George Romero

What would zombie awareness month be with out a little fan worship of George Romero? I've been writing zombie zeitgeist part three and an essay about real zombies. Editing takes time, a lot of time and when I'm happy with them I'll be posting them to the blog. In the mean time I've been reading up on Romero planning to salute his legacy, I think this essay says just about everything I would.
The Man Who's Resurrected More Things Than Just Zombies
In 1968 director George A. Romero released his ground breaking film Night of the Living Dead to audiences all around the world and thus history was made. No film before this had ever conceived of using the rarely used "zombie" as a means in which to tell an elaborate story about humanity and dread. The film became an instinct success story not just for Romero but for the zombie genre as well seeing as though it is the film to which all other zombie films are compared. Romero would expand on his apocalyptic world in which the dead rise to menace the living with the films Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), and most recently with Diary of the Dead (2007).

Romero was born in 1940 in New York, New York where he lived until moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he attended the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University. It was here where he would start his career in filmmaking with mostly commercials and short films under his company Image Ten Productions in the 1960s. With co-founder John A. Russo they put together the $100,000 to produce their first feature length film Night of the Living Dead which made them more money then what they put into it and thus started them on a successful career path.

It was several years before Romero's next financial success Dawn of the Dead but between these two films he filmed several noteworthy yet largely forgotten films including the little seen There's Always Vanilla (1971), The Crazies (1973), Hungry Wives (1972), and Martin (1977). Although little seen except for those of avid followers of his films, these films allowed Romero to continue to craft and hone his storytelling abilities including his proclivities to sprinkle biting political and cultural commentaries in all of his films.

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