Zombie king George A. Romero was interviewed by The Canadian Press on Friday, in Montreal for the weekend’s Montreal Comic-con, and revealed that he’s not too impressed with recent TV and cinema incarnations of the living dead, and indeed modern horror films altogether.
“There are very few horror films that I think are worth their salt. Oddly, I’m not a big horror fan”.
His favourite movie is, in fact, 1951’s fantasy opera The Tales of Hoffmann, [which is an incredible film, I agree!]
“I like the oldies. I find that the craftsmanship … the amount of time that they had to shoot them, it just makes me drool.”
Romero points out he’s never done a horror movie just for the sake of being horrifying.
“The horror films that I’ve made have been satirical in one way or another or political and I really think that’s the purpose of horror. I don’t see that happening very often.”
He goes on to point out that he doesn’t really like the fast-moving zombies of recent films like 28 Days Later and World War Z, not the trend to big-budget special effects-driven movies about the undead. Romero, who declined a chance to direct an episode of the popular TV drama The Walking Dead, calling it a “soap opera”, warns that big budgets are no guarantee of success, saying “way too much money” was spent on his Land of the Dead.
Romero says he believes Night of the Living Dead has endured because it has a solid story, but even he is surprised by its longevity.
“There’s a story there and it’s not about the zombies. The zombies could be anything. They could be any disaster.”
The man is right about some things, though some of his comments may hold more water if his own recent films had been better. Still, he’s enjoying taking a break from movie-making, currently working on a 13-part comic series called Empire Of The Dead, for Marvel.
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