George A. Romero: The Dead as a Social Mirror

Sun, 17 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

George Romero invented the modern zombie almost by accident, and then spent the rest of his life proving it was the most useful monster anyone had built in a generation. The creature that shuffles through his films is never really the threat. The threat is always the living — the neighbours who turn on each other, the soldiers who shoot the wrong man, the survivors who would rather bicker over territory than board up a window. Romero worked this seam for forty years from outside Hollywood, in Pittsburgh, on money he raised himself, and the independence is inseparable from the vision. Nobody was going to greenlight a film in which the horror is that America eats itself. He had to make it in the suburbs with his friends.

George A. Romero - vo.rs

George A. Romero: The Dead as a Social Mirror