In 1968, The New York Times dismissed Night of the Living Dead as a revolting little item cobbled together by “some people in Pittsburgh.” The review was myopic; the film was visionary. George A. Romero’s low-budget account of everyday Americans under siege by a moldering silent majority was probably the keynote B movie of its era, leading to a series of worthy descendants filtering politics through pulp. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre brilliantly skewered capitalism and conservative family values alongside its characters; John Carpenter’s They Live unfolded as a veritable how-to manual about the necessity of discerning subtext beneath cheap surfaces. That influence extended all the way to Jordan Peele’s Get Out, another meditation on perception featuring sinister power brokers hidden in plain sight.
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