How Night of the Living Dead (1968) Tricked Us Into Loving Its Most Dangerous Character

George A. Romero’s 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead has been dissected for decades, lionized for its groundbreaking zombie lore and its casting of Duane Jones as Ben, the genre’s first Black protagonist. But on this rewatch, I found myself stuck on something uncomfortable: Ben is the reason everyone dies. Yes, including himself. That isn’t a flippant hot take—it’s a serious reconsideration of the film’s dynamics and character decisions, especially when we peel back the layers of how this character came to be.

Duane Jones and the Ben Role: A Groundbreaking Horror Casting in 1968

First, it’s crucial to note that Ben wasn’t written for a Black actor. Romero initially penned the part for his white collaborator Rudy Ricci (no known relation to Christina Ricci). Ricci, who appeared briefly in Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead, was the archetypal rough-and-tumble, possibly uneducated, truck driver.

That original version of Ben—an impulsive, blue-collar survivor—wasn’t rewritten when Duane Jones was cast. At least, not on paper. Romero claimed Jones was simply the best actor who auditioned, and that the script remained unchanged. But this is where the white lie creeps in: Jones was allowed to revise his own dialogue. That matters. Because while the lines changed, the character’s impulsive decision-making did not.

Ben vs. Harry: The Conflict That Doomed the Farmhouse

Ben is often framed as the film’s moral center, the guy who saves Barbara, keeps the group moving, and tries to protect the house. But we give him a pass for a lot of impulsive, emotionally driven decisions. His feud with Harry Cooper, the irritable patriarch hiding with his wife and infected daughter in the basement, is especially telling.

Sure, Harry sucks—controlling, defensive, often self-serving. But as my marriage counselor says: it takes two people to argue. Ben doesn’t de-escalate. He escalates. From the moment Harry and the others emerge from the basement, Ben is hostile. No benefit of the doubt. He mocks their decision to hide, declares himself “the boss upstairs,” and reinforces a divisive dynamic that never heals.

Yes, Harry is insufferable. But he’s also a father with a sick child. His motivations—while flawed—stem from fear for his family, not selfishness alone. And what’s wild is that, by the end, Harry was right about the basement.

Romero Zombie Rules and the Noise That Kills

Ben’s instincts to board up the house make sense on paper—secure the ground floor, fend off zombies. But in execution? He makes a ton of noise. Hammering, dragging furniture, breaking things. All that racket likely attracted more zombies to the location.

This detail matters because the zombies are shown using tools early on—they bust car headlights with bricks, wield weapons to break into the farmhouse. They respond to light and sound. In Romero’s later film Land of the Dead, fireworks are used to distract them. So Ben’s DIY fortress, which impresses no one and doesn’t hold, arguably drew the monsters in faster.

Ben’s Fatal Gas Pump Plan: Breaking Down a Romero Horror Misstep

Let’s talk about the infamous gas pump scene. The plan is: Ben and Tom will drive to the gas pump to refuel the truck, using fire (via Molotov cocktails) to clear a path, and come back for the group. Sounds good until Judy—against everyone’s advice—leaps into the truck last minute. Then Ben takes a literal flaming stick next to a gas pump. Brilliant.

When they realize they have the wrong key, Ben shoots the lock off the pump. Yes, he shoots a gas pump. Instead of exploding (as it would in the Tom Savini remake), the lock simply falls off. But then Tom pulls the hose and gas sprays everywhere. Predictably, the truck catches fire. They try to drive it away, Judy’s jacket gets stuck, Tom goes back—boom. Dead.

This entire sequence is Ben’s plan. His flame torch, his reckless shooting, his leadership. It kills two people. There’s no way around that.

Breakdown of the Group and the Power of Misjudgment

Ben returns to the house, only to find Harry has locked him out. Still, Harry does make a move to open the door just as Ben kicks it in. It’s one of those beautifully ambiguous Romero moments—is Harry redeeming himself? Was it too late anyway?

Ben gets inside, beats the hell out of Harry, and the house begins to fall apart. The zombies breach. Barbara is pulled out by her zombified brother in one of the film’s creepiest scenes. Harry tries to take the gun. Helen is killed by her reanimated daughter in the basement. Eventually, Ben shoots Harry and heads into the cellar—the one place he swore never to go.

Ben in the Basement: Survival by Eating Crow

Ben boards up the cellar door—just as Harry said he should have. Turns out, it’s incredibly secure. He survives the night down there, completely untouched. If they had all stayed in the basement quietly, they’d have likely lived. Of course, the wild card would have been Karen (the bitten daughter) reanimating. But even then, it’s one problem, not a full-on siege.

Instead, what we got was noise, fire, conflict, and destruction—most of it sparked or escalated by Ben.

A Pointless Death, A Powerful Romero Ending

Come morning, Ben hears gunfire and sirens. The posse arrives, clearing out zombies. Ben peeks out—gun still in hand—and is mistaken for a ghoul. He’s shot and thrown onto the burning pile. It’s one of the greatest endings in horror history. The sheer gut punch of it. But narratively? Totally avoidable.

Alternate Endings and the Legacy of Ben in Night of the Living Dead: Hero or Horror Villain?

What if Ben and Barbara had just gone to the basement? What if Ben had defused tension with Harry instead of escalating it? What if he hadn’t tried to light a truck on fire while standing next to a gas pump?

There’s a fascinating alternate version of this story—glimpsed in the 1990 remake—where Harry’s fatherly instincts make him a sympathetic character. In that version, Ben dies in the basement, reanimates, and is mercy-killed. It explores similar dynamics but sharpens the emotional realism.

Duane Jones, Romero, and the Horror of Human Nature

None of this diminishes Duane Jones’s performance. He’s phenomenal. His casting matters. In 1968, at the height of the civil rights movement, Romero chose the best actor for the part—and he happened to be Black. That matters. It was a meaningful, radical decision.

But we do the character—and the film—a disservice by glossing over the actual story. The truth is, Ben was a good man who made terrible decisions. And those decisions killed everyone. The brilliance of Night of the Living Dead lies not just in its casting, but in how it portrays survival: messy, emotional, ego-driven, and tragic.