Somehow, appropriately, George A. Romero recieved his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posthumously on Wednesday. Romero died earlier this year after a brief battle with lung cancer. His wife, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, accepted the honor for him and actor Malcolm McDowell, filmmaker Edgar Wright and effects artist and director Greg Nicotero all spoke at the ceremony in his honor.
His hit horror movies were famously filmed in Pittsburgh where he got his start on commercials, short films and even segments for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and attending Carnegie-Mellon University.
He was 27 when he came up with the $114,000 to make “Night of the Flesh Eaters”, which evolved into “Night of the Living Dead” by the time it was released. And so the modern zombie genre was invented. Or, as they were called in the film, the “ghoul” genre.
Much more than horror and gore, his films had social commentary, humor and a humanity that is combative, abrasive and, end the end, fragile. Something people living in the modern United States need to realize for the sake of the future.
This here is an excellent lost interview with Romero from 1972…
Romero's original masterpiece can be found virtually free all across the internet--in fact, here it is again, just in case you want to hear those magic words again... those ominous, taunting words that are at once both sardonic and apt:
"They're coming to get you, Barbara."
Hope I get to see the star myself, one day! Well deserved.
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