10 Horror Movies Where The Last Scene Is The Best

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is a seminal piece of filmmaking.

Simply put, audiences had never seen anything like it. Romero's gleefully unabashed use of explicit violence was unheard of at the time, but this was barely the headline.

By casting Duane Jones in the leading role of Ben against the backdrop of the US Civil Rights Movement, Night of the Living Dead became one of the first films to do away with the trope associated with black actors at the time of production; relegating them to comic relief or sidekick status. Romero cast Jones because he felt he was the best actor for the job, opining that his film was perhaps the first instance of a "black man playing the lead role regardless of, rather than because of, his race”.

Notwithstanding what a spectacular piece of cinema the movie constitutes, Night of the Living Dead's final scene provides the bedrock for endless social discussion and commentary. After a valiant - and desperately bloody - battle for survival, Ben meets the most undeserving of ends. Jones' lead is tragically shot and killed by an arriving posse who mistake him for a member of the undead, in an horrifyingly uncanny parallel to one America's most fraught topics.

A film about flesh-eating zombies where the ending evokes relevant social debate to this day? It sounds impossible on paper, highlighting what an exemplary finish the legendary Romero provided to his pièce de résistance.