The Zombies and I

My name is George Romero. I made a film when I was 28-years-old. I didn’t make it by myself. Many people contributed. But I am the one who takes all the credit…and all the blame…for Night of the Living Dead.

I and my associates were children of “The Sixties”…pissed off that “Peace and Love” hadn’t changed the world. Some of our anger made its way into the film and journalists began to write about what we had done, calling it “essential American cinema.” I had never thought of myself as in any way “essential”. Nor had I ever thought of myself as a filmmaker.

It’s only in the years since Night of the Living Dead that I’ve taken myself at all seriously. The response to that film made me realize that I could inject socio-political satire into the sort of “horror” fictions that I loved since I was a boy. So…I continue to do it.

When I want to speak about what I perceive to be happening in the world…at least the North-American world…I open the door to my closet, ask the zombies to come out into the light, and I shoot a movie with those zombies. They’re quite obedient, you know…dead people…and when it comes to meal-time, all I have to do is feed them one of the producers.

Stay scared,

George Romero

George Romero is the director of Night of the Living Dead, and one of the greatest horror film directors in the history of the genre. Romero’s work is proven to be important in the characterization and evolution of American popular culture.