Posted on 07/16/2017 3:09:09 PM PDT by Borges
Legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, father of the modern movie 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 Quiet Man,” with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher Romero, and daughter, Tina Romero, at his side, the family said.
Romero jump-started the zombie genre as the co-writer (with John A. Russo) and director of the 1968 movie “Night of the Living Dead,” which went to show future generations of filmmakers such as Tobe Hooper and John Carpenter that generating big scares didn’t require big budgets. “Living Dead” spawned an entire school of zombie knockoffs, and Romero’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 “George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Always carry an harmonica, because you just never know....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBNMY_4djIY
Huge fan. RIP.
Zombies are Haitian folklore. The West started thinking about hem around the time of the publication of ‘The Magic Island’ by W.B. Seabrook in 1929.
Yeah he was very convincing. Sadly, he passed away quite some time ago.
I thought the sheriff was excellent, too. He also just passed away just last year.
My brother and I stayed up late one night to watch this. It stormed that night, wind, rain, lightning. We grabbed a couple of baseball bats to have close by, just in case there were zombies. Good times.
Yeah I knew that.
I read somewhere that a cultural anthropologist claims that there is a kernel of truth in the zombie myth. It is supposedly based on a local natural drug that is a neurotoxin. The “Haitian Wizard” knows just how much to administer to his victim to put him/her in a “death-like” coma. The victim has a funeral, is buried and is supposedly conscious of the proceedings. The “Wizard” digs him up, administers the antidote and psychologically enslaves the victim.
Well that’s this anthropologist’s story!
I wonder if anyone has done a movie on it?
It would make a better movie then the standard zombie fare.
Fortunately, I recovered enough to go to work that day.
Dawn of the Dead was his masterpiece. The Monroeville mall is worth a pilgrimage although it looks different I am sure these days.
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988). Creepiest scene was when the Voodoo guy puts a big spider in the coffin with the ‘corpse’.
My kids love “The Walking Dead”. They were a bit too little when I tried to show them “The Night of the Living Dead” and they were too scared. I’ll try it again.
I recall reading about a wasp that can sting a spider, and the spider will spin a nest for the wasp - based on the wasp’s design that it injected into the spider! Then of course I had to search for other examples of zombies in nature.
Rabies of course - where the bacteria(?) or whatever inside your body can’t survive water or something, so makes the host not able to drink water.
I keep reminding my kids whenever we watch The Walking Dead - “Hey - you never know. One mutation of that wasp sting.....”
I loved Creepshow! My favourite bit was videophile Leslie Nielsen and “how long can you hold your breath?” With Ted Danson.
I remember the shock to the critics when they saw his NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. To them it was one of the worst movies they had ever seen, nothing like the good old zombie flicks like WHITE ZOMBIE and I WALK WITH A ZOMBIE.
The critics were especially horrified when the last man, who was black and innocent was shot and burned on the pile with the other zombies.
Idea behind zombies, is that of a human, whose soul has left the body, but the living body is now occupied/possessed by an evil spirit.
Then how does shooting it stop it?
Inquiring minds want to know!
"Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."
WHen you kill the body, then the evil spirit leaves it. ...unless it eats more BRAINS!!!!
C’mon, didn’t they teach you this stuff in Civics class? Or did the zombies get to the Social Studies teachers first?
While his zombie movies will always be his most famous his non-zombie stuff is usually better. My favorite is probably Knightriders, it’s not really that great a movie, but I grew up surrounded by outlaw bikers and know a lot of folks in the SCA, so bikers that recreate medieval kind of speaks to me. Always very funny in interviews too, seemed like a nice guy.
The Twilight Zone episode in which he appears has to be based on a man I know. Spouts the same tales. Incredibly amusing. “Why they used to call me...”
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