Top 156 Quotes & Sayings by George A. Romero
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American director George A. Romero.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I think you're only free if you're working on very low or huge money.
If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart.
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.
I grew up in New York City. And I lived in the Bronx in a place called Parkchester.
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.
Collaborate, don't dictate.
Most of my stuff was sort of of-the-time. 'The Crazies' was, basically, we were angry about Vietnam, and it had a reason for being.
The main thing people took from 'Night of the Living Dead' was that it was a racial statement movie, and that was completely unintended.
As a filmmaker you get typecast just as much as an actor does, so I'm trapped in a genre that I love, but I'm trapped in it!
I like guys who are understandable and good guys who are flawed.
After 'Land,' I wanted to do something about emerging media and citizen journalism, so I got this idea for 'Diary of the Dead.'
Horror will always be there, it always comes back, it's a familiar genre that some people, not everyone - it's sort of the cinema anchovies. You either like it or you don't.
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 expect a zombie to show up on 'Sesame Street' soon, teaching kids to count.
I thought Godzilla was a mess, the monster had no character and the humans didn't either. They forgot to make the movie that went along with all these wonderful effects.
I love 'Shaun of the Dead.'
When you're shooting super-low-budget - we had 20 days to shoot 'Diary,' and a little over $2 - time is money.
There are so many factors when you think of your own films. You think of the people you worked on it with, and somehow forget the movie. You can't forgive the movie for a long time. It takes a few years to look at it with any objectivity and forgive its flaws.
Ever since 'Lassie' and 'Old Yeller', I won't watch animal movies. Animals in movies always die.
I always thought of the zombies as being about revolution, one generation consuming the next.
Comic books and radio were my escape. I even remember 3-D comic books where you put on the red-and-green glasses and Mighty Mouse would punch you in the face. It was the literature of the day for kids my age who were too bored with listening to 'Peter and the Wolf' on the record player.
The two great things about computer CG stuff are I can now do gags I would never have dreamed of in the old day.
A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.
I'm like my zombies. I won't stay dead!
For me, tribalism and religion are basically the big reasons we're in trouble. Patriotism, tribalism, and religion.
I liked the '28 Days Later' films, but they're not zombies; they're not dead. They're not using it in the same way.
Pittsburgh, for a while, became a production centre. There was one $400 million year. Hollywood was bringing productions in there. Films like 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Innocent Blood.' So my guys, the guys I worked with, were able to have careers and live at home. But then it dried up, and a lot of my friends left.
I really believe that you could do horror very inexpensively. I don't think it has anything to do with the effects, the effects are not the most important parts.
The 'Dead' films allow me to talk about things that a drama, say, won't. 'Dawn Of The Dead,' which was set in a shopping mall, is on one level about consumerism; 'Land Of The Dead' is a response to Bush.
I grew up on DC Comics, moral tales where the bad guys got their comeuppance. To me the gory panels or grotesque stuff just made me chuckle.
I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.
Nothing's ever real until it's real.
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.'
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
'Night of the Living Dead,' then 'Dawn of the Dead' is a few weeks later, 'Day of the Dead' months later, and 'Land of the Dead' is three years later. Each one spoke about a different decade and was stylistically different.
For a Catholic kid in parochial school, the only way to survive the beatings - by classmates, not the nuns - was to be the funny guy.
I keep a little notebook of things that I can do to the zombies that might be silly and fun.
I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.
The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.
Movies are about escape.
I grew up on the old EC comic books before the Comics Code in North American and with all sort of good-natured fun. I never had nightmares I think because all of the old horror stuff that I was exposed to was well meaning in a certain sense.
I sympathize with the zombies and am not even sure they are villains. To me they are this earth-changing thing. God or the devil changed the rules, and dead people are not staying dead.
Somehow I've been able to keep standing and stay in my little corner and do my little stuff and I'm not particularly affected by trends or I'm not dying to make a 3D movie or anything like that. I'm just sort of happy to still be around.
I remember when John Cameron Swayze over the television told me personally that the Russians now had the atomic bomb; then I knew that we were goners.
My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.
'Martin' is my favorite film of mine and 'Knightriders' a close second.
A lot of my friends are people who do horror films: Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Stephen King.
If one horror film hits, everyone says, 'Let's go make a horror film.' It's the genre that never dies.
Zombies are always moving fast in video games. It makes sense if you think about it. Those games are all about hand-eye coordination and how quickly can you get them before they get you.
Zombies to me don't represent anything in particular. They are a global disaster that people don't know how to deal with.
I really liked the helicopter pilot in 'Dawn of the Dead', when he gets bitten and comes out of the elevator. That guy was amazing. He did this incredible walk that we didn't even know about until we started shooting.
Is Michael Moore an honest documentarian? Honestly? I don't think he is... The real discussion gets left behind the entertainment value.
I'll never get sick of zombies. I just get sick of producers.
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.
People called '28 Days' and '28 Weeks' zombie movies, and they're not! It's some sort of virus; they're not dead.
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.
As great as Ed is, the wisdom out here is that he can't carry a movie. They'll pay him $3 million to be the second banana in Julia Roberts things. But they won't put up $3 million for an Ed Harris movie.
First of all, in the old days, if you wanted to show someone getting shot on film, all you could do was place an effect in the original take. And if you wanted to brighten somebody's face and leave the rest of the room dark, that was a very expensive process.
'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.
The most realistic blood I've seen is when Marlon Brando gets beat up in On The Waterfront.
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