Barbra (Judith O'Dea) is afraid of cemeteries and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) is teasing her about it as they visit their father’s grave. Suddenly she is attacked by a strange pale man (S. William Hinzman). Johnny tries to save her but falls, hitting his head on a gravestone. Barbra flees and takes refuge in an abandoned farmhouse where she soon discovers the house has been surrounded by more of the strange people. Ben (Duane Jones) arrives in his pickup truck and helps fend off the attackers, but the two are not alone. Harry and Helen Cooper (Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman), their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon), and teenage couple Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley) are also in the house where they have been hiding in the cellar. Karen however is ill having been bitten by one of the zombie-like mob. The group fortifies the house and learns from news reports that the recently dead that have somehow come back to life and are killing and eating the living all over the east coast. They must devise a plan to escape before they all are murdered by the zombies or by their fellow refugees.