ROMERO, George A.

(1940-)

   US film-maker. A maverick working out of Pittsburgh rather than Hollywood, GAR changed the face of the HORROR-movie genre with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), an apocalyptic nightmare - its theme derived from Richard MATHESON's I Am Legend (1954) - in which the dead inexplicably return to eat the living. Having tackled a surprisingly wide variety of Vietnam-era social issues in this debut, GAR made a pair of "serious"films - There's Always Vanilla (1972; vt The Affair) and the witchcraft-themed Jack's Wife (1973; vt Hungry Wives; vt Season of the Witch) - before returning to the former panicked mood in The CRAZIES(1973; vt Code Name Trixie), in which a biological weapon is spilled in Pennsylvania and causes an epidemic of insanity. After filler work for tv - mainly profiles of sports personalities - GAR formed Laurel Entertainment in partnership with Richard Rubinstein, and relaunched his career with Martin (1978), an unorthodox, apparently non-supernatural vampire picture. He then made 2 impressive and rigorous sequels to Night of the Living Dead: DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978; vt Zombies) and DAY OF THE DEAD (1985). Throughout the trilogy, which is marked as sf not so much byits (conflicting) "explanations" for the crisis as by the concentration on the social, political and psychological outcome of the devastation of society, GAR has powerfully mingled black SATIRE with shock effects. Spin-offs have included: an anthology, The Book of the Dead (anth 1989) edJohn Skipp and Craig Spector; a remake in 1990 (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) dir special-effects man Tom Savini, scripted and exec-produced GAR; and a satire, Return of the Living Dead (1985), from a story by John Russo, coscripter of the original film, and dir Dan O'Bannon.Outside the trilogy, GAR has dir: Knightriders (1981), a personal film about alternativelifestyles; Creepshow (1982), an EC COMICS-style anthology film written by Stephen KING; MONKEY SHINES (1988, vt Monkey Shines: An Experiment inTerror), an understated and impressive movie based on Michael STEWART's Monkey Shines (1983), about an intelligent experimental monkey; one half of Two Evil Eyes (1990), which GAR adapted from Edgar Allan POE's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"; and The Dark Half (1991), a filmversion of the 1989 Stephen King novel, which was only released two years later. In addition, GAR has scripted episodes of the tv series Tales from the Darkside (1984-9) and the films Creepshow 2 (1987) and Tales from The Darkside: The Movie (1990). GAR left the Laurel Entertainment partnershipwith Rubinstein in the early 1990s, leaving Rubinstein in control.

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   See also: CINEMA; HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; MONSTER MOVIES; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES.