NEW YORK — George Romero, whose classic “Night of the Living Dead” and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.
Romero died Sunday following a battle with lung cancer, said his family in a statement provided by his manager Chris Roe. Romero’s family said he died while listening to the score of “The Quiet Man,” one of his favourite films, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher, and daughter, Tina Romero, by this side.
Romero is credited with reinventing the movie zombie with his directorial debut, the 1968 cult classic, “Night of the Living Dead.” The movie set the rules imitators lived by.
When it was released in 1968, Night of the Living Dead was initially reviled because of its unrelenting gore, but later celebrated by the U.S. National Film Registry, as a film deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The plot involved seven people in a rural farmhouse in Pennsylvania that comes under attack by a large group of zombies. Romero followed that with, in order, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. All the films dealt with the same theme, of the world coping with attacking zombies.
