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Dead Ahead with George Romero
May 19, 2008

In 1968, New York-born filmmaker George Romero made his first feature, Night of the Living Dead, a horror movie about flesh-eating zombies and those unlucky enough to run into them. Shot in black-and-white for a budget of about $115,000, Night has since inspired countless other zombie features (28 Weeks Later, anyone?) and is now considered a classic (it was inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry in 1999). Romero has returned to the zombie genre a bunch of times over the past 40 years with Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005) and, most recently, Diary of the Dead (2007). I spoke with Romero last week about zombies (not necessarily his own!) and Diary (not to mention the other Dead films), which is due out this week on DVD from The Weinstein Co./Genius Entertainment.

 

VIDEO BUSINESS: You’re considered the godfather of the modern zombie film—what’s your take on the run of zombie flicks that we’ve seen over the past five years

GEORGE ROMERO: Well, I don’t know. I’m not a student of them—I don’t go running out to the theaters every time one of these things appears. My feeling is basically that I don’t care. People always ask Stephen

King, ‘What do you think about Hollywood ruining all your books?’ And Steve just points over his shoulder and says ‘They’re not ruined—they’re sitting right here on the shelf.’ Whatever I did, I did. And they’re there for people to see and they’re still around thanks to video and DVD. I can’t be bothered by what else goes on.

VB: Okay. That said, have you seen any of the current crop?

ROMERO: Shaun of the Dead I love, I just love it. The rest of them I just can’t get with so much. I’ve seen Resident Evil. And I’ve seen the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which was better than I expected and I think [director] Zakk Snyder did a good job with making an action film—the first twenty minutes were fabulous. Then it sort of became like a video game. I haven’t seen 28 Days Later or the new one.

VB: There’s a director's commentary track on Diary of the Dead. You’ve done a lot of them over the years.

ROMERO: I always enjoy doing them. Usually, there’s a bunch of us sitting around and it’s like old times. It’s great fun.

VB: Is there a sixth zombie film brewing inside of you?

ROMERO: There’s always one brewing inside. I’ll do these for as long as I’m standing, as long as I’m alive. It really depends on how long I live

VB: Is the Dead series sort of like George Lucas and Star Wars? Do you have an entire cycle in mind?

ROMERO: No, I don’t. I’m waiting for something to happen. The way I’ve done these films, they’re all talking about something or reflecting the time they were made. So, I’ve got to wait until somebody nukes us or something.

VB: I knew that the zombies would eventually get into politics and world affairs.

ROMERO: Zombies in Congress! It could happen.

 

 

Posted by Laurence Lerman on May 19, 2008 | Comments (1)