The genre of Night of The Living Dead is horror. There is plenty of evidence of this throughout the film. The plot of the film is a bunch of adults hiding from ghouls in a house, which is a horror film concept. None of the characters are villains or anything that would suggest they’re evil but after they get attacked by the ghouls they turn into ghouls and start attacking the other characters.
In terms of the dramatic structure, the exposition takes place when Barbara and Johnny are at the cemetery when Barabara get attacked and then she retreats to the house. During this scene we get some background knowledge on where the setting of the film will be and who is one of the main characters is. The rising action occurs when Barbara meets Ben and the other characters in the house and they are all planning on what they should do to escape the ghouls. The climax occurs when Tom and Judy hop in the truck outside and Ben follows them, then the truck catches on fire while Ben fights off the ghouls. The falling action is after everyone has either turned into a ghoul or died besides Ben the next morning and there is a search team that finds Ben. The denouement occurs when one of the members of the search team mistakes Ben for a ghoul and kills him.
The narrative is mainly structure around Ben. Ben is the one who seems to take charge and make all the decisions. He takes on a leadership role and boards up the windows and doors, lighting the couch on fire to fend off the ghouls, and using the rifle to shoot the ghouls. I think if the narrative were different and they would have structured it around Barbara for example, then the movie would have been much different because Barbara was very quiet throughout the whole film. This supports the genre because in all movies, and especially in horror movies, one character has to be brave and take on a leadership role to overcome the adversity that they are facing in order to prevail and Ben takes on that role in Night of The Living Dead.
The performances were suited to the genre by each actor filling their role appropriately. Ben suited the role of being the leader because he was the most vocal out of everyone and took charge of every situation and was extremely confident. All the other characters played minor roles which fits in well with the horror genre because in horror movies usually the other characters take a back seat to the leader of the group. The performances aren’t realistic, the camera turned away whenever one of the characters was about to get stabbed or eaten during the film. This isn’t a bad thing because this film was made over 50 years ago, so at the time it probably seemed realistic, but it doesn’t really take away from the plot.
The main actor, Duane Jones, as Ben is an unknown actor. Judith O’Dea was a stage and commercial actress at the time and she played the role of Barbara. This was the first major film that Judith O’Dea acted in at the time so the audience would not have had any prior background knowledge on her work. I don’t know why the director chose to make Duane Jones take the lead role and not Judith O’Dea. It seems like it would have made sense casting the actor with more experience as the lead actor but the director possibly just wanted to have a strong males presence be the lead actor would be my guess.