'Dead' Is Alive For George A. Romero
FEBRUARY 14, 2008
PITTSBURGH (TNA) – Once upon a time, the late Fred Rogers – he of the drowsily affable “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” – fell ill, required a tonsillectomy, and hired a team of young Philly film nerds to record the surgery for broadcast to his vast audience of pre-schoolers on PBS. 
Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company Film director George A. Romero has been making zombie flicks for 40 years, starting with 'Night Of The Living Dead.' His newest flick, 'Diary Of The Dead,' opens Feb. 15.
Though the eight-minute short was intended to ease toddlers’ fears of visits to the dentist, the vignette’s director, George A. Romero, now 68, says with a laugh, “It’s the scariest movie I’ve ever made!”
Romero, the horror movie maestro behind 1968’s seminal “Night of the Living Dead” and its four sequels, including “Diary of the Dead,” which opens Feb. 15 in theaters, is of course being modest. He also has his tongue planted firmly in cheek. Both are trademark Romero-isms.
“Fred was the greatest. He gave me my start, basically,” Romero says. “I want to be clear, though: He in no way inspired the zombie movies!”
What Mr. Rogers did is allow Romero – and countless other Philly-based filmmakers – the opportunity to hone their moviemaking chops, including some of the most gruesome screen violence ever committed to celluloid.
Remember, in Romero’s cinematic world, the only way to kill a zombie is with a solid – imaginatively bloody – blow to the head. If a bullet isn’t available, why not a sickle? Or a heart defibulator?
Forty years ago, Romero and pals lassoed $100,000 in production funds, a couple of low-end locations, some bottles of Bosco chocolate syrup and a handful of no-name actors to make “Living Dead,” which could just as well be retitled “Everything You Wanted To Know About Zombies, But Were Afraid To Ask,” so extensive is its influence on pop culture, and the horror movie genre specifically.
The film has grossed more than $50 million worldwide and, in 1999, was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry with other movies deemed by the Library of Congress to be “historically, culturally, or aesthetically important.”
Romero, who has lived and worked in Toronto since the mid-‘90s, is more surprised than anyone at “Dead’s” refusal to die. The original film will see theatrical re-release in some U.S. and international markets this year, and a new edition is set for release on DVD. 
Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company Josh Close battles an angry zombie in 'Diary Of The Dead,' George A. Romero's fifth zombie film.
“When I made that film, everybody started writing about it like it was essential American cinema,” he says. “I accidentally got involved in this obligation to be pertinent somehow. I was self-conscious about it at first. I was just a kid raised on comic books.
“But now I feel it’s OK to get out there with the social commentary, use my teeth, be obvious, put my ideas up on the screen, and let the devil do the rest,” he says.
Indeed, in addition to being praised for their boo factor and savaged for their ultra-graphic violence, the quintet of “Dead” films are widely recognized for their pointed social commentary, their rich allegory, and a sensibility in which satiric zingers fly almost as rapidly as body parts.
The new “Dead” is no exception. While it features ghoulishly vivid horror movie gross-outs, including a memorable bit in which hydrochloric acid slowly sears a zombie’s face away to bone and brain, “Dead” also tears from limb to limb everything from mass media and blog culture to quarterlife angst and meta-fictive genre films – of which “Diary” most certainly is.
No one is spared Romero’s jittery, hand-held, found footage take on a modern-day apocalypse, as a student film crew in Pittsburgh feverishly documents an unexplained, blood-spattered zombie revival. Any similarity between the film’s episodes of mass hysteria, confusion, chaos and crisis – a la 9/11, Katrina or Los Angeles riots – is purely intentional.
“I have this peculiar position where I can use the horror genre and say some things about the world. It’s an odd niche, admittedly,” Romero says. “It’s what keeps me going, being this weird chronicler of our modern times, but with brain-eating zombies.
“I sometimes feel like the Michael Moore of horror,” he laughs.
For years, Romero was ambivalent about being best known as the zombie movie maven. Later in life, though, he’s grateful for their immortal appeal with audiences.
“Zombies are my ticket to ride,” he says. “They allow me to express myself a little bit, satirize the culture, feel like I’m doing a little something for the world. Maybe there’s some nutrition in these movies. I don’t know.”
Romero doesn’t think much of horror films of the past decade. He dismisses “28 Days” as “not really a zombie film. Those things aren’t dead, so they don’t count.” Most horror films today, he says, are more about “action stuff” than “real horror or allegory.” 
Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company Sadly, most medical plans offer no protection against zombie attacks.
The writer/director especially doesn’t get the faddishly popular torture-porn films of recent years, like “Hostel” and “Wolf Creek.” He says he doesn’t understand the purpose of these films, or their appeal.
“OK, I get it, culturally, a lot of us are really pissed off, but these films don’t really seem to be about anything. They’re just cruel and angry,” Romero says. “It’s not that they go too far; they just don’t really go anywhere. There’s nothing to hang onto there.”
Don’t mistake Romero for an old fuddy-duddy, though. As far as he’s concerned, there’s no such thing as “going too far” in art, as evidenced perhaps by his proclivity for flinging brains and bowels across the silver screen.
“Nothing should be taboo, but there will always be some ratings board, or some bunch of assholes, throwing tomatoes at you and calling you a devil,” he laughs.
“I think an artist, if he’s sincere, should be able to do whatever the hell he wants,” Romero adds. “Fuck, even if he’s not sincere. Let them try to repulse me. Do what you’ve gotta do.”
The artist has undoubtedly forged a successful career making fright-fests. And though he claims he’s not easily spooked, Romero is still disturbed – and not the least bit amused – by the horror tale that is the latter-day O.J. Simpson.
In 1974, Romero’s “O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose,” a documentary about the football legend cum alleged homicidal maniac, was released.
Romero never saw it coming.
“I spent 18 months basically living with that cat, and I never saw the dark side. That’s how good he was. I never saw him snap, not even at a waiter,” Romero says. “That’s scarier than zombies to me.”
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