George A. Romero
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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George Andrew Romero (February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017) was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer and editor, best known for his series of gruesome and satirical horror films about an imagined zombie apocalypse, beginning in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, which is often considered a progenitor of the fictional zombie of modern culture. Other notable films in the series include Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). Aside from the Living Dead series, his works include The Crazies (1973), Martin (1978), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988) and The Dark Half (1993).
Romero is often noted as an influential pioneer of the horror film genre, and has been called an "icon" and the "Father of the Zombie Film."
Influences
Romero ranked his top ten films of all time for the 2002 Sight & Sound Greatest Films Poll. They are The Brothers Karamazov, Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove, High Noon, King Solomon's Mines, North by Northwest (a film on which a teenaged Romero worked as a gofer), The Quiet Man, Repulsion, Touch of Evil and The Tales of Hoffmann. Romero listed the films in alphabetical order, with special placement given to Michael Powell's The Tales of Hoffmann, which he cites as "my favourite film of all time; the movie that made me want to make movies".
Romero has also cited Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962) as an influence on his work.