Despite being well over thirty years old now, the effects in Night of the Living Dead still pack a punch. Originally, Tom Savini was to do the make-up: however, he was called up to the army literally weeks before the production began and subsequently missed out. Therefore it was left to Karl Hardman to sort out all of the effects as he, along with Marilyn Eastman, were the only people with a basic knowledge of make-up and special effects.
THE ZOMBIES
The majority of zombies simply had a layer of grey cake make-up applied to their faces and other visible parts (i.e arms, legs), with the eye sockets being coloured a darker shade to suggest decay (eye sockets sink back after death). For more elaborate shots (see above) the SFX department used morticians wax (not to be confused with the more sophisticated DERMA WAX) to sculpt various body disfigurements. Despite these primitive effects, the Night zombies still appear incredibly eerie, even when compared to new breeds of the living dead like those in Tom Savini's remake.
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THE SKULL
A memorable shot from Night is when Barbara first sees the corpse at the top of the stairs. Although laughably fake today, it was quite a powerful and scary image back in 1968. The actual skull was bought for $5 and decorated with wax and chocolate syrup. For the eyeball, Romero painted a ping-pong ball which completed the look.
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THE HAND
The shot where Tom repetetively smashes a zombies hand until the fingers break off was another illusion created by Romero. For the effect, George sculpted a hand in clay and filled the inside with chocolate syrup, so when hit the fingers would appear to bleed.
MANNEQUINS
To show the impact of Ben's tyre iron in certain scenes, the crew dressed up mannequins (Tom Savini used this technique in the NOTLD remake too, although with more advanced dummies). The first case is when Ben arrives and attacks two zombies at the front of the house. The second occured in what is possibly the most haunting image of the film; when Ben punches a hole through the head of a zombie in a hospital gown, who later falls away revealing more flesh eaters.
