Director reimagined zombies with ‘Night of the Living Dead’
Legendary filmmaker GeorgeA. Romero, father of the modernmovie zombie and creator of the groundbreaking “Night of the Living Dead” franchise, has died at 77, his family said.
Romero died Sunday in his sleep following a “brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer,” according to a statement to The Times provided by his longtime producing partner, Peter Grunwald. Romero died while listening to the score of one his favorite films, 1952’s “The QuietMan,” with his wife, Suzanne DesrocherRomero, and daughter, TinaRomero, at his side, the family said.
Romero jump-started the zombie genre as the co-writer (with JohnA. Russo) and director of the 1968movie “Night of the Living Dead,” which showed future generations of filmmakers such asTobe Hooper and John Carpenter that big scares didn’t require big budgets.
“Living Dead” spawned an entire school of zombie knockoffs, andRomero’s sequels included 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead,” 1985’s “Day of the Dead,” 2005’s “Land of the Dead,” 2007’s “Diary of the Dead” and 2009’s “GeorgeA. Romero’s Survival of the Dead.”
The original film, since colorized, has become a HalloweenTVstaple. It also has earned socio-political points for the casting of a black actor in the lead role.
Romerowrote or directed projects outside of the “Living Dead” franchise aswell, including 1973’s “The Crazies,” 1981’s “Knightriders” and episodes of the 1970sTVdocumentary “TheWinners.” His last credit as a writer was for his characters’ appearance in 2017’s “Day of the Dead.”
George AndrewRomero was born in the Bronx in NewYorkonFeb. 4, 1940. He attended Carnegie MellonUniversity in Pittsburgh, and graduated in 1960 fromthe university’s College of Fine Arts.
In recent years, as the zombie genre had a resurgence, Romerowasn’t always a fan. He told a British newspaper in 2013 that he’d been asked to do some episodes of “The WalkingDead,” but had no interest.
Romero took an intellectual approach to his depiction of zombies, a view he found lacking in some of thework that came after him.
“I grew up on these slow-moving-but-youcan’t(creatures), where you’ve got to find the Achilles’ heel, or in this case, theAchilles’ brain,” Romero told The Times in 2005, referring to the organ whose destructionwaylays a zombie. “In (the remake), they’re just dervishes, you don’t recognize any of them, there’s nothing to characterize them. ... (But) I like to give even incidental zombies a bit of identification. I just think it’s a nice reminder that they’re us.”
His critical eye could be trained on subjects beyond the undead. In 1988, he remarked on the street scene onHollywood Boulevard to a Times reporter.
“I knowthey’re trying to clean upHollywood Boulevard,” he said, eyeing the odd, colorful crowd at rush hour. “But you’ll always be able to get a tattoo here. It’ll just cost more.”
At the time, hewas promoting the horror film “Monkey Shines.”
“I’ve been criticized the most for not writing goodguy/bad-guy characters,” he explained. “Butmy people aren’t clear-cut because real people aren’t clear-cut. They’re usually very gray, very ambiguous.
“That’s what makes this story so disturbing, because you don’t knowwhere you stand with everyone. There’s awonderful line in the original novel— the devil is instinct.’ And I think that’s what I responded to most— the theme of the evil within, the Jekyll-andHyde quality of the character.”