2017, Movies, RIP

RIP George A. Romero

Apparently Romero died. I was once a pretty big fan of his work. Romero, as I’m sure you know, pretty much invented the “zombie plague” movie. (This is as opposed to the old fashioned zombie movie, where there would be, like, one zombie chasing our heroes.)

I think Night of the Living Dead is one of the great horror movies ever made, redefining horror films by introducing the zombie plague, but also emphasizing the social comment and making “humans are our own worst enemy” a primary theme of horror form that moment on. (Before it had mostly been actual monsters that were the enemy.) Unfortunately, Romero pretty much rested on his laurels after that, making so many sequels and lots of other films that nobody remembers as much as the first Dead movie.

Still, we should all celebrate him for his massive contribution to horror movies.

This is how I remember his movies:

  • Night of the Living Dead – one of the essential horror movies (in any language)
  • The Affair aka There Always Vanilla – never saw it
  • Hungry Wives aka Season of the Witch – never saw it
  • The Crazies – “This is surprisingly decent given the budget constraints. I have lost my review.”
  • Martin – I seem to have lost my review. Didn’t love it.
  • Dawn of the Dead – I wholly prefer the remake (which is a sacrilegious thing to say, I know) but this is likely the second most important zombie plague movie after its predecessor
  • Knightriders – never saw it
  • Creepshow – though I have it on DVD, I’ve only ever watched it once, a very long time ago; I don’t love these omnibus things
  • Day of the Dead – the least good of the Dead movies to date
  • Monkey Shines – I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this, but I don’t have a rating on IMDB, so maybe I haven’t
  • The Dark Half – never saw it
  • Bruiser – never saw it
  • Land of the Dead – at this point he lost me; unnecessary and not very good
  • Diary of the Dead – didn’t watch this one because of the previous movie
  • Survival of the Dead – ditto

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