Today, the horror genre lost one of the most influential people in its world, director George A. Romero, best known for being the “godfather” of zombies. Unlike any other horror movies in the genre, he often used his zombie movies to confront major political themes such as racism in Night of the Living Dead and capitalism in Dawn of the Dead. In his movies the zombies weren’t always perceived as the villains, while he’d often prefer to depict humans as such instead. You can see his affection towards the zombies in this quote, “My zombies will never take over the world because I need the humans. The humans are the ones I dislike the most, and they’re where the trouble lies.” Or when he stated, “I sympathize with the zombies and I’m not even sure they are villains. To me they are this earth-changing thing. God or the devil changed the rules, and the dead people aren’t staying dead.”

He not only heavily influenced the zombie genre, but even the horror anthology stories in works like Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside, which helped open the doors for shows like Tales from the Crypt and Freddy’s Nightmares.

I remember watching his movies and shows when I was six years old. Even at that young age I knew that there was something different about his movies than the other horror movies that I was watching at the time. His movies had intellect and a message. His movies made us see that the true evil in the world wasn’t coming from elsewhere, but rather from ourselves. We are the monsters. And as Romero himself said, “I always thought of the zombies as being about revolution, one generation consuming the next.” A statement that is very telling for our times, and one that will probably always ring true.

Goodbye, Mr. Romero, your zombies and your legacy will never die.

By: Azzurra Nox