Evans City Cemetery

Evans City Cemetery is a cemetery located off Franklin Road just south of Evans City, Pennsylvania. The relatively small rural cemetery contains a stone chapel and a mixture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century grave markers spread across a sloping hillside. It became internationally known through George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, whose opening sequence was filmed among the real graves. The cemetery chapel later fell into disrepair and was threatened with demolition, but a campaign led by crew member Gary Streiner raised the money required to restore it. The restoration was completed in 2014, when George A. Romero returned to Evans City for its reopening.

Evans City Cemetery has appeared in Night of the Living Dead (1968). The cemetery and several of its real grave markers provide the setting for the film’s opening sequence, which introduces the first attack by one of the undead.

In Night of the Living Dead (1968), siblings Johnny and Barbra arrive at Evans City Cemetery to place a wreath on their father’s grave. Johnny begins teasing Barbra about her childhood fear of the cemetery and tells her, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra,” shortly before a strange man approaches and attacks her. Johnny attempts to defend his sister but is thrown against a gravestone and killed, while Barbra flees through the cemetery and eventually escapes towards the nearby farmhouse. Several identifiable real monuments remain at the location, including the Grace and George H. Cole stone used as the position of the siblings’ father’s grave and the Nicholas Kramer monument beside which Barbra takes refuge during the attack. The cemetery chapel is also visible in the sequence and survives today after its restoration.

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