The "Godfather of Zombiedom", George A. Romero discusses his immeasurable contributions to the horror film genre and popular culture with host Colin Geddes. This event was held on October 31, 2012.
Still the most undeniable director of horror for me, because of a simple but effective philosophy of his: “We know we are going to die, therefore we are the living dead.” DEPTH!
I remember when it came out In 1968 Jersey City they had people dressed in bloody shirts who walked around the theatre who scared people jumping in front of them. This was copied from one of the original managers of Saint Louis who used to dress people up to scare the audience who attended. December 15 1968...scared me to death I'm Irish and I used to listen to my Grandfather talk about Irish Fokelore.
Cool story... wish I could have been there! My brother went to a re-release of NOLD in 79/80 also playing DO the D... He came home ghostly white mouth agape... repeatedly saying it was Soo gross, It was Soo Cool...I dry heaved in a packed theatre...Man it was awesome...( I waited about 14 yr to see them)
Met him at a Psychiatry conference (I am a Psychiatrist). Such a genuine man, no darkness to him at all. Just a man who wanted to pursue his craft...and did it so very well, so as to leave this lasting impression on us all.
First things first, God (of Zombie) Rests His Soul. And I also wonder what if he chose the Hollywood way, instead of remaining constantly in independent scene. Of course, he wholeheartedly embraced throughout his life low-budget greasly aethestics which make him a cult figure and gave him a very special director, but, let's admit, this very aesthetics and his attitude lost his chance of controlling zombie aesthetics he popularized - unlike the millionnaire directors like Lucas or Spielberg who never hesitate a second to sue their asses off if they discovered those who even slightly imitated their works... Romero was virtually powerless to all those Italian rip-offs (Don't forget The Dawn of the Dead was financed by Italians) also to the mainstream zombie films which are so popular these days, while he had always been through the difficult time to finance his own movies (that's why he regretted The Day of the Dead because he failed to secure the budget adequate to the film's actual scale).
Looking forward to his swan song. The rerelease of NOTLD in 4K with the recently discovered 10 minutes of deleted scenes long thought destroyed edited back into the film for its truly complete restoration. R.I.P genius.
I saw a clip from this where he talks about how the zombies in night of the living dead are representative of the dissolving of the nuclear family and I wanted to reference it in a paper I'm writing. I couldn't find it but at least I got an excuse to watch an eighty minute interview with a great. RIP
I think the best shot in Night is when the brother comes back and slams his gloved hand on the frame with his eyes looking so dead. I found that actor terrifying.
In my opinion there's a very good reason why the word zombie isn't used or at least rarely used in Romero's movies. When the people face the onslaught of undead "people", they are surprised every time and outside of comedies no-one says something like "oh, that's a movie come to life". Therefore zombie movies don't exist in that reality and so the word zombie isn't known and it would take an extremely educated character or someone who's really into languages to refer to the Kimbundu word "nzúmbe" or the creole word "zombi" which the word zombie is derived from.
There was a Crazies 2 film George was playing with that was never made involving kids eating a new junk food cereal that turns all the kids into flesh eating hyperactive kids.
Tradução de comentário crítico panorâmico (escrito em 1989) da obra de George Romero por Geoff Andrew: magiadoreal.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-film-handbook206-george-romero.html
