Horror and cult film podcast with Baz Bishop.
Episode 05: Night of the Living Dead and the Hero Nobody Expected.
Fall 1982. University of South Carolina. Halloween night. A free film in the Russell House Student Union. A bag of popcorn. And a Black man boarding up a farmhouse in Pennsylvania, calmly and unapologetically taking charge — changing, quietly and permanently, something in a white kid from Allendale.
George Romero. $114,000. Black and white. Evans City, Pennsylvania. The film that invented the modern zombie, did it for less than a decent used car costs, and ended up preserved in the Library of Congress. The monster that can't be reasoned with. The real danger inside the house. The ending you don't look away from.
Duane Jones as Ben. Cast because he was the best actor available — full stop. An academic and theatre director whose students at SUNY Old Westbury had no idea he'd been the lead in one of the most important horror films ever made. He never told them. Made the film, knew what it was, went back to his life. Night of the Living Dead was his time. He was right.
Allendale Academy. Confederate mascot. Confederate flag as the school flag. Dixie as the school song. Twelve years. A graduating class of twenty-five. Seventy percent Black county. Never sat next to a Black student in a classroom. The architecture of exclusion, built deliberately, maintained carefully, still paying its costs.
Coming out. A letter. One afternoon. The emergency exit taken away. The Black sheep. The figure in the window. The cost of visibility when the world would prefer you weren't. And then — the reconciliation. Because they came back. And he let them.
00:00 Cold Open — No music. Russell House, 1982. Halloween night. Ben arrives. Something shifts.
06:11 The Setup — What this episode is and isn't. The argument stated. The ethical position named upfront. No emergency exit.
09:52 Movement 1 — The Film — Night of the Living Dead: $114,000. Evans City, Pennsylvania. Romero at 27. Ben. Harry Cooper. The real monster inside the house. The ending. 1968 in America.
16:57 Movement 2 — Duane Jones — The man who played Ben. Academic, theatre director, head of department. The café on Long Island. His students had no idea. Night of the Living Dead was his time. Ganja and Hess.
25:23 Movement 3 — Where You Come From — Allendale, South Carolina. Allendale Academy. The flag, the mascot, the song. The architecture of segregation. What Baz benefitted from and at whose cost.
35:39 Movement 4 — The Black Sheep — Coming out. David's letter. One afternoon. The emergency exit taken away. The figure in the window. The cost of visibility. The empathy that comes from needing it.
44:24 The Turn — They came back. The reconciliation. The Angelou line and its oral tradition provenance. The harder choice, made and made again.
52:50 The Close — Romero's death. Jones's legacy. The proof of concept. Goose and Lily. Not bad for a kid from Allendale. EP06 tease. Sign off.
Films and references in this episode: Night of the Living Dead (1968), White Zombie (1932), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), Ganja and Hess (1973), Losing Ground (1982), The Quiet Man (1952).
Other references: George Romero. Duane Jones. Karl Hardman. Russell Streiner. Kathleen Collins. Allendale Academy. Allendale County, South Carolina. Desegregation and the private segregation academy system. SUNY Old Westbury. The Duane L. Jones Recital Hall. The Walking Dead tribute. The Maya Angelou / Oprah oral tradition line.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) is in the public domain and available to watch free and legally online. Watch it. If you've seen it, watch it again. Watch the ending. Don't look away.
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Audio credits: "extremely-close-thunder" by Spennnyyy | freesound.org/s/350506/ | CC BY 4.0
Baz To The Bone is produced independently in Wales, UK.
Horror. Cult Film. Bad Taste Done Properly.
EP05 Podbean Description · Draft 2 · June 2026 · Timestamps confirmed
