George A. Romero – Obituary

I’ve written about the late George A. Romero for Sight & Sound online.

On a personal note, I owe a great deal to George – Nightmare Movies, my first book, begins and ends with his films … if I can trace back the roots of my novel Anno Dracula to watching the Tod Browning Bela Lugosi Dracula in 1970, then Nightmare Movies springs from multiple viewings of Night of the Living Dead in the 1970s and electrifying London Film Festival screenings of Martin, Dawn of the Dead and Knightriders in 1977, 1979 and 1981.  Romero did a fascinating Q&A after the Dawn screening, and there was already a lot of interesting writing about his work – by Robin Wood, Tony Williams, David Pirie, John McCarty and the contributors to a terrific little Belgian fanzine edited by Jan Van Genechten (Fandom’s Film Gallery: Night of the Living Dead) and special issues of Cinefantastique.  I met George much later, at the Trieste Science + Film Festival, and can confirm what everyone in the genre and the business has said in the last few days that he was a modest, charming, thoroughly decent guy.  Here are some pictures …