel die?
he fell from the second-story landing
Uncle Rege killed him
he shot himself in the head
Ben finds him on the upstairs landing. It's not clear why he gave up so early on surviving the outbreak. Tom simply says that Satchel shot himself after his father attacked him.
a neighbor shot him, thinking he was a zombie
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Why can't the group simply go straight to the gas pump and refuel the truck?
the truck is absolutely out of gas and can't get there
the gas pump itself is empty
the gas pump is locked
Tom explains that the pump is locked and says he'll hunt for the key. Ben nixes this, saying Ben might never find the key - and as cluttered as the house is, we have to agree.
there are too many zombies outside
What is the main point of disagreement between Harry Cooper and Ben?
whether it's safest to be in the cellar or up in the house
Harry's idea is that it's safest to be down in the cellar, where there's only one point of entry. Ben's argument is that if the zombies break through the cellar door, the survivors will be cornered. The two men part ways, with the Coopers staying in the basement, but Tom and Judy Rose joining Ben and Barbara upstairs.
whether to hunt for the gas pump key
whether to just leave on foot
how Sarah's injury should be treated
Which of these, according to the TV reporter, is NOT a potential explanation for the outbreak?
an eclipse
The many explanations for the outbreak include voodoo and "Judgment Day." The one idea that isn't taken seriously by authorities is that the dead are really re-animating.
a bacterial or viral illness
the ozone layer
voodoo
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What do Ben and Harry finally come to blows over?
control of a shotgun
control of the TV set
Technically, by the time they come to blows, the TV set is defunct. Harry was trying to carry it down to the cellar, and when Ben wrestles with him to stop him, Harry drops the TV. It falls down the stairs and is wrecked.
Ben taking the old doors in the cellar
Ben refusing to look for the gas pump key
Who takes the truck to the gas pump?
Ben and Barbara
Tom and Judy Rose
Tom, Ben, and Judy Rose
Judy Rose wasn't supposed to go, initially. But she says they need three: one to drive, one to pump the gas, and one to ride shotgun. Her logic wins out.
Ben and Tom
How do Tom and Judy Rose die?
zombies get 'em, of course
Ben shoots them by accident
the gas pump explodes
When Tom finds out the key ring doesn't include the key to the gas pump, he shoots off the lock. But this nicks the pump itself, releasing fuel, and the flaming torch in the back ignites the fumes.
the unmanned truck runs over them
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How does Helen Cooper die?
her husband shoots her by accident
she's killed by a zombie as she tries to run from the house
her daughter, having turned into a zombie, kills her
Having been killed by a zombie, Helen becomes one herself. Ben, who has taken refuge in the cellar, shoots her and sends her to her permanent rest.
she takes a handful of pills when she decides it's hopeless
How does Ben die?
he shoots himself in the cellar
he dies of gunshot wounds that Harry inflicts on him
he dies of wounds he sustains from zombies while getting back from the gas pump
possibly both #2 and #3
Harry shoots him several times, and this is probably the primary cause. But since Ben turns into a zombie at the very end, we know he's also been bitten.
How does Barbara die?
the zombie Ben kills her
her brother Johnny drags her out a window and kills her
Harry shoots her for killing Sarah
none of these - she survives
In the original, "Barbra" is dragged through the window by Johnny. It's Ben who makes it through the night, barricading himself in the cellar and killing the re-animated Harry and Helen. But then Ben is mistakenly killed by a zombie-hunting posse in the morning - one of the film's comments on American racism.
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What does Ben find in the cellar, that he finds so funny?
a copy of Matheson's "I Am Legend"
the key to the gas pump
Ben is badly injured when he goes down to the basement. He lights up a cigarette, but then spits it out to laugh hysterically when finding the key, neatly labeled "Gas Pump."
the keys to a working car
a tunnel to the outside world
How does Barbara survive?
she hides in a crawl space under the house
she stays in the house with a ton of ammunition, shooting every zombie that comes near her
she covers up her human scent by rubbing kerosene on herself
she simply leaves, walking past most of the zombies
Walking right past the zombies was Barbara's solution early on. She pointed out how slow and uncoordinated they were. Ben, however, thought it was too dangerous.
How does Harry get through the night in the farmhouse?
he barricades himself in the cellar, with Ben
he goes up into the attic, pulling the trapdoor shut behind him
After Harry goes up into the attic, we wonder why the group didn't figure this strategy out long beforehand. The trapdoor closes flush with the ceiling, leaving the uncoordinated and not-very-bright walking dead with no way to follow.
he waits out the carnage on the roof
he pretends to be a zombie and joins the masses unharmed
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How does Harry die?
attacked by his zombie wife
attacked by his zombie daughter
falls down the stairs
Barbara shoots him at the movie's very end
Barbara gets away with this revenge killing because the authorities assume he was already a zombie when she shot him (which he wasn't). After, she coldly says, "There's another one for the fire," because zombie bodies are being burned in a mass pyre.
What word is not used in Night of the Living Dead?
dead
re-animated
safe
zombie
It's understandable that people in the first hours of a never-before-seen phenomenon wouldn't have a ready-made name for it. In fact, it takes the characters some time to accept that the dead are even coming back. After Barbara kills one obvious zombie, Judy Rose screams, "You killed Mr. Magruder!"
This movie was the directorial debut of which horror-movie heavyweight?
Robert Rodriguez
Christopher Lee
Eli Roth
Tom Savini
Savini has also done some acting. He was a biker in From Dusk Til Dawn and a sheriff's deputy in Rodriguez's Planet Terror.
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What controversial image made it into the 1990 film that couldn't be included in the 1968 version?
Ben, a black man, embracing Barbara, a white woman
zombies hanged from trees
With the racial troubles of 1968, including the King assassination, the lynching image at the film's end was deemed too controversial.
a child zombie attacking her mother
Barbara shooting Harry
Who played Ben in the original film?
Howard E. Rollins Jr.
Duane Jones
Romero said he cast Jones simply because Jones gave the best audition. This might have been disingenuous, because the original had clear racial overtones. These aren't as noticeable in the 1990s remake, largely because a black man in charge and giving orders to white characters was no longer extraordinary to movie audiences. More noticeable was the remake's feminist leanings, re-creating Barbara as a competent heroine who survives the whole movie.
Brock Peters
Sidney Poitier
Tony Todd went on to play a mortician who might be the incarnation of death in what 1990s movie?
Candyman
Scream
Final Destination
Todd was also in Candyman, but in that film he played a killer brought to life by the popularity of an urban legend. Like Night of the Living Dead, that movie had racial themes, as the original Candyman was killed by a white mob.
Urban Legend
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How many Dead films did George Romero and/or his son Cameron make?
four
five
six
seven
They include the popular - and also remade - Dawn of the Dead, then carry on through Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. Diary is a found-footage-style film, which was all the rage in the 2000s.
Which actor who auditioned for the role of Ben eventually landed a role in the Dawn of the Dead remake?
Charles L. Dutton
Eriq LaSalle
Chi McBride
Ving Rhames
Rhames played a police officer who holes up with other survivors in the shopping mall. Eriq La Salle's ER co-star, Mekhi Phifer, had a role in Dawn as well.
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