Karen Cooper is a minor character from George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The character also appears in the 1990 remake, only this time she is named Sarah Cooper. Karen is portrayed by Kyra Schon and Sarah is portrayed by Heather Mazur.
History[]
Karen is the 11 year-old daughter of Harry and Helen Cooper. As the recently deceased begin to rise up, the Coopers are attacked and Karen is bitten on the arm. The girl falls ill shortly afterwards and her parents are unable to find any medical attention for her. They take shelter in an abandoned farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania, hiding in the cellar in the hope that help will eventually arrive. All the while, Karen's condition slowly worsens.
In both the original film and the remake, Karen (Sarah in the remake) succumbs to her illness and turns into a zombie. After turning in the original, she feeds on her father after he is pushed down the cellar steps by Ben and she then attacks and kills her mother by stabbing her with a masonry trowel. Karen is never seen again after this and is presumed to have joined the rest of the zombie horde outside after they overrun the house and later gets shot by the vigilante posse.
In the remake, Sarah turns as before, only this time she kills her mother by biting her neck out. In a nod to the original, when the undead Sarah attacks Helen, the camera view switches to a masonry trowel hanging on the wall which then gets sprayed with blood. Sarah then ascends the stairs to the house's ground floor where her father is shocked to find what has become of her. Ben urges Harry to shoot Sarah as she advances on Barbra but Harry cannot bring himself to do it and instead shoots at Ben. Barbra puts Sarah down herself using a handgun.