Ending Explained: Night of the Living Dead

💡 What does the ending really mean?

The posse of armed white neighbors storms the farmhouse at dawn. Ben, the sole Black survivor who has held the undead at bay all night with calm competence, is instantly shot dead through a window. They drag his body out with meat hooks, toss it onto a bonfire with the real zombies, and reduce him to anonymous ash. Roll credits. Romero’s ending is a brutal, crystalline indictment: the ghouls were never the true horror. American racism, casual, institutional, and sunlit, executes the competent hero the moment daylight returns. The real monster was already on the porch holding a rifle and a flag. The American Dream doesn’t die devoured; it dies from a case of mistaken identity.