As movie monsters go, zombies are the most human. They were human at one time. So we are confronted with ourselves in a way, which is much more frightening and disturbing.
— George A. Romero
With 'Dawn,' I wanted the slick look; I wanted to bring out the nature of the shopping center, the retail displays, the mannequins. There are times when maybe you reflect that the mannequins are more attractive but less real - less sympathetic, even - than the zombies. Put those kinds of images side by side, and you raise all sorts of questions.
I guess my stuff needs to grow on people. Too bad! That seems to happen with all of it.
I grew up on EC comic books and 'Tales From the Crypt,' which were all loaded with humor, bad jokes, and puns. I can have that kind of fun and make these comic book movies but, at the same time, talk about things I want to talk about - whether it's consumerism or the Bush administration or war.
I want 'Dawn' to play like a cowboys and Indians movie.
Some directors work from day to day. I work from moment to moment.
I don't want to do 'Beyond the Planet of the Apes.' I don't want a zombie society. I don't want to go that far.
I've seen so many young filmmakers - even professional filmmakers who get a Hollywood deal - they don't quite know where to begin, where to end, and they'll waste a lot of time making this perfect shot, an establishing shot, and then there's no time left to shoot the dialogue.
When we made 'Night of the Living Dead,' we got riddled. There was this famous article Roger Ebert wrote just blasting the film because he had gone to see it at some screening where there were all these kids in the audience. I don't know why that happened. We didn't make the movie for kids.
I'd love to make a film like 'Pan's Labyrinth.'
My stuff is my stuff. I do it for my own reasons, using my own peculiar set of guidelines.
I saw 'Dracula,' 'Frankenstein,' 'The Wolf Man,' 'The Invisible Man.' I saw all those guys on the big screen at RKO in the Bronx. I just always loved that stuff. I loved other stuff, too. That's the thing. That wasn't all I wanted to be.
When you're shooting super-low-budget - we had 20 days to shoot 'Diary,' and a little over $2 - time is money.
I've only actually done one studio film. I want to be left alone.
I go to conventions and universities and talk to young filmmakers and everybody's making a zombie movie! It's because it's easy to get the neighbors to come out, put some ketchup on them.
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 really lies.
I don't like the new trends in horror. All this torture stuff seems really mean-spirited. People have forgotten how to laugh, and I don't see anybody who's using it as allegory.
I used to be able to pitch them on the basis of the zombie action, and I could hide the message inside that. Now, you can't. The moment you mention the word 'zombie,' it's got to be, 'Hey, Brad Pitt paid $400 million to do that.'
At the time we did 'Night,' I was a director of television commercials. Some of them cost a lot more than our whole movie. They were very slick, sophisticated... we wanted the opposite look for 'Night.' We wanted it to look like a newsreel.
My zombie films were all sort of satirical, with political messages. So I was doing them inexpensively and quietly off in left field somewhere.
With CG, I can do more and be sillier. In 'Diary,' there's a scene where they hit a guy with acid, and the camera is never off him, and you see it gradually eat through his skull and get all the way through his brain. That's fun, too.
I do think of my films as morality plays, even though my reputation is, you know, splatter films and like that. But I think of them as very moral.
I'm amazed. I go to these conventions, and the fans that come, sometimes my line goes all day.
I love a couple of Fulci things. I just had a gas watching them. It's not what I would do, but I loved watching them. They were fun.
The very fact that you thought of it means that, somewhere in your mind, it's believable to you. All you have to do is convince your audience that it's possible.
A lot of my friends are people who do horror films: Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Stephen King.
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.
'Martin' is my favorite film of mine and 'Knightriders' a close second.
I've made six zombie films; I've tried consciously to make each one different from the next.
My films, I've tried to put a message into them. It's not about the gore; it's not about the horror element that are in them. It's more about the message, for me. That's what it is, and I'm using this platform to be able to show my feelings of what I think.
Anybody who tunes into Rush Limabaugh already knows what he's going to say and is already inclined to agree. So it winds up creating tribes.
On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.
When I was old enough to go to movies alone, I got to see 'Frankenstein' and 'Dracula' on the big screen. I just fell in love with them.
The two great things about computer CG stuff are I can now do gags I would never have dreamed of in the old day.
I did 'Land of the Dead,' which was the biggest zombie film I had ever made. I don't think it needed to be that big. That money went largely to the cast. They were great, but I don't think that money needed to be spent.
There is something about the sameness people like. And what I've tried to do with all the zombie films is purposely make them different. That may be part of why it takes so long for people to see what it's intended to be.
I like to use horror as allegory.
After 'Land,' I wanted to do something about emerging media and citizen journalism, so I got this idea for 'Diary of the Dead.'
The zombie was just an intriguing character; it is a sympathetic character.
I always have CNN on. That's where I get my ideas.
Collaborate, don't dictate.
One thing about a film production is that it must run efficiently; there is no room for dead wood. So somebody that hangs around by the coffee wagon won't get hired again, but somebody who is dedicated and works hard and really puts out will get noticed by the people that matter around there and will get asked to come back again.
'The Thing from Another World' was the first movie that really scared me. But the one that made me want to make movies was 'The Tales of Hoffman.' That's my favorite film of all time. It's a fantasy film. It's an opera. I never get tired of it.
There are very few horror films that I think are worth their salt.
Film is a very expensive medium.
I wanted 'Night of the Living Dead' to look naturalistic, but we weren't able to do it because we were shooting with a blimped 35mm camera, which is automatically static.
I'm telling you, man, after I did 'Land of the Dead,' which Mark Canton produced, Universal picked it up, and I had to use stars. I didn't think I needed stars - Dennis Hopper was in it. I loved him. We hung out. I loved him, but his cigar budget was more than we paid for the entire budget of 'Night of the Living Dead.'
What the Internet's value is that you have access to information but you also have access to every lunatic that's out there that wants to throw up a blog.
I can't really make fun of zombies. They're not liars. They're not cheats.
'The Thing from Another World' was the first movie that really scared me.
