The Amusement Park first published by Little White Lies Ushering in – along with Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby from the same year – a new Golden Age of horror that would last throughout the following decade, George A. Romero’s 1968 feature debut Night of the Living Dead shifted horror from the gothic castle to America’s…
Land of the Dead first published by EyeforFilm, 30 Sept 2005 George A. Romero established himself as the first and greatest auteur of the undead with what has since become affectionately known as his ‘Holy Trinity’, a trilogy of films that laid down both the law and the lore for zombie horror. Mixing his liberal…
Day of the Dead first published by Movie Gazette, 26 Feb 2004 Three films, three different decades, thousands of walking dead. George A. Romero’s zombie trilogy, known to its adoring fans as the ‘Holy Trinity’, has proved the most influential horror franchise ever, with its winning combination of intelligent social commentary, high dramatic tension and…
Dawn of the Dead first published by Through The Trees Magazine George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is a sequel of sorts (with no common characters) to his groundbreaking sociopolitical zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968) – and its two opening sequences offer a sketch in diptych of society in rapid, chaotic…
Monkey Shines first published by Little White Lies, as the 67th instalment of my Cinema Psychotronicum column By the mid Eighties, George A. Romero was at the very top of the genre game. His ‘Holy Trinity’ of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985) had…
Diary of the Dead first published by Film4 Summary: George A. Romero’s fifth zombie film in as many decades takes on post-millennial fears, the new media, and itself. Review: “You’re blocking our shot.” The anonymous cameraman’s words are addressed with extraordinary insensitivity to an ambulance driver at the scene of a domestic shooting. Then the whole sequence erupts…
The Return of the Living Dead first published by Little White Lies When George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, co-written with John A. Russo, came out in 1968, it would change the horror genre forever, bringing the creature feature out of the gothic castle and into the ordinary home, and refashioning cinema’s zombies (called…
The Crazies first published by VODzilla.co The first sound heard in George A. Romero’s The Crazies is a cuckoo clock. It is nighttime, and in the interior shadows of the Mitchell house, a giggling boy is playfully trying to frighten his even younger sister. It is a little like the opening to Romero’s earlier, ultra-influential Night…
Martin first published by Movie Gazette Boarding a train, a young man (John Amplas) notices a woman travelling alone overnight to New York. Later, after he has secretly prepared a syringe in the bathroom, he sneaks into the woman’s sleeper compartment, injects her with sedatives while politely informing her ‘I just want you to sleep, please’,…
Birth of the Living Dead first published by FilmDivider “The only reason to do a fantasy film or a horror film is to uproot the order, to upset the balance of things.” The speaker is George A. Romero, specifically explaining why, rather than stick to the received formula in his debut feature Night of the Living…
Night of the Living Dead first published by EyeforFilm The Seventies may be regarded as the Golden Age of horror, but strictly speaking the seeds were sown in 1968, when a small group of independent commercial directors from Pittsburgh released a feature called Night Of The Living Dead onto an unsuspecting public and changed the genre…