Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film, directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The film became a financial success, grossing $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally. It has been a cult classic ever since. Night of the Living Dead was heavily criticized at its release for its explicit gore. The story follows characters Ben (Jones), Barbra (O'Dea), and five others trapped in a rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania, which is attacked by a large and growing group of unnamed "living dead" monsters. Initially, it was shown as a Saturday afternoon matine, as was typical for horror films at the time and attracted an audience consisting of pre-teens and adolescents. The MPAA film rating system was not yet in place, so even young children were not prohibited from purchasing tickets. According to Roger Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately: "The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying... It's hard to remember what sort of effect this movie might have had on you when you were six or seven. But try to remember. At that age, kids take the events on the screen seriously, and they identify fiercely with the hero. When the hero is killed, that's not an unhappy ending but a tragic one: Nobody got out alive. It's just over, that's all." Since the release, some have seen Night of the Living Dead as a subversive film that critiques 1960s American society, in that the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be killed by a redneck posse. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 1999.