GEORGE ANDREW ROMERO, 'NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD'

Today, The Grandma has been watching some films. She has chosen terror and zombie ones directed by George Andrew Romero, the American filmmaker, writer and creator of Night of the Living Dead, who died on a day like today in 2017.

George Andrew Romero (February 4, 1940-July 16, 2017) was an American filmmaker, writer, and editor. 

His Night of the Living Dead series of films about zombie apocalypse began with the 1968 film of the same name, and is often considered a progenitor of the fictional zombie of modern culture.

Other films in the series include Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985).

Aside from this series, his works include The Crazies (1973), Martin (1978), Knightriders (1981), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1993), and Bruiser (2000). He also created and executive-produced the television series Tales from the Darkside, from 1983 to 1988.

Romero is often described as an influential pioneer of the horror film genre and has been called the Father of the Zombie Film and an icon.

More information: Variety

Romero was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx, the son of Anne Romero (Dvorsky) and George Romero, a commercial artist. His mother was Lithuanian, and his father moved from Spain to Cuba as a child. His father has been reported as being born in A Coruña, with his family coming from the Galician town of Neda, although Romero once described his father as of Castilian descent.

Raised in the Bronx, he would frequently ride the subway into Manhattan to rent film reels to view at his house. He was one of only two people who repeatedly rented the opera-based film The Tales of Hoffmann; the other was future director Martin Scorsese. Romero attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

After graduating from college in 1960, Romero began his career shooting short films and TV commercials. One of his early commercial films was a segment for Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood in which Fred Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy. 

With nine friends, including screenwriter John A. Russo, Romero formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s. This is the production company that produced Night of the Living Dead (1968). Directed by Romero and co-written with John A. Russo, the film became a cult classic and a defining moment for modern horror cinema.

Among the inspiration for Romero's filmmaking, as told to Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life, was the British film, The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), from the Powell and Pressburger team.

The three films that Romero created that followed Night of the Living Dead: There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's Wife/Season of the Witch (1972) and The Crazies (1973) were not as well-received as Night of the Living Dead or some of his later work. The Crazies, dealing with a bio spill that induces an epidemic of homicidal madness, and the critically acclaimed art house success Martin (1978), a film that deals with the vampire myth, were the two well-known films from this period.

Romero returned to the zombie genre in 1978 with Dawn of the Dead. Shot on a budget of $1.5 million, the film earned over $55 million internationally and was later named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly in 2003. He made the third entry in his Dead Series with Day of the Dead in 1985.

Between these two films, Romero shot Knightriders (1981), another festival favourite about a group of modern-day jousters who re-enact tournaments on motorcycles; and Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, an anthology of tongue-in-cheek tales modelled after 1950s horror comics. The cult-classic success of Creepshow led to the creation of Romero's Tales from the Darkside, a horror anthology television series that aired from 1983 to 1988. As the decade drew to a close, Romero directed Monkey Shines (1988), about a service animal.

Romero updated his original screenplay and executive-produced the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, directed by Tom Savini for Columbia/TriStar. Savini is also responsible for the makeup and special effects in many of Romero's films including Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, and Monkey Shines.

The early nineties also featured directorial efforts Two Evil Eyes, a.k.a. Due occhi Diabolici, (1990), an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in collaboration with Dario Argento and The Dark Half (1993) from a novel written by Stephen King.

In 1991, cameo appearance in Jonathan Demme's Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as one of Hannibal Lecter's jailers.

In 1994, Romero shot a short film, Jacaranda Joe, about people running into a community of Bigfoot. Filmed at Valencia College in Florida, it was the first film that Romero shot entirely outside of Pittsburgh.

  More information: BFI

In 1998, Romero produced and directed an unaired pilot about Professional wrestling entitled Iron City Asskickers.

2000 saw the release of Bruiser, about a man whose face becomes a blank mask.

In June 2006, Romero began his next project, called Zombisodes. Broadcast on the Internet, it is a combination of a series of Making of shorts and story expansion detailing the work behind the 2007 film George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Shooting began in Toronto in July 2006.

In 2012, Romero returned to video games, recording his voice for Zombie Squash as the lead villain, Dr. B. E. Vil. Zombie Squash HD Free game was released by ACW Games for the iPad in November 2012.

In 2014, Marvel Comics began releasing Empire of the Dead, a 15-issue miniseries written by Romero.

On July 16, 2017, Romero died while listening to the score of one of his favourite films, The Quiet Man, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher Romero, and daughter from his second marriage, Tina Romero, at his side.

More information: Little White Lies

My zombies will never take over the world
because I need the humans.
The humans are the ones I dislike the most,
and they're where the trouble really lies.

George A. Romero