Prevalent themes included "disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family" and "the flaws inherent in the media, local and federal government agencies, and the entire mechanism of civil defense". Film historian Linda Bradley explains that the film was so horrifying because the monsters were not creatures from outer space or some exotic environment, "They're us." Romero confessed that the film was designed to reflect the tensions of the time: "It was 1968, man. Everybody had a 'message'. The anger and attitude and all that's there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so some of that crept in." With the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans."In this first-ever subversive horror movie, the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be surprised by a redneck posse". The zombies in the film are compared to the "silent majority" of the U.S. in the late 1960s. Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George A. Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is under assault by an enlarging group of cannibalistic, undead corpses.

No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Driveway to the Cemetery (Main Theme)" Spencer Moore 02:19
2. "At the Gravesite/Flight/Refuge" William Loose/Loose—Seely/W. Loose 03:42
3. "Farmhouse/First Approach" Geordie Hormel 01:16
4. "Ghoulash (J.R.'s Demise)" Ib Glindemann 03:30
5. "Boarding Up" G. Hormel/Loose—Seely/Glindemann 03:00
6. "First Radio Report/Torch on the Porch" Phil Green/G. Hormel 02:27
7. "Boarding Up 2/Discovery: Gun 'n Ammo" G. Hormel 02:07
8. "Cleaning House" S. Moore 01:36
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
9. "First Advance" Ib Glindemann 02:43
10. "Discovery of TV/Preparing to Escape/Tom & Judy" (All the samples of the track were composed by Geordie Hormel) G. Hormel/J. Meakin/J. Meakin 04:20
11. "Attempted Escape" G. Hormel 01:29
12. "Truck on Fire/Ben Attacks Harry/Leg of Leg*" (*electronic sound effects by Karl Hardman) G. Hormel 03:41
13. "Beat 'Em or Burn 'Em/Final Advance" (Final Advance was composed by Harry Bluestone and Emil Cadkin) G. Hormel 02:50
14. "Helen's Death*/Dawn/Posse in the Fields/Ben Awakes" (*electronic sound effects by Karl Hardman) S. Moore 03:05
15. "O.K. Vince/Funeral Pyre (End Title)" S. Moore 01:10