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00:00They're coming to get you, Barbara.
00:04His films have horrified audiences since 1968.
00:08I slept with the light on after seeing Night of the Living Dead for the first time.
00:12It just paralyzed me with fear.
00:14His name brings up visions of The Walking Dead.
00:19Romero's picture was a stark, black and white, dead serious film with a surprising amount of gore.
00:25You see people eat intestines they ripped out of living people.
00:29It was the zombie movies that put Romero on the map, and it was the audiences that had a hunger
00:34for these zombie movies.
00:35Every when I saw Dawn of the Dead, I tried to sit through it eating food to see how long
00:38that would last.
00:39I didn't last eight minutes.
00:40And his impact on the face of horror is undeniable.
00:44Every once in a while, somebody has to come along that pushes a genre forward to the next step, and
00:49that's who George Romero is.
00:51This is the story of George A. Romero.
01:02While growing up on the East Coast, George Andrew Romero has many interests.
01:07I was born and raised in New York City in the Bronx.
01:09I grew up on EC comic books.
01:11I loved genre stuff.
01:13EC basically did one thing really good.
01:15There was always these revenge stories or the consequences.
01:19You know, it was always you pay for what you do.
01:20Now, one of the things that EC was really famous for was just having just great gold.
01:26The art was phenomenal.
01:28When I was old enough to go to movies by myself, they were rerunning the old famous monsters, Universal films,
01:34Frankenstein, Dracula, all that stuff.
01:37So I got to see those big screen, which were very, very impressive.
01:40They're beautiful films, big screen.
01:43Romero dreamed of getting into filmmaking, but to him, this goal is beyond his reach.
01:48I always loved movies, but I never thought it was anything that I could do.
01:53I thought you had to sort of be born royalty to get involved in it.
01:57As the years go by, Romero pursues other interests.
02:00Went to parochial schools in the Bronx.
02:03And then came to Pittsburgh to go to Carnegie Mellon University.
02:07And I did three years as a painting and design major.
02:10After college, Romero manages to take his first small step into the world of filmmaking.
02:16So after five years at CMU without graduating, I just sort of took off and stayed in Pittsburgh.
02:22In those days, cities the size of Pittsburgh had film laboratories because the news was on film.
02:27This was before videotape.
02:29So I started to just hang out at one of these labs and met the guys that were gluing together
02:34newsreels.
02:35My first job was bicycling newsreels around to the TV stations.
02:40And then finally, I got my hands on a camera and we set up a little company to shoot commercials.
02:46And our first job wasn't really a commercial job.
02:49It was for Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
02:54Rather than leaving for Los Angeles to pursue his film career, Romero stays in Pittsburgh.
02:58I live here.
03:00There's nothing necessarily about Pittsburgh.
03:03I mean, I stuck around.
03:04I found a town with a work ethic that has a lot of diverse history.
03:09And yet that was sort of ragged around the edges.
03:13Certain despair that Pittsburgh has for me.
03:15It definitely is kind of a ghost town in a lot of ways.
03:18It was in that it had this big, giant industry, the steel industry that was there.
03:23And that's what everybody's job was.
03:26But they lost their industry.
03:28And you sort of get that sense of a city trying to, like, sort of wandering around, trying to find
03:32zombies, trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing.
03:36That idea of sort of this little bit of decay around the edges of what was an American dream has
03:43always been pretty interesting to me.
03:45After he has a few projects behind him, Romero and his partners decide to take their company to the next
03:50level.
03:52We had a commercial production company.
03:54It was called The Latent Image.
03:56And some of us wanted to make a feature film and thought that we could do it.
04:00We were audacious enough to think that we could do something ourselves and raise enough local money to just get
04:06it together and try to do a little movie.
04:08I was just really impressed with him that he just, you know, he didn't wait for the system to, you
04:14know, to let him make a movie.
04:16He didn't even bother to move out to L.A.
04:18I had written a short story, which basically I ripped off from Richard Matheson's novel, I Am Legend, which is
04:25about the last man on Earth and vampires have taken over the planet.
04:28So I couldn't use vampires because Richard did.
04:31And I wanted to sort of start it at the beginning on the very first night that it happened.
04:35So when we decided to try to make a little horror film, we said, well, let's convert that into a
04:40screenplay.
04:41So I started to write it.
04:42Ten of us kicked in 600 bucks a piece and we actually started to go to work.
04:47He went out and got the financing.
04:49He made that with friends.
04:50They filmed it.
04:51They did it on their own.
04:52As Romero begins his first feature, he has no idea that he's about to change the face of horror.
04:59They're coming to get you, Barbara.
05:02Whoa!
05:06After establishing Image 10 Productions in the late 1960s, George A. Romero and his cohorts set off to produce their
05:13first feature film.
05:14The original title is Night of the Flesh Eaters, but it's later changed to Night of the Living Dead.
05:20We rented the farmhouse and we had cameras and lights and all that stuff in the company.
05:25So it was easy for us to just go out and shoot whenever we wanted to.
05:31It was a slow process and, you know, we were shooting jobs in between.
05:36You know, we were just lucky that nobody got hurt.
05:42All the actors lived through that whole extended period of time.
05:50And we finished it here at one of these labs in Pittsburgh.
05:53Literally finished it and threw it in the trunk of the car and drove it to New York to see
05:57if anyone wanted to show it.
05:59Well, it first went out and played neighborhood theaters, drive-in movies for four or five weeks.
06:05Night of the Living Dead makes a big impression.
06:09Those who see it.
06:11This isn't like Dracula and the Wolfman and people with phony European accents and cheap monster masks.
06:17This was a real thing, already grown up.
06:21I slept with the light on after seeing Night of the Living Dead for the first time.
06:25It just paralyzed me with fear.
06:29Everybody that sees it, they remember the first time they saw the original Night of the Living Dead.
06:33He grabbed me!
06:35I think you just calmed down.
06:37It seemed real.
06:38I think more than anything, it seemed like it was really happening at this point.
06:42It had such a documentary feel to it.
06:44If you had a gun, shoot him in the head.
06:46That's a sure way to kill him.
06:47If you don't get yourself a club or a torch, beat him or burn him.
06:53The first time I saw one of George Romero's movies, it was, of course, Night of the Living Dead, like
06:58everybody else.
06:59And I saw it at a drive-in here in Los Angeles.
07:06It was so terrifying that my friend and I, in our car, could hear children inside other closed cars all
07:13around us screaming and begging to be taken home.
07:18It got really attacked by people like Roger Ebert, who's basically said, how far will people go to make a
07:24buck?
07:25Roger Ebert in Reader's Digest just castigated the thing.
07:28How dare anyone make something horrific?
07:31This is, you know, a new low in Hollywood horror films.
07:34They used to be so good, and now they're so awful.
07:36And I thought, I gotta see this.
07:41People use Night of the Living Dead as a reason for needing an MPAA or some sort of a ratings
07:46board.
07:50Romero's picture was a stark, black and white, dead serious film with a surprising amount of gore.
07:56And then you'll see a little girl stabbed her mother to death with a trowel.
08:04You see people eat intestines they ripped out of living people.
08:08It was like nothing else anybody had ever seen.
08:11It was just a sudden stop.
08:14And a sharp right turn in another direction for horror movies.
08:21Blood and the guts really has an impact on people.
08:24It's absolutely shocking to see some of this stuff.
08:26They're eating raw meat, pig intestines.
08:29I really think that Night of the Living Dead is a milestone from the standpoint of we've never seen blood
08:35and guts in a movie ever like that before.
08:38Many people also pick up on a deeper meaning behind the horror and gore.
08:43The thing that really separates Night of the Living Dead from other horror films of the period is, you know,
08:47the social subtext, the civil rights issues, the Vietnam War was fresh in people's minds.
08:54So the film had more of a weight to it.
08:57Even though the filmmakers didn't set out to make a message monster movie, a lot of this psychological baggage was
09:03kind of put on the film after it came out.
09:06Did you hear me when I told you they turned over our car?
09:10There's no racism on the surface between any of the characters.
09:13No one uses the N-word.
09:16No one says it.
09:17But you can feel the tension.
09:19You get the hell down in the cellar.
09:21You can be the boss down there.
09:22I'm boss up here.
09:24You bastards.
09:26So there's certainly a respect, and the respect actually comes from the filmmaker himself, George Romero.
09:31You know, it was that sign of the times, and we knew that we had injected some of that into
09:36the film, but it was more about the war and rioting in the streets.
09:40The fact that we had an African-American in the lead was basically an accident.
09:45Dwayne was the best actor from among our friends.
09:48How to drag you out there and feed you those things!
09:54Watch the dart!
09:58Because of the times, I think, and because of, you know, a lot of those factors, many of which were
10:02accidental, I think the film got a lot more attention than it would have otherwise.
10:06Cooper!
10:07The black guy who's the lead, Dwayne Jones, you definitely observe a power struggle.
10:12Once everybody gets in the house and they're enclosed in the space, they're surrounded by the zombies, it becomes a
10:18power struggle.
10:20That's where things begin to go wrong.
10:26When you see these groups of the police and these volunteers, effectively these vigilantes, and you really get that sort
10:34of scary feeling that if this were a different movie, Dwayne Jones would have been lynched and not shot in
10:40the head.
10:42It's right there, just beneath the surface, making comments about racism in the South.
10:47Good shot.
10:48Okay, he's dead.
10:49Let's go get him.
10:50That's another one for the fox.
10:52Night of the Living Dead is a minor financial success, but things are just getting started.
10:57Actually, we turned some money, somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000, and we thought, it's over.
11:02But, hey, we made a few bucks, and this is an easy business.
11:07We were wrong on all counts.
11:08Right, these torches are over here.
11:17In the years following the 1968 release of Night of the Living Dead, Romero's film manages to make its way
11:24into Europe, where it gets a second wind.
11:26It sort of fell off the radar, and it was rediscovered in France.
11:31Because, uh, Cahiers du Cinema put a, wrote a huge piece about it.
11:35And then, all of a sudden, critics over here, like Rex Reed and several other writers, picked up on it
11:40and started to talk about it.
11:43And then it went into re-release again.
11:45Then it started to play Midnights.
11:47People started to use it as a midnight movie.
11:50And that's what got most of its attention.
11:53But this renewed success reveals a big oversight.
11:58In the meantime, we found out, along with the rest of the world, that we didn't have a copyright on
12:04the film.
12:04We had put the little copyright bug on the actual title card, and that's where we had the copyright, which
12:10was wrong.
12:11We were just some guys in Pittsburgh making a movie.
12:13We didn't know that.
12:13That's the disheartening thing about George, and he was an amazing, accomplished filmmaker, but I think maybe not the best
12:19businessman.
12:20So, no copyright on the movie.
12:24That's how easy it was to just lose it.
12:26None of us noticed, nobody knew.
12:28One of those things that just slipped through the cracks.
12:32But that's the way it goes, the one that got away.
12:36And that movie has played somewhere, every night, since 1968.
12:42So...
12:46Over the next few years, Romero goes on to direct an eclectic collection of movies, such as Martin and The
12:52Crazies.
12:53Camera.
12:55Roll it.
12:55Down.
12:56Roll it.
12:57But it's his return to the zombie film that will elevate Romero's status to unimagined levels.
13:03The problem with a lot of the, let's say, the non-zombie-related Romero movies, they never got big releases.
13:09It was the zombie movies that put Romero on the map, and it was the audiences that had a hunger
13:14for these zombie movies.
13:15I got a call from Dario Argento, the Italian director, who was just a big fan of Night of the
13:21Living Dead.
13:21And he said, would you ever consider doing another one?
13:24And I said, I have an idea that might work.
13:26And he actually invited me to Rome and put me up in an apartment and said, you're right, right.
13:32And I was there for about a month, and I wrote the script.
13:35That's how it happened.
13:35George Romero would not have gotten Dawn of the Dead made if not for Dario Argento, who helped secure the
13:40financing by pre-selling the international rights.
13:44Yes, it sounds complicated, but basically, Dario Argento, of course, is an amazing master horror filmmaker in his own right.
13:50The teaming up of them just got fans so excited.
13:53The name of this new zombie movie is Dawn of the Dead.
13:57Romero acquires a $1.5 million budget for his new film and shoots it in only four months.
14:03It hits theaters across the world in 1978 and goes on to earn more than $40 million.
14:09I think Dawn of the Dead is overall its best picture.
14:12A lot of people have made a great deal out of the satire in it, the consumerism.
14:17There's some of that, but nobody makes a movie like that to send a message.
14:22Romero is making Dawn of the Dead, and he thought, hey, let's comment on American consumerism while we're at it.
14:27Therefore, the movie isn't driven by the satirical elements, but they are certainly in there.
14:31You have these people who lock themselves in a mall, and they have everything they could possibly desire.
14:37The finest food, they've got cars, they've got money, clothes, everything you could possibly want, and they're not happy.
14:48There's something missing in their lives, and that's brilliant.
14:52And thanks to a man named Tom Savini, Dawn of the Dead is gorier than ever.
14:58One of the things about Romero's picture is that he has not wanted to,
15:02but felt it incumbent upon himself to make each of the dead pictures a little gorier than the previous one,
15:08because that's what the kids went for.
15:11And certainly Dawn of the Dead was extremely gory.
15:15George Romero had crossed another line.
15:17In awe of the sheer audacity of it.
15:20And so much of that is George's sensibilities,
15:23so much of that is Tom Savini's brilliant makeup effects.
15:25The movie starts playing, and right at the scene with the husband and wife hitting each other
15:32and him taking the bite, like, the whole place is swung.
15:36Like, literally, people throwing up in the aisles, leaving, running, just getting out of there.
15:41It was total chaos.
15:43Dawn of the Dead is one of the most profitable independent films in history.
15:47After its success, Romero has given bigger budgets for bigger movies,
15:51including Creepshow with Stephen King in 1982.
15:55But it doesn't take long for Romero to make another return to the world of zombies.
16:08Seven years after finishing Dawn of the Dead,
16:11George Romero gets to work on a third zombie film, titled Day of the Dead.
16:15His original intentions are for a movie of epic proportions,
16:19but budget restrictions force him to compromise his vision.
16:22You never could have made that at the time it was shot.
16:25I mean, digital effects were not a reality.
16:28Armies of zombies fighting each other
16:30and countries defending each other with these armies of zombies,
16:33that could never have been finished.
16:35Not at the budget that Romero had.
16:36My challenge was to try to scale it down
16:39and see if I could just do it at three minutes.
16:42It's not my favorite of the trilogy at all.
16:44You know, it had its moments that I really liked.
16:46I mean, I love Bob.
16:51But a lot of the performances and stuff, it just seemed like, kind of seemed lost.
16:57Appointments in Day of the Dead
16:59was the fact that George's original script was absolutely brilliant.
17:04Most fans will tell you that Day of the Dead was a disappointment,
17:07but none of them, none of those fans blame George.
17:10They all blame the fact that, really, his budget was a mimic.
17:15Day of the Dead is panned by critics and is a disappointment to fans.
17:18The film also performs poorly at the box office.
17:22Romero goes on to direct three more movies,
17:24then disappears from the Hollywood scene for eight years.
17:29I think the reason that George suffered a gap in his career
17:32is just not the best business person.
17:35I also think that he had trouble dealing with Hollywood.
17:38He's made all of his films independently,
17:41got independent financing, and he got to make things his way.
17:45Hollywood is just incredibly complex, horrible place
17:49to be creative and make a film,
17:51at least in the way that George likes to make a movie.
17:53But the cult following Romero's zombie series
17:56keeps his name in the public eye.
17:58I have an original script from the movie.
18:00When I heard there was people coming,
18:02I bring everything with me just in case.
18:04It's just amazing that there's that kind of passion for his movies.
18:07This should be my scene coming up right about here.
18:13Dawn of the Dead is one of those movies that
18:16when you find somebody else who likes it,
18:18it's like you're part of a secret club.
18:20It's so funny how this whole cult of George Romero just sprung up.
18:25You've got fans that actually go to the mall
18:28where Dawn of the Dead was filmed, the Monroeville Mall.
18:30They wanted to be there at the shrine as it were.
18:33So people could go there and they'd take pictures of each other
18:36shuffling around like zombies.
18:38I have people come in here every year, all the time,
18:41looking, oh, is this the place?
18:43It was just new.
18:44Things look up for Romero
18:46when zombie movies see a resurgence.
18:49It seemed like that happened really fast.
18:51All these zombie movies are being made.
18:53Mel Vistar's Bed 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, the remake.
18:56We never got to be zombies in our own films.
18:58I was too busy directing, and he didn't become a zombie in it.
19:01So it was great to be zombies in somebody else's film.
19:03It's got to be Romero.
19:05Renewed interest in zombie films
19:06leads to a green light for Romero's fourth zombie movie.
19:09In 2005, Universal Pictures releases Land of the Dead.
19:14Land of the Dead, I tried to put some 9-11
19:16and post-9-11 references in there
19:18without clobbering anybody over the head.
19:21His stories are so layered.
19:24He's not just making a horror movie
19:26just to spill a little bit of fake blood
19:29or to get a couple of people's popcorn
19:31to fly up in the air when they jump.
19:32I mean, he really has socially relevant things
19:35that he wants to talk about.
19:37In the opening of the movie,
19:38as the Dead Reckoning is going through Uniontown,
19:41and they start machine-gunning zombies,
19:44one of the zombies gets shot,
19:46and his head separates.
19:48So we did a radio-controlled head.
19:51See the way the jaw has four-way movement,
19:53so not only can it open and close,
19:55but it can move side to side.
19:59Romero fans are happy to see their favorite director
20:02back in the hot seat, doing what he does best.
20:05Well, I wouldn't call it a comeback.
20:06I mean, he never went away.
20:08George's got a lot of good movies left in him.
20:10George Romero continues to shoot in Pittsburgh
20:12because he knows where his roots are.
20:13It was wonderful to have a premiere here in Pittsburgh
20:16because there are so many people here
20:18that had so much to do with my early work.
20:21He's one of the first regional movie makers
20:23who stayed in his own town,
20:24made his own movies,
20:25made his own mark there.
20:26George Romero is certainly the father figure to me
20:29of the entire independent film movement.
20:32Today, Night of the Living Dead
20:34can be found in the National Film Registry
20:36of the Library of Congress.
20:38And the cult following of George A. Romero
20:40is alive and well,
20:42eagerly awaiting his next offering.
20:45It's been fabulous.
20:46I mean, most of us are still working in the industry.
20:48I've had a fabulous career,
20:50mainly because of that film.
20:52So there's nothing to really, you know, moan about.
20:55I'm just learning all the way across the board.
20:57I feel like I'm still learning how to do it.
21:00Romero created this whole sub-genre,
21:03the modern zombie film.
21:04Romero changed the face of horror film.
21:07Just every once in a while,
21:08somebody has to come along
21:09that pushes the genre forward to the next step.
21:13He's the guy who, in the late 60s,
21:15pushed horror out of the 50s.
21:17And that's who George Romero is.
21:19He gave us the modern horror movie.
21:21Awesome. Thank you so much.
21:22Thank you, guys.
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