PLEASANT FIRESIDE CHAT OF THE DEAD

These are the things I remember about my second year of university: not doing well in school, feigning interest in my pot delivery guy's upcoming shows, and renting every zombie DVD within a five mile radius of my apartment. There was a solid month or so when I scrutinized every building I saw for how zombie-proof it was. So when I found out I could get a cool 15 minutes with the genre-inventing

George Romero

, not only did my second year suddenly become purposeful, I had earned a crucial connection to the man whose house is probably the most zombie apocalypse-proof building in the world. Some things you might not already know: he's a tall-ass man, nobody bats an eye when he orders a pre-lunch gin and tonic, and he's promoting

Survival of the Dead

, the sixth movie in the

Dead

franchise that he started in 1968 with

Night of the Living Dead

. Given the short length of the interview, I didn't have time to ask him about things like the soon-to-be-remade

The Crazies

, and the probably-not-talked-about-by-George-Romero

Knightriders

. Oh well - I guess I'll settle for just talking about zombie movies with him.

.

**VICE: So you're on your sixth Dead movie now – any thoughts on the longevity of the franchise? *George A. Romero:* I'm still blown away by what it's become – this zombiemania. There's a TV special that's going to air later this month about just the mania. I don't know – people say that I started it all. I really think that video games have changed the face of it. You know, there really isn't a zombie movie that's gone out and made a hundred million bucks, or made enough to influence Hollywood that way. I think Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead made more money than anything – until Zombieland went out and blew the lid off.**

Did you have anything to do with that remake of Dawn? Nope.

No input at all? None. There were two new Day of the Dead movies I had nothing to do with at all. The remake of Night of the Living Dead was the only one I actually worked on. We lost the copyright to the original Night of the Living Dead, so…

So it's public domain? Yeah. Who knew? Our original title was Night of the Flesh Eaters, and we stupidly put the little copyright button on that title, so when they changed it, the copyright button came off. We should have had it at the end of the film, but we just didn't know. But it's the distributor too – they put the film out without copyright protection. Luckily, it was out for a couple of years before anybody noticed, so we actually made a little money. But we thought it was all already over – it had played at drive ins and neighbourhood theatres and went away. I was already working on my third film when Night of the Living Dead got discovered – when it came back from the dead.

But I can just project Night of the Living Dead on a wall outside? You can do anything you want with it.

That's very generous of you. Well, it's true – some people have put it out on video. It truly is out of my hands. The thing is that distributors want my involvement on it, and that's the only way that we've gotten a little bit of protection on it. Like the new release: they did a wonderful restoration job on it, and they want me to be involved with it so they don't look like they're completely ripping us off.

I'd like to ask you more about zombiemania – specifically, about the way people really respond to the zombie doomsday scenario. There's a pretty big Facebook group out there called "The Hardest Part of a Zombie Apocalypse Will Be Pretending I'm Not Excited." What do you think it is about this particular end of the world that people find so compelling? I think they'd like to see it happen, to get rid of the old guard. My films are more about human character, so the zombies are really just more of an annoyance – they're the earthquake, they're the tidal wave. The stories are about people and how they screw themselves up by just being stupid. I also think that a big part of the appeal is comeuppance – it reminds me of the old EC comics, before there was a Comics Code, they always had the bad guys get their comeuppance. I think there's a bit of a punk element to that, in wanting to see the world get destroyed – "it's not me who gets destroyed, it's that world."

If you can dodge the zombies, the world's your oyster. That sense comes up a lot in the growing zombie-comedy genre, which also tends to get reflexive about zombie movie conventions. What do you think about this sending-up of the genre? I think the character, the zombie, has become part of the culture. You could put a zombie on Sesame Street to hang out with the Count – there's a vampire on Sesame Street, why not a zombie? It's become familiar enough that you can spoof it and everyone will get it. I tried for years to do a pure, balls-out spoof – I have a script right now, in fact, that I'm having a hard time finding people to buy. They'll always say, with a very professorial air, that you can't make horror comedies – "Oh yeah? I've been doing it for 40 years!" I mean, you've got Shaun of the Dead, and Fido was a great Canadian film – Billy Connolly's a gas.

And Zombieland just had a big release and a successful opening. The studio controls the release, and my stuff is never going to get that sort of big Hollywood release. And I don't even want it. The one time I did try a big budget was Land of the Dead, and a lot of my fans think that it's the worst of the series. I don't know why – I don't think it's too bad, but my fans want a certain thing. Whenever I try to do something different…

Are you worried about becoming trapped by the genre you created? Do the audience's expectations outweigh your own ideas? I try not to play to those. I didn't think anyone would check out Diary of the Dead – it was a little too cerebral – but some people liked it. The people that didn't like Land liked Diary. The people that liked Diary don't like the new one. People that liked Dawn like the new one better. This one is a little different from Diary – it's a linear story, and a bit more comic-booky, it's got a lot of humour, some of it outrageous. There's some real Looney Tunes moments. But I think each film that I've done in the zombie series is completely different. The first four were ten years apart, and I tried to make them stylistically different. They talk about the decades they were made in. In Survival, I'm trying to set it apart with style and personality and character. Diary was subjective camera, this is full-blown western. So I'm having fun, making my little changes.

Each Dead picture has, as you said, a cerebral aspect – themes that it explores. Night involved race relations and Vietnam, Dawn had consumerism, and so on. Does Survival have anything like that on its mind? When I started doing it, it was a much broader theme. Economics drives this, of course. Compared to what it cost to make, Diary made a lot of money. So immediately they want another one. If this one goes out and makes a lot of money, they'll want yet another one. So I'm trying to not just do Friday the 13th. It's tough! I mean, Wes did a pretty good job with a couple of the Freddies – I thought the third one was terrific – but after a while it's just the same movie. But I have to use universal themes for Survival, because it's not inspired by something that's happening. I mean, if someone nukes Philadelphia, I'll make a movie out of that.

Could anything ever stop the franchise? Would you ever make a movie that finally stops it dead? Not zombie dead, but actually dead? Well, I have ideas for two more movies. After that, I might call it quits. But I'd like to write a novel – something about the character of the zombie, about what it is. Who knows when it'll stop then.