Night of the Living Dead is one of the most influential movies ever made

When Night of the Living Dead hit drive-in screens in 1968, it probably felt completely unheralded. It was so at odds with everything that came before it. Night was an exploitation movie that managed to pack in more atmosphere and intensity than its higher-budget studio kin. The low-budget Pittsburgh chiller still feels unprecedented; there was nothing like it before, and there hasn't been anything like it since.

So, what helped shape the world's greatest black-and-white zombie movie?

The Master of the Macabre took his cues from fine art

In a 1973 interview with Cinefantastique magazine, Romero was asked about his influences. Surprisingly, none of them came from the world of cinema.

When the interviewer asked Romero about horror movies and which ones impacted the shadowy look of Night of the Living Dead, Romero had the following to say:

"I don't know. That might be influenced more by my background and training as a painting and design student, I think. I just have a concentration on composition and lighting aspects like that."

Art school and Romero's lineage formed his filmmaking flair

Specifically, Romero's studies at Carnegie Tech guided his visual style. In addition, Romero's father was from Spain, and so the filmmaker took cues from the Spanish masters.

"I'm, I guess maybe, influenced a little by the Spanish painters. I think that perhaps my approach to the visualization of something comes out of that rather than any influence from any director or cinematographer I've studied."

Night of the Living Dead: A film with no filmic father

This might explain why Night of the Living Dead has no obvious ancestry. Most horror films are easier to trace: Psycho created Halloween, which went on to create Scream, and so forth. But Living Dead feels completely of its own. It's a departure from the gothic monster movies of the '40s and the radioactive monsters of the '50s. There aren't any clear Hitchcock cues. Romero didn't seem particularly preoccupied with Val Lewton or James Whale. Instead, it was mostly visual art that gave him his signature style.

"I think that anyone who has an eye for composition, or anyone who has an eye for a translation of anything to a two-dimsensional format is influenced by two-dimensional things that he's seen, not so much by film. You can't really study a film. No matter how many times you watch a film, you may see any given shot for a matter of, in the aggregate, two or three minutes, whereas you can look at a painting or a graphic that you have in your home or something that you really like, endlessly. You may stare at a painting for hours."