A small group of people huddle in an isolated, deserted farmhouse. They've boarded up the windows and doors. They have some food . . . and a rifle. But the zombies are scratching at the windows, and night is falling. It's not just any night . . . it's the Night of the Living Dead.

Night of the Living Dead spawned a new generation of horror films. Movies such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street owe their existence to George Romero's horror classic.

How did a small group of people who had never made a feature film before take an idea, shoot it in black and white on a shoestring budget, without a studio to distribute it, and create not only a watershed movie but a filmmaking phenomenon? John Russo has the answers in The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook. Russo was the coauthor of the screenplay, with Romero, and he was there.

Taking us into the story meetings where the vague idea of doing "a monster flick" evolved into the script that was hailed by critics as an American film masterpiece. Russo recounts the pressures and real-life terrors, the financial problems, and, of course, how the film's legendary special effects came to be. Included are over 100 hair-raising photographs, many never before published.

The story of the making of Night of the Living Dead, from its inception in a small commercial film production house to its invitation into the Museum of Modern Art film program, is as thrilling as the movie is chilling.

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