Few filmmakers have had such an impact on me as George Romero. My first memories of his influence came about when I was about eight on my sneaky late night movie viewing adventures. This time however, the film that played was Night of the Living Dead. Holy shit! There were actually people eating people, I was terrified. Stephen King once said that after watching this film for the first time and for the remainder of his life he would always be looking for a zombie escape route wherever he went. Thanks George!
No other movie apart from The Exorcist has had such an impact on me. It encouraged me to pick up a camera and shoot my own zombie film. So one day, I gathered up some friends, a gallon of red paint from the art department and we headed down to the local cemetery. I wanted them to all be zombies and this film was going to be a parody of George’s next film in his zombie series, Dawn of the Dead. I called my film Baron Saturday or Samedi (Voodoo god of the cemetery). Needless to say the film did not turn out as planned. The kills were copied directly from the zombie films. Unfortunately, everything else went to hell due to the non-professional actors not staying in character and the police showing up to investigate. I cleverly shot the police questioning us and edited it to the end of this short film. The film was lost over the years and recently returned to me but had deteriorated to the point where it was next to impossible to restore. I said “next to impossible”. It’s still a work in progress but a lot of work on to fix it up.
The photo below of me and George was taken many moons ago at the annual Toronto Festival of Fear. I was so nervous as I passed the camera to my wife, who is notoriously bad with camera tech and photo taking in general. I spent 20 minutes going over the camera with her, set it to full auto so all she had to do was press one button 1/2 way down to focus and the rest of the way down to complete taking the photo. I approached George and he smiled and shook my hand. I asked what he thought of Toronto now that he’s living here. He said he loved the restaurants and making films is much cheaper here. He also said it was like New York but with nicer people. Now arms around each other, we looked towards my wife for the photo. That’s when I heard her say “It’s not working”. I was furious and a little embarrassed. She had a single button to press. I apologized to George and he could sense my frustration. He put his arm around me again and looked at my wife and said “Take as much time as you want, beautiful” Was George flirting with my wife? Who knows, but she smiled, relaxed and I have this great picture below for my memories.
What always amazed me about George was his humbleness, his modesty He never seem to accept the enormity of his contribution to cinema and being the creator of a new genre. In interviews, George would say that he never called them zombies, they were undead or living dead. Zombies was a marketing construct. He also hated The Walking Dead television series, calling it a soap opera that just happens to have zombies in it. I agree.
I was so happy to see his newly adopted home town (Toronto) put on a cinema retrospect of all of George’s films, Living Dread – The Cinema of George Romero. I don’t think I missed a single screening, as a lot these films I have never seen so bold and bloody on the big screen. I was also happy to see George in attendance for most of the screenings to see how appreciated his work was and meet the past, present and future film makers he has inspired.
I can’t think of a better homage to George than the gallery presented below of all the zombies I have photographed over the years. Mostly from the annual Toronto Zombie Walks. I sure miss that event. There’s a few photos in there of George being presented the keys to the city. A severed hand holding the CN tower. Very appropriate.
2008
2009
2012
2013
2014
