text: In the scuffle, he’s knocked cold on a tombstone. He might be dead. If he’s not, he will be. And after he is, he’ll rise again.
  Weirdly, Johnny is uncredited in the film, but he was played by Russell Streiner, who also produced the film. Behind Duane Jones as Ben, I think he gives the best performance. He’s a convincing brother. We get to know him for all of one scene, but we see every side of him. We understand who he was in life just in time for that life to end.
  The man comes to get Barbra next. Barbra, understandably terrified, flees. She takes refuge in a nearby farmhouse, which seems deserted. She spends the rest of the film here, much of it catatonic.
  Of our two heroes, one is dead and the other is numb. Moments ago they were full of life and emotion. Then no life. Then no emotion.
  We learn everything from this first scene. We learn how hopeless this is. Both characters struck down by one enemy. As more enemies gather and swarm and surround, we already know how it must end. There will be a moment of carelessness. Perhaps with good intentions, as to apologize. Perhaps because our focus was elsewhere, as with a tussle that leaves us prone to accident. But, in the broadest strokes, we know. Already, we know.
  The farmhouse is not as vacant as it had seemed, but we won’t know that for some time. There’s a corpse upstairs. There’s a young couple and a small family in the basement. And as Barbra panics, she meets Ben, who pulls up to the house in the hope that someone will be there, that someone will be able to unlock the gas pump outside, that someone will be able to help. He finds Barbra, who has retreated so far inward she can barely speak.
  Ben takes over as our hero, and he proves himself immediately more competent than both Johnny and Barbra…the former because he takes out two zombies with a tire iron soon after we meet him, and the latter because he is in full control of his emotions.
  If you’ve seen the film, you might push back against that claim. I couldn’t possibly blame you. Ben lashes out a number of times throughout Night of the Living Dead. He raises his voice. He hits people. He throws his weight around. But here’s the thing: I think the movie has Ben do these things not so we’ll suspect he’s out of control, but to assure us that he’s in control.
  He gets angry when he allows himself to get angry. When he resorts to anger or violence it’s because he considered the situation and decided that these are the appropriate responses. Ben knows what kindness will get him and what violence will get him, and he decides how to behave based on that.
  Early in the film he shouts at Barbra, only to catch himself and speak to her more calmly. He’s aware of what he’s doing and how he’s behaving. He took the wrong approach and realized it quickly; he corrected himself.
  This is in stark contrast to Barbra, of course, and is in more direct contrast to Mr. Cooper, the older man hiding in the basement. Mr. Cooper demonstrates nearly no control over his emotions.
  Mr. Cooper never shuts up. Every thought he has, he voices. Every feeling he has, he expresses. He’s honest to a point that it no longer seems like a virtue.
  Turning back to Barbra for a moment, it fascinates me that she doesn’t break down until she’s finally safe. When Johnny is attacked, she’s alert. When she flees, she’s alert. When she explores the house, she’s alert. Then Ben shows up. He barricades the windows and doors. He provides her with the first safe breaths she’s been able to take since tragedy struck. And that’s when she shuts down.
  It’s a remarkable and realistic thing. Her mind held itself together as long as it could, just to get her out of danger. Once it did, it relaxed and it fell apart.
  Mr. Cooper is the opposite. He doesn’t seem to enter survival mode until he sees everything Ben has done to keep them safe. He points out whatever flaws he can find, to the point that that’s all he’s doing. He introduces panic to an environment that is likely as safe as it could possibly be, considering the circumstances. He held himself together in the basement, without food, a radio, or an escape route if things got even worse. Ben opens the entire home to him, and that’s when he feels unsafe.
  Mr. Cooper’s concerns are not unfounded. His rationale is that by barricading himself — and whomever else would care to join him — in the basement, he’ll have only one entrance to defend. In the main home, every window and door becomes a liability. The zombies could attack from any angle. The zombies could attack from every angle. With the boards on the windows, the people inside can’t even see them. They won’t know how many are out there. They won’t know what’s happening. They’ll be vulnerable from all sides and unable to respond until it’s too late…
  But what comes through — and comes through all too clearly — is the fact that his authority is threatened. Until Ben showed up, Mr. Cooper had final say. Now, suddenly, here’s this…this nobody with a different idea of how things should go. And he’s poking holes in Mr. Cooper’s approach.
  Mrs. Cooper and Tom — one half of the young couple — both see through Mr. Cooper’s concerns. They know he’s mainly pushing back because he wants to be in charge again. On some level, he may even need to be in charge.