Mar 29, 2024
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George A. Romero, father of the zombie genre, dead at 77

George Romero, whose classic Night of the Living Dead and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.

Romero died Sunday following a brief battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer, said his family in a statement provided by his manager, Chris Roe. Romero’s family said he died about 1:30 Sunday in a Toronto hospital while listening to the score of The Quiet Man, one of his favourite films, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher, and daughter, Tina Romero, by this side.

Romero had lived in Toronto since 2004.

“George was a gentle giant. He was one of the kindest, most giving human beings I’ve ever known or had the pleasure to work with,” Roe told the Star on the phone from Burbank, California. “There was no ego in any way shape or form with George. He was the real deal.”

Romero is credited with reinventing the movie zombie with his directorial debut, the 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead. The movie set the rules imitators lived by: Zombies move slowly, lust for human flesh and can only be killed when shot in the head. If a zombie bites a human, the person dies and returns as a zombie.

“I think it’s very safe to say that The Walking Dead and similar franchises to that would not exist without George Romero,” Roe said.

Romero’s zombies, however, were always more than mere cannibals; they were metaphors for conformity, racism, mall culture, militarism, class differences and other social ills.

“The zombies, they could be anything,” Romero told The Associated Press in 2008. “They could be an avalanche, they could be a hurricane. It’s a disaster out there. The stories are about how people fail to respond in the proper way. They fail to address it. They keep trying to stick where they are, instead of recognizing maybe this is too big for us to try to maintain. That’s the part of it that I’ve always enjoyed.”

Night of the Living Dead, made for about $100,000, featured flesh-hungry ghouls trying to feast on humans holed up in a Pennsylvania house. In 1999, the Library of Congress inducted the black-and-white masterpiece into the National Registry of Films.

Roe said Romero showed young filmmakers that they didn’t need millions of dollars to make a great movie.

“He always would say to young filmmakers when asked for advice, when you start something, finish it — so you can at least say you completed it. You learn from your mistakes and you move on to the next one, but always finish what you start,” Roe said.

“His thought process was, pick up a camera, go do something with it, but when you start it, finish it. That’s great advice for young kids especially now where making a movie is so much easier today because of technology.

Roe said Romero was comfortable in his later years with his stature among film buffs as the Godfather of the zombie movie.

“He was loved by his peers. No matter where he went in the world, prominent actors, directors, producers would all come to him just to say how much he meant to them and what kind of an inspiration he was.”

Romero’s death was immediately felt across a wide spectrum of horror fans and filmmakers. Stephen King, whose book The Dark Half was adapted by Romero, called him his favourite collaborator and said, “There will never be another like you.” Guillermo del Toro called the loss “enormous.”

“Night of the Living Dead was so incredibly DIY I realized movies were not something that belonged solely to the elites with multiple millions of dollars but could also be created by US, the people who simply loved them, who lived in Missouri, as I did,” wrote James Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy director, who wrote the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Ten years after Night of the Living Dead, Romero made Dawn of the Dead, where human survivors take refuge from the undead in a mall and then turn on each other as the zombies stumble around the shopping complex.

Film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the best horror films ever made — and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also . . . brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society.”

Romero had a sometimes combative relationship with the genre he helped create. He called the television show The Walking Dead a “soap opera” and said big-budget films like World War Z made modest zombie films impossible. Romero maintained that he wouldn’t make horror films he couldn’t fill them with political statements.

“People say, ‘You’re trapped in this genre. You’re a horror guy.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m able to say exactly what I think,’ ” Romero told the AP. “I’m able to talk about, comment about, take snapshots of what’s going on at the time. I don’t feel trapped. I feel this is my way of being able to express myself.”

The third in the Romero’s zombie series, 1985’s Day of the Dead, was a critical and commercial failure. There wouldn’t be another Dead film for two decades.

Land of the Dead in 2005 was the most star-packed of the bunch — the cast included Dennis Hooper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Simon Baker. Two years later came Toronto-filmed Diary of the Dead, another box-office failure.

There were other movies interspersed with the Dead films, including The Crazies (1973), Martin (1977), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988) and The Dark Half (1993). There also was 1981’s Knightriders, Romero’s take on the Arthurian legend featuring motorcycling jousters. Some were moderately successful, others box-office flops.

Roe said Romero spent the last few years of his life writing several scripts, which he hopes one day will be given a chance to be seen.

George Andrew Romero was born on Feb. 4, 1940, in New York City. He grew up in the Bronx, and he was a fan of horror comics and movies in the pre-VCR era.

“I grew up at the Loews American in the Bronx,” he wrote in an issue of the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine in 2002.

His favourite film was Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffman, based on Jacques Offenbach’s opera. It was, he once wrote, “the one movie that made me want to make movies.”

He spoke fondly of travelling to Manhattan to rent a 16mm version of the film from a distribution house. When the film was unavailable, Romero said, it was because another “kid” had rented it — Martin Scorsese.

Romero graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1960. He learned the movie business working on the sets of movies and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which was shot in Pittsburgh.

The city became Romero’s home and many of his films were set in western Pennsylvania. Dawn of the Dead was filmed in suburban Monroeville Mall, which has since become a popular destination for his fans.

Source: Toronto Star

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Front Page, Headline, Industry News

George A. Romero, father of the zombie genre, dead at 77

George Romero, whose classic Night of the Living Dead and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.

Romero died Sunday following a brief battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer, said his family in a statement provided by his manager, Chris Roe. Romero’s family said he died about 1:30 Sunday in a Toronto hospital while listening to the score of The Quiet Man, one of his favourite films, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher, and daughter, Tina Romero, by this side.

Romero had lived in Toronto since 2004.

“George was a gentle giant. He was one of the kindest, most giving human beings I’ve ever known or had the pleasure to work with,” Roe told the Star on the phone from Burbank, California. “There was no ego in any way shape or form with George. He was the real deal.”

Romero is credited with reinventing the movie zombie with his directorial debut, the 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead. The movie set the rules imitators lived by: Zombies move slowly, lust for human flesh and can only be killed when shot in the head. If a zombie bites a human, the person dies and returns as a zombie.

“I think it’s very safe to say that The Walking Dead and similar franchises to that would not exist without George Romero,” Roe said.

Romero’s zombies, however, were always more than mere cannibals; they were metaphors for conformity, racism, mall culture, militarism, class differences and other social ills.

“The zombies, they could be anything,” Romero told The Associated Press in 2008. “They could be an avalanche, they could be a hurricane. It’s a disaster out there. The stories are about how people fail to respond in the proper way. They fail to address it. They keep trying to stick where they are, instead of recognizing maybe this is too big for us to try to maintain. That’s the part of it that I’ve always enjoyed.”

Night of the Living Dead, made for about $100,000, featured flesh-hungry ghouls trying to feast on humans holed up in a Pennsylvania house. In 1999, the Library of Congress inducted the black-and-white masterpiece into the National Registry of Films.

Roe said Romero showed young filmmakers that they didn’t need millions of dollars to make a great movie.

“He always would say to young filmmakers when asked for advice, when you start something, finish it — so you can at least say you completed it. You learn from your mistakes and you move on to the next one, but always finish what you start,” Roe said.

“His thought process was, pick up a camera, go do something with it, but when you start it, finish it. That’s great advice for young kids especially now where making a movie is so much easier today because of technology.

Roe said Romero was comfortable in his later years with his stature among film buffs as the Godfather of the zombie movie.

“He was loved by his peers. No matter where he went in the world, prominent actors, directors, producers would all come to him just to say how much he meant to them and what kind of an inspiration he was.”

Romero’s death was immediately felt across a wide spectrum of horror fans and filmmakers. Stephen King, whose book The Dark Half was adapted by Romero, called him his favourite collaborator and said, “There will never be another like you.” Guillermo del Toro called the loss “enormous.”

“Night of the Living Dead was so incredibly DIY I realized movies were not something that belonged solely to the elites with multiple millions of dollars but could also be created by US, the people who simply loved them, who lived in Missouri, as I did,” wrote James Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy director, who wrote the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Ten years after Night of the Living Dead, Romero made Dawn of the Dead, where human survivors take refuge from the undead in a mall and then turn on each other as the zombies stumble around the shopping complex.

Film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the best horror films ever made — and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also . . . brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society.”

Romero had a sometimes combative relationship with the genre he helped create. He called the television show The Walking Dead a “soap opera” and said big-budget films like World War Z made modest zombie films impossible. Romero maintained that he wouldn’t make horror films he couldn’t fill them with political statements.

“People say, ‘You’re trapped in this genre. You’re a horror guy.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m able to say exactly what I think,’ ” Romero told the AP. “I’m able to talk about, comment about, take snapshots of what’s going on at the time. I don’t feel trapped. I feel this is my way of being able to express myself.”

The third in the Romero’s zombie series, 1985’s Day of the Dead, was a critical and commercial failure. There wouldn’t be another Dead film for two decades.

Land of the Dead in 2005 was the most star-packed of the bunch — the cast included Dennis Hooper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Simon Baker. Two years later came Toronto-filmed Diary of the Dead, another box-office failure.

There were other movies interspersed with the Dead films, including The Crazies (1973), Martin (1977), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988) and The Dark Half (1993). There also was 1981’s Knightriders, Romero’s take on the Arthurian legend featuring motorcycling jousters. Some were moderately successful, others box-office flops.

Roe said Romero spent the last few years of his life writing several scripts, which he hopes one day will be given a chance to be seen.

George Andrew Romero was born on Feb. 4, 1940, in New York City. He grew up in the Bronx, and he was a fan of horror comics and movies in the pre-VCR era.

“I grew up at the Loews American in the Bronx,” he wrote in an issue of the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine in 2002.

His favourite film was Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffman, based on Jacques Offenbach’s opera. It was, he once wrote, “the one movie that made me want to make movies.”

He spoke fondly of travelling to Manhattan to rent a 16mm version of the film from a distribution house. When the film was unavailable, Romero said, it was because another “kid” had rented it — Martin Scorsese.

Romero graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1960. He learned the movie business working on the sets of movies and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which was shot in Pittsburgh.

The city became Romero’s home and many of his films were set in western Pennsylvania. Dawn of the Dead was filmed in suburban Monroeville Mall, which has since become a popular destination for his fans.

Source: Toronto Star

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Front Page, Headline, Industry News

George A. Romero, father of the zombie genre, dead at 77

George Romero, whose classic Night of the Living Dead and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.

Romero died Sunday following a brief battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer, said his family in a statement provided by his manager, Chris Roe. Romero’s family said he died about 1:30 Sunday in a Toronto hospital while listening to the score of The Quiet Man, one of his favourite films, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher, and daughter, Tina Romero, by this side.

Romero had lived in Toronto since 2004.

“George was a gentle giant. He was one of the kindest, most giving human beings I’ve ever known or had the pleasure to work with,” Roe told the Star on the phone from Burbank, California. “There was no ego in any way shape or form with George. He was the real deal.”

Romero is credited with reinventing the movie zombie with his directorial debut, the 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead. The movie set the rules imitators lived by: Zombies move slowly, lust for human flesh and can only be killed when shot in the head. If a zombie bites a human, the person dies and returns as a zombie.

“I think it’s very safe to say that The Walking Dead and similar franchises to that would not exist without George Romero,” Roe said.

Romero’s zombies, however, were always more than mere cannibals; they were metaphors for conformity, racism, mall culture, militarism, class differences and other social ills.

“The zombies, they could be anything,” Romero told The Associated Press in 2008. “They could be an avalanche, they could be a hurricane. It’s a disaster out there. The stories are about how people fail to respond in the proper way. They fail to address it. They keep trying to stick where they are, instead of recognizing maybe this is too big for us to try to maintain. That’s the part of it that I’ve always enjoyed.”

Night of the Living Dead, made for about $100,000, featured flesh-hungry ghouls trying to feast on humans holed up in a Pennsylvania house. In 1999, the Library of Congress inducted the black-and-white masterpiece into the National Registry of Films.

Roe said Romero showed young filmmakers that they didn’t need millions of dollars to make a great movie.

“He always would say to young filmmakers when asked for advice, when you start something, finish it — so you can at least say you completed it. You learn from your mistakes and you move on to the next one, but always finish what you start,” Roe said.

“His thought process was, pick up a camera, go do something with it, but when you start it, finish it. That’s great advice for young kids especially now where making a movie is so much easier today because of technology.

Roe said Romero was comfortable in his later years with his stature among film buffs as the Godfather of the zombie movie.

“He was loved by his peers. No matter where he went in the world, prominent actors, directors, producers would all come to him just to say how much he meant to them and what kind of an inspiration he was.”

Romero’s death was immediately felt across a wide spectrum of horror fans and filmmakers. Stephen King, whose book The Dark Half was adapted by Romero, called him his favourite collaborator and said, “There will never be another like you.” Guillermo del Toro called the loss “enormous.”

“Night of the Living Dead was so incredibly DIY I realized movies were not something that belonged solely to the elites with multiple millions of dollars but could also be created by US, the people who simply loved them, who lived in Missouri, as I did,” wrote James Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy director, who wrote the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Ten years after Night of the Living Dead, Romero made Dawn of the Dead, where human survivors take refuge from the undead in a mall and then turn on each other as the zombies stumble around the shopping complex.

Film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the best horror films ever made — and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also . . . brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society.”

Romero had a sometimes combative relationship with the genre he helped create. He called the television show The Walking Dead a “soap opera” and said big-budget films like World War Z made modest zombie films impossible. Romero maintained that he wouldn’t make horror films he couldn’t fill them with political statements.

“People say, ‘You’re trapped in this genre. You’re a horror guy.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m able to say exactly what I think,’ ” Romero told the AP. “I’m able to talk about, comment about, take snapshots of what’s going on at the time. I don’t feel trapped. I feel this is my way of being able to express myself.”

The third in the Romero’s zombie series, 1985’s Day of the Dead, was a critical and commercial failure. There wouldn’t be another Dead film for two decades.

Land of the Dead in 2005 was the most star-packed of the bunch — the cast included Dennis Hooper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Simon Baker. Two years later came Toronto-filmed Diary of the Dead, another box-office failure.

There were other movies interspersed with the Dead films, including The Crazies (1973), Martin (1977), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988) and The Dark Half (1993). There also was 1981’s Knightriders, Romero’s take on the Arthurian legend featuring motorcycling jousters. Some were moderately successful, others box-office flops.

Roe said Romero spent the last few years of his life writing several scripts, which he hopes one day will be given a chance to be seen.

George Andrew Romero was born on Feb. 4, 1940, in New York City. He grew up in the Bronx, and he was a fan of horror comics and movies in the pre-VCR era.

“I grew up at the Loews American in the Bronx,” he wrote in an issue of the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine in 2002.

His favourite film was Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffman, based on Jacques Offenbach’s opera. It was, he once wrote, “the one movie that made me want to make movies.”

He spoke fondly of travelling to Manhattan to rent a 16mm version of the film from a distribution house. When the film was unavailable, Romero said, it was because another “kid” had rented it — Martin Scorsese.

Romero graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1960. He learned the movie business working on the sets of movies and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which was shot in Pittsburgh.

The city became Romero’s home and many of his films were set in western Pennsylvania. Dawn of the Dead was filmed in suburban Monroeville Mall, which has since become a popular destination for his fans.

Source: Toronto Star

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Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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