George A. Romero Interviews

Here are a collection of interviews with George A. Romero from throughout his career as a director and film-maker.

George Romero's Career and Dawn of the Dead Interviews

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Masters of Horror Interview - 2002

Diary of the Dead Interview - 2007

Survival of the Dead Interview - 2009

Trailers

Throughout the past few decades George Romero has directed and produced a number of feature length films ranging from his staple genre of horror like Dawn of the Dead to the romantic There's Always Vanilla, however the same level of quality and production value has always been retained.

For each movie directed a trailer has been produced. Below are trailers I have found which correspond to a particular production by Romero.

Dawn of the Dead 1968

There's Always Vanilla 1971



Season of the Witch 1972



The Crazies 1973



Martin 1977



Dawn of the Dead 1978



Knightriders 1981



Creepshow 1982



Day of the Dead 1985



Monkey Shines 1988



Two Evil Eyes 1990



The Dark Half 1993



Land of the Dead 2005



Diary of the Dead 2007



Survival of the Dead 2009

Night of the Living Dead

Directed by George A. Romero in 1968 Night of the Living Dead follows the encounters of a group of seven survivors who barricade themselves inside of a farmhouse during a zombie outbreak, radiation originating from a fallen NASA satellite from Venus is being suggested as a cause for the horrifying occurrences of the recently deceased returning to life to feast on living flesh.

Night of the Living Dead is currently in the Public Domain

Night of the Living Dead lapsed into the public domain because the original theatrical distributor, the Walter Reade Organization, neglected to place a copyright indication on the prints. In 1968, United States Copyright Law required a proper notice for a work to maintain a copyright. Image Ten displayed such a notice on the title frames of the film beneath the original title, Night of the Flesh Eaters. The distributor removed the statement when it changed the title. According to George Romero, Walter Reade "ripped us off".

Because of the public domain status, the film is sold on home video by several distributors. As of 2006, the Internet Movie Database lists 23 copies of Night of the Living Dead retailing on DVD and nineteen on VHS.

The original film is available to view or download free on Internet sites such as Google Video, Internet Archive and Youtube As of October 2, 2008, it was the Internet Archive's second most downloaded film, with over half a million downloads.

Directed: George A. Romero

Produced: Karl Hardman, Russell Streiner

George A. Romero's brief

George A. Romero has directed quite a lot of productions through the years and is a well known director of horror titles, although he has also director romantic and comedic titles.

Below is a brief history of Romero's directing life to date.

George A.Romero

George A.Romero is an American Director, Filmmaker, Actor and Writer.

Born February 4th 1940 he grew up in New York city until he began attending the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

As a teenager he recieved an 8mm camera as a birthday gift from his parents and soon after he was filming everything in sight.

After finishing high school he moved to Pittsburgh to attend the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he studied Art, Design and Theatre. After graduating with a BA in 1961, George Romero formed the company 'Image Ten Productions' with a handful of friends, to produce industrial films and television commercials.

Early Works

During the late 60's Romero co-wrote and directed a production entitled "Night of the Flesh Eaters" which has a budget of roughly $114,000 that was collected by him and a group of friends.
Soon after the title was re-named to "Night of the Living Dead" after a dispute with the distributor. A black and white finalised version was released during 1968.

The film quickly became a cult classic among horror fans and aficionado's as it was one of the very first horror films to actually show the depiction of blood and gore. Before this time it was quite rare to view a film which contained such a high concentration of graphic violence.

It was eventually picked up by Walter Reade's Continental Films for distribution. It premiered in Pittsburgh on October the 2nd 1968 and was instantly met with outrage and controversy. However in spite or even due to this the film was a hit on the drive in film circuit as its gruesome and terrifying reputation grew.

Following the success of his first production Romero went on to direct a romantic comedy feature entitled "There's Always Vanilla" in 1971.

Although this production was not as straightforward as his previous picture, with the script writer leaving halfway through the actual shooting as well as not seeming interested in the production from early stages.

In 1972 he also directed a horror drama entitled "Season of the Witch" which like his previous endeavour was poorly received.

Although his last two works were not as well received as his original work, George Romero continued to direct a long stream of hit and miss features. In 1973 his production "The Crazies" was a surprise hit which focussed around a bio-spill near an otherwise quiet town which caused increasing homicidal madness to those exposed to the chemical.

From here Romero took a break from the directing spotlight and did not emerge again until 1977.

After a four year break away from directing Romero once again emerged full strength with his latest masterpiece "Martin" in 1977. The film is considered to be one of the best B horror films of the 70's and critiqued to be one of his finest works to date.

Romero himself has also stated in numerous interviews that Martin was his favorite picture that he has worked on and directed. The cast and crew were friends and family of the filmmakers and it was shot on location around Pittsburgh with an extremely low budget.

In 1978 he continued the Dead series by directing Dawn of the Dead which was shot on a budget of 500.000$. The film out shot it's budget and to date has earned over $55 million and is considered one of the staples in the horror movie genre.




Between this and his next Dead movie "Day of the Dead" in 1985 he directed Knightriders in 1981 (where he met his future wife Christine Forrest) and an adaptation of Stephen Kings Creepshow in 1982.

Day was not as well received as Dawn in the box offices; however it has since received a cult following thanks to VHS and DVD releases as well as various horror box sets. From the late 1980’s and early 1990’s he released Monkey Shines (88’)
Two Evil Eyes (90’), The Dark Half (93’)
and Bruiser in 2000.
The former two films where both adaptations from Edgar Allan Poe as well as Stephen King.

Although not well known Romero directed a live action advertisement to promote the video game Resident Evil 2 in Tokyo Japan.

Since then he has gone on to direct and produce Land of the Dead in 2005 on a budget of $16 million which was the highest of the series to date.

During 2006 he began shooting shorts for an online film series called “Zombisodes” which gave a behind the scenes look at productions he was involved with. 

At present Romero is writing two Dead novels for Grand Central publishing, one of which will be released summer 2010. Currently he is separated from his wife and has two children. George Romero lists his influences as follows: The Brothers Karamazov, Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove, High Noon Solomon’s Mines, North by Northwest, The Quiet Man and Touch of Hoffman. He cites that the latter film was his favourite of all time and the film which made him go into filmmaking.

During my research I collected two research documents on George A. Romero. I found my first document the most reliable and informative as it was a collection of information from various sources placed onto IMDB, which include his biography as well as details about all of the movies he has directed, produced, written and been involved with.

I am also including movie posters from pictures Romero has directed throughout the past four decades as well as the title and year released.

Night Of The Living Dead Interviews

Interviews

Here are a collection of various interviews by both the Cast and the Crew from the original zombie movie - Night of the Living Dead.

- Cast Interviews -

Ben - Duane Jones part 1


part 2

Barbara - Judith O'Dea

Interview with Bill Hinzman - zombie *1

Introduction

Welcome to my blog, I have have decided to do research on the film-maker and director George A.Romero. This blog will contain information and details on the man himself as well as some in depth information about the various movies he directed throughout the years.

I will also be embedding both images and video footage from the movies featured as well as interviews from various meetings and events with Mr. Romero.

As more information, press releases as well as trailers are released both about George and his upcoming features and projects I will constantly be updating this blog to reflect them.