ast year, upon a trip to the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, I was given the unique privilege of meeting with one of the most important figures in contemporary horror, filmmaker George A. Romero. A longtime idol and inspiration for my interest in the cinema, Romero remains one of America’s strongest auteurs and a leader in genre-based social/political satire.

His debut feature, Night of the Living Dead, is still considered a modern classic, having been inducted into the National Film Registry for preservation in the interest of future generations. Dawn of the Dead, his second film in the popular “Dead” zombie series, gave birth to the modern “splatter” film and led to a whole host of influenced young directors, such as Robert Rodriguez (Sin City), Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Rob Zombie (House of 1,000 Corpses) and Eli Roth (Cabin Fever).

Though he had given his living dead a break for 20 years, Romero has now returned to his most familiar stomping ground for a fourth entry, Land of the Dead. Set after the events of his original trilogy in a post-apocalyptic future, the new film intends to both excite fans of the horror/zombie genre and mirror the political unrest that has grown in real life America over the last 4 years. The film opens this Friday across the country and has already been receiving rave reviews.

When I sat down with him, I discovered he was as energetic, funny and kind as he always appeared in behind-the-scenes documentaries and the like. Though I was very nervous, his openness and honesty allowed this interview to become one of the most casual I’ve ever done. I tried to focus on the field of independent filmmaking and avoid the questions about Land of the Dead that would likely be overdone over the next year (the film still had a fall release at that time), but I also took the opportunity to share some personal thoughts. I hope you enjoy it.

Drew Reiber: What do you feel has changed in terms of independent filmmaking?

George A. Romero: Whew. I think what’s changed the most is that there are no independent financiers that are working. When I was coming up, man, I had a somewhat easy time of it because there were fifty independent film companies. A-features, Hollywood A-run movies, would play in the big theaters downtown for sixth months if it was Ben Hur. And so all the neighborhood screens and drive-ins and all of that were basically available, and I think that’s really where these small distribution companies came in. They said, “Well you know, we can fill those screens with B-pictures.” And that’s how a lot of movies got made, including most of the first ones that I ever made. So, there’s a difference there. Now, Van Helsing sucks off 4,000 screens at once and it’s just not available anymore. So, I think that’s what killed the little distribution companies and then the domino effect that killed small independent production.

DR: I know Atmosphere [and Wild Bunch] put together your film at the start without major distribution. Now I believe it’s Universal distributing, which is terrific.

GAR: Yes. Universal is doing all the “deads”, right?

DR: Oh yeah, Shaun of the Dead I saw.

GAR: Shaun! Did you love it? I flipped for it.

DR: It’s terrific! I thought it was the first time there was a good zombie film. I walked out of 28 Days Later. I said, “If a kid drops out of this building to attack them while they’re fueling up, I’m done.” And I just turned to my friends and said, “Bye guys.” And I left.

GAR: See ya later.

DR: And I thought Dawn of the Dead [2004 remake] was a joke. I thought they completely stripped out all the meaning and the story out of it.

GAR: Right.

DR: By the way, I’ve wanted to say something because I’ve been reading a lot of interviews about this and I hope I don’t monopolize too much of this interview for this…

GAR: No, no, no…

DR: But Bruiser touched me, deeply. When I was in high school I had a lot of difficulties, you know, and I very much identify with the whole idea that your identity can be deconstructed when you’re in those places.

GAR: Yeah.

DR: And unfortunately a lot of movies out there, and I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve heard that movies like Elephant, they demonize and they create a mystery and they only help to confuse people as to how to help these people out there that need help. And I thought you were really the bravest and the first filmmaker out there to approach these people and humanize them, and at the same time you have to identify to understand…

GAR: To understand.

DR: : And it really does pain me that a lot of people didn’t understand Bruiser, but that movie and Dawn of the Dead in high school is what sent me into film school.

GAR: Well, thank you. And I appreciate that and I really appreciate the stuff about Bruiser, because Bruiser’s very close to me.

DR: Me too.

GAR: People say, “What’s it about?” and I say, “Man, it’s about Columbine, its about disenfranchisement and that makes you … I mean, where you gonna turn? You can’t even do graffiti anymore because everybody’s doing it! Can’t even do piercing anymore because everybody’s doing it! There’s no, you know… So I just wanted to just make a statement about that. I liked Elephant. I thought Elephant was sort of a mesmerizing kind of a film and very involving, but I didn’t think… it didn’t gave you the sucker punch. It never said exactly what it was about and it did dance a little bit around the problem. To some extent, these guys, from the pop, they were the jerks. You didn’t know who they were, exactly who they were, and about as far as they went to try to humanize them was they were hanging out on a couch playing video games.

DR: (laughs) Detail, not action.

GAR: Yeah, not action, not emotion, not… you saw nothing that happened to them, that would make them this way. And I thought that part of it was really wrong. It’s this mesmerizing movie, and really very interesting to watch and beautifully shot. Really interestingly shot! And I have to say that I liked it, but it’s almost like you need the primer first and then you can watch this. You know what I mean? And if you’re sort of thinking person and you come loaded with thought, then this might be enough to give you a complete experience. Otherwise, it’s an incomplete experience, I thought. Anyway…(laughs)

DR: : My friends have said that outside of that, it lacks story. And I think that’s what’s the best thing about your films, honestly, is the amount of story and the personal experience that you bring to it.

GAR: Thanks again.

DR: You always said that you don’t believe you need to be in Hollywood to make good films. Do you have any words of advice for aspiring filmmakers who want to follow this more indie path?

GAR: That’s the toughest question in the world, because these days it’s a lot easier to go and make a movie. So my best advice for people today is go out and do something. Shoot it. Shoot something, get something on film, express yourself. And express if you have a voice, or a style, or try your best to get it out there so that you can say… you can walk into the room and not have to talk, but say, “Look, here’s what I did.” It’s like Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat. “Look, I’ve made a hat where there was never a hat!” I think that’s the best thing to do. That part of it’s a lot easier, it’s much harder today to get distributed because of the thing we were talking about before. Now all the small distribution companies have been bought up by the mouse or somebody else.

DR: Miramax, yeah.

GAR: Miramax was bought by the mouse! So you’re going to have to fight that sort of corporate resistance and unfortunately, if they’re genre films at all, maybe if you did a small… if you make a film like Pi, yeah. You might get into Sundance and people will get a twitter about it.

DR: A hook, right?

GAR: Yeah, because they think it might be a literary piece. But if you want to do anything that’s genre, and even if it’s not pure genre, but genre as metaphor, or anything you know. People are gonna look at it, “rewr, rewr.” So that part of it’s a lot harder, but I think my best advice, man, if you want… is either write it or go out and shoot it. You know, get your richest uncle to give you four hundred bucks! And go out and do it, I mean, that’s really… to some extent, that’s what we did with Night of the Living Dead. Those days were different, I mean, there was no video then, man. Cities the size of Pittsburgh had film labs. The news was on film… the news was on film! It’s where I learned how to do film.

I went to art school. I went to Carnegie Mellon, painting and design. Theater school. Painting and design, three years, theater school, two years. And I just said, “I’m not happy.” And left, and I just hung out at one of these film labs in Pittsburgh for like a year where they were bringing in the news guys, who were out shooting news on film, 16mm. And bringing in these guys, journeymen… editors would sit there with cigarettes over the glue pots. They were flammable glue pots in those days! And these guys would sit there, like, “ehhh.” (pantomimes a grumpy smoker with cigarette just inches from the pot)

But they were making movies, man, little movies. It’s where I learned that … in those days it was single system, sound was twenty frames ahead, all the basics. It’s where I learned how to use the pencil, was that. It was a wonderful training ground. Then we started a little commercial production company doing commercials and industrial films…

DR: Latent Image, right?

GAR: Latent Image. And said, “Hey, man, well, the whole reason we’re all here is to try to make a flick.” And basically we got lucky with Night. I mean, not that Night… I can only, you know, all I see now when I watch it are problems that I’d like to go back and fix. But there’s something there. Even me who wants nothing but to say, “Rargh! Get it out of my life!” I can see that there was something there and we got distribution and that kicked it all off. That was a longer process. It was a lot harder to do technically, in those days, but it was a lot easier on the other side, to get screens and distribution.

DR: Something that I wanted to bring up was how the [distribution] format is changing so rapidly. I noticed that with Land of the Dead, this has influenced the way you were going to shoot and what you’re going to offer theatrically. I was going to ask you, has the DVD market for director’s cuts influenced or changed the production process for you?

GAR: Not the production process, no. What it has done for me with this film, I could never… without United Film [Distribution] – bought Dawn for distribution then eventually financed Day and released them both unrated – because they were a small distribution company, they were ballsy enough to do it. There is no one, today, who would do that. There is no distribution company that can actually get you screens, who is willing to say, “Ok, do the movie you want and we’ll release it no matter what.” Unrated, X, you know, whatever the Hell. I don’t even know what the ratings are these days. NC-17, whatever the equivalent. It’s ridiculous. So, that just doesn’t exist.

If I’m gonna make this movie today, it’s gotta be an R-rating. But, everybody knows there’s value in the director’s cut. For example, Japan doesn’t want an R-rated film, they want a hard version or Germany or, you know. So you can go make your movie and maybe the initial US release is gonna to have to be snipped so that the MPAA gives it an R. But it’ll be there, and then the director’s cut will come out. The only thing I can do is hope that fans will still come see it and then wait a little while and see the rest!

DR: Your audience is built in. I mean, they did it with Hellboy, they did it with Spider-Man 2 just for time purposes. They did it with the new Dawn of the Dead and they are flocking to the director’s cut. And your audience, because the consumer market has changed, they’re smarter than they used to be. It’s so weird, you can walk into Best Buy and you can just see these unrated films that movie theaters wouldn’t touch today. But they’re just sitting on the shelf for like, you know, ten to twenty dollars. It’s fantastic.

GAR: Exactly. It’s silly, but hey, that’s the way it works! The only thing that you worry about is, are the fans going to say, “Well, I’ll wait to see the hard one.” That’s what the distributors worry about. Are the fans gonna not show up because they want the harder version?

DR: For filmmakers that are kinda like wondering where the concession point is, would you say anything to them about vision versus getting the product out there?

GAR: It’s such a complicated process, making a film, and everybody’s situation is different. If you’re making a film with your uncle’s money, go for the throat. If you’re making a film with investors, or a studio, or anywhere beyond your uncle, you’re gonna have to make concessions; concessions are gonna start on the first day. The main thing is to not give up the soul of it.

For example, when I did Day of the Dead I had a much more expansive script, which would have cost around six or seven mil. And they said, “Fine, but it would have to be R-rated.” But they were willing to say, “If you want me to release this unrated, I’ll give you three mil.” They went that far. So, I chose that. That’s not particularly heroic, but ok, that sounds like a pretty good deal! I could do something with three million bucks! So I went and wrote the script down.

Everybody says to me, “Oh, what a fuckin’ tragedy.” And I said, “No man, I got to make a movie.” You know, it wasn’t a tragedy. I kept the soul of the piece. I kept exactly what the theme of it was. All I had to do was cut out the boat chases and a lot of bullshit that probably would have been just bullshit anyway. If you have your eye on what the soul of the piece is, and if you know what you’re trying to say, and if you know what your real theme is, man, you can do it with two people in a room. Somehow, you could do it with two people in a room. There’s always a way to cut back, cut back, cut back, but what you don’t want to do is cut the room or one of those people. You don’t want to cut into the heart of it. Because as long as you’re not cutting into the heart of it, man, compromise is not necessarily bad.

A lot of people, I think, have this knee-jerk reaction, “Oh, I need that big shot.” No you don’t, man, that has nothing to do with the story. That’s just an expressive, you know… sure, it would be effective, but that’s not your story. And I think a lot of times people lose sight of what their…

DR: What you’re there for.

GAR: What you’re there for and what the real heart of the thing is, and worried, “Oh man, they’re making me cut out this, and this, and this.” Man, it doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes it just doesn’t mean anything. You just need to have that focus, though, and the toughest thing, I think, is to sorta keep yourself calm enough to be able to see that and not get so pissed off that you kick something in the ass that might be good for you. “You asshole. (spits) I’ll never work for you!” When maybe a couple hours of talk… it’s like everything else. A little of communication, a little bit of “Well, this is what I want. I know what you want, this is what I want. Can we meet somewhere?” I think very often, it’s a shame sometimes how people get, I dunno, attached or clingy, or passionate, or… not passionate, but indignant about the wrong things.

People say, well what’s the problem with… why is there not more good stuff being done? And it’s really easy to blame the studio system. And the studio system is greatly to blame for that, but that’s not the only thing, man. I’ve been to small festivals, I’ve judged student films. I’ve been to some of these places, Sundance and all of that, and been on juries. And you see films that are supposed to be not effected by the studios. They are supposed to be coming from people’s hearts. And ninety percent of them are phooey! No matter what you do, there’s gonna be a few things that stand out. There’s gonna be a few things that are made with money that stand out, and there’s gonna be a few things that are made with no money that stand out. And the rest of that (he makes a hand gesture motioning to the left), and the rest of that (motioning to the right), is gonna be phooey.

So it’s not entirely the system. There are some people that have terrific ideas and need to express them. The biggest thing that frustrates me is that I see people getting disappointed or react overly to… “The system’s fucking me.” Or whatever. If you love what you do and you’re passionate about it, then you do it. It doesn’t require the chops. It doesn’t require the technical chops, ‘cause that you can learn. It’s just that if you have a vision or a voice of any kind, keep trying. That’s really my best advice. My biggest disappointment is when people get disappointed and say, “Fuck this.”

I know people who are working professionally for big salaries, but they’re working as set dressers, or working as, you know, when they should be the filmmakers. Instead, what they wind up serving, filmmakers that don’t know how to make film. Because they just somewhere along the ways said, “Fuck this. I’ll take this gig.” And they become… They’re needed, they’re great, [but] they’re not… Man, I’ve worked with a hundred people in divisions and departments that should be making the movies instead of saying, “Would you like this ashtray or this ashtray, sir?” to some guy who has no fucking idea what ashtray he wants! You know? (laughs)

DR: I absolutely see what you’re saying. The studio system is there, because there’re people to reward.

GAR: Exactly.

DR: You can’t have one without the other half.

GAR: It’s self-fulfilling. It’s a self-fulfilling system. So yeah, it’s not great, but what are you gonna do?

Note: Romero has since confirmed that only about 6 minutes of the film was trimmed for the purpose of a theatrical cut (both for time and the MPAA). This has been identified as primarily one scene and several dialogue/scene extensions. I hope that my interview has not deterred you from seeing it first-run, as this is clearly one of the most significant events in recent horror film history. I hope you will join me and the *hopefully* legion of fans who will be seeing George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead in theaters this weekend. Thank you, and as George always says, STAY SCARED!