George C. Romero is finally entering the zombie ‘Deadverse’ on his own terms – SYFY WIRE

George C. Romero has been in the horror game for a long time. Hes gone from film school P.A. to indie film podcast emperor and hit all the steps in between, with a Heavy Metal-publishedzombie story next in his sights. But thats what you get when your father is also the father of the modern zombie. George A. Romero created the horror subgenre with the 1968 Night of the Living Dead, kicking off a franchise and creating a legacy unmatched in the world of genre. And nobodys as qualified as George C. Romero to pick it up.

While Romeros upcoming comic, The Rise, is one of the newly announced projects hes got in the works with Heavy Metal under the iconic genre magazines big content push from CEO Matt Medney, the story itself and Romeros embrace of zombies has been a long time coming.

Now hes doubling down on the undead: Not only is Romero entering the "Deadverse" with the '60s-set The Rise, but hell also be scribing a zombie tale featuring long-time Heavy Metal character Nelson titled Cold Dead War. That story arc which artist Agustin Alessio helps tease in the cover below for Heavy Metals July issue #300 sets the era perfectly for all the things Romero wants to capture now that hes finally wading into the subgenre.

The filmmaker and writer sat down with SYFY WIRE to talk about paranoia, the Romero legacy, and kicking off the Deadverse.

Do you remember when people first started asking you about making a zombie movie?

Yeah, I think it was the day that I announced that I was making my first movie. I went, Hey guys, Im making a movie, and they went, Oh, is it a zombie movie? Oh, youre making a zombie movie. Zombie, zombie, zombie. Id have to say, No, its not. My first horror film had nothing to do with zombies, it was actually a quick little one-man type movie about a killer prepping for a mission in his basement. And everyone was like, Well when does he turn into a zombie? And I would say, Thats my dads thing, you know?

When youre young, you want to forge out on your own. If youre a lawyer and your dad is the partner of the law firm, you dont necessarily want your first law job to be at your dads firm, right? You want to do your own thing and find your own voice. So thats what I spent a lot of time, energy, and effort when I was young trying to do.

Then it became one of those things where you just dig your heels in. Hey, you making a zombie movie? No, motherf*****! You know? Then one day, a lot of years ago, somebody at a meeting asked me, Hey, we want you to make a zombie movie and I said, No, and they said, Why not? Well pay you. I told them, Thats great but Ive got all these other things Id rather to make and zombies are my dads thing.

So then this guy looks at me and he blows my mind. He says, Listen, what zombie would you want to make? It was like an explosion in my brain.

I had the answer immediately. Hadnt even written it, hadnt even thought about it, but literally the second the question was asked it was like lightning in the bottle. I saw the story front to back. I said there was only one story I would tell and wouldnt be after Night, its not gonna be in my dads trilogy. It would be a prologue. A period story that takes place years prior to my dads film Night.

So its a prequel? No, its not a prequel. So its people stuck in a house surviving zombies before Night? No.

It deep-dives into a time before Night of the Living Dead... the turbulent times of the '60s and it covers a really great time in world history and American history. Ive always been attracted to writing in that time period and writing period stuff because you dont necessarily have to worry about all the modern things that writers have to worry about when theyre writing modern stories. Its almost more freeing when you dont have to worry about computers and cell phones.

I really like the '60s because it was a time when independent thought was being championed by the artistic community. It was a time when there was all kinds of stuff going on around the world that was bringing Americans together as a country. There was all kinds of stuff going on around the world that was bringing other countries together as their own countries.

Those were all the ingredients that freed me up to go write The Rise. When I was writing The Rise, it became more about paying attention to the canon that existed, paying attention to what the fans had turned everything into. What my father and those guys did when they released Night, it went into the public domain and I can only imagine how much that must have stung as the artists responsible for it. But the way Ive always looked at it is that they created this open-source monster.

When you look at what that means to have so many people inspired by it and look at how the zombie creatures (the ghouls) became such an iconic pop culture creature, theres a lot of responsibility when you decide you want to take on a story in this world. I think thats the reason why so many zombie movies out there these days pay attention to the rules. Theres rules with vampires, theres rules with werewolves name a monster, its got rules. The same thing with zombies. Pretty simple rules: shoot them in the head, avoid the hordes, and Romero zombies dont run.

Thats limited the playing field because everybody pays respect to that ruleset. Theres a sandbox. How do you play in that sandbox with these rules and not wear handcuffs at the same time? This was another contributing factor to why I went back so far before my fathers work started and why I wanted to do a true prologue rather than any sort of prequel. My vision is not Heres how everyone ended up in that house.

Right, you didnt want to do The Night Before the Living Dead.

Thats one of the most pitched ideas out there. My dad probably heard half a million pitches for it. I wanted to look at how universes are built. Rise was the cornerstone foundation of, I guess Ill say it, the "Deadverse."

Whats come from it is a chance to explore an entire universe of creatures thats never been explored from a perspective that I believe is unique because George was my dad. I believe that from conversations with him over the years, I have a very different perspective about what he and those guys did in the 60s. I wrote a story thats designed to earn the respect of diehard fans and introduce a new generation of fans, but most importantly pay attention and pay respectand do that with love and honor to a legacy that my father created and left behind.

You talked about modern zombies being strict with their rules, but now they come in every shape and form. Theres the comedy zombie, the musical zombie, the mainstream zombie for peoples moms. How are you, to quote your website, keeping Rise dangerous?

Anybody thats talked to me about how I say, Films used to be dangerous, knows where it comes from. When my father made Night and put it out, there were people in the U.S. government starting movements and trying to pass legislation saying stuff like Filmmakers and artists like George Romero should not be allowed to continue because theyre a danger to society. The reason for this being... because he was promoting a way of looking at society that was frowned upon. Thats what made films dangerous. Things that allowed people to think that radical thought was OK.

Everything I was just saying is the spirit of Night. My father made a film that made people afraid of their uncles and their neighbors and their mailman. He would take the little moments of story between these characters and turn somebody that was close to a person into a creature that was trying to kill that person, which then made that person kill somebody that they loved. Thats f***** up. It all was born from the thought processes of the time. Going back to that time period made it easier for me once the research was done to think about how to keep this stuff dangerous while still appealing to a lot of audiences.

The '60s are known for producing great paranoia films could you tell me a little about some of this research you did?

Its funny you use the word paranoia because that was the crux of the research I was doing. I was looking for things that perpetuated that feeling of paranoia. If you look at the '50s and the '60s, the Cold War was about propagating paranoia.

People turning on each other because of Russians... this fear that if you saw your neighbor go into a restaurant that serves Russian food youd have to turn them in because they might be responsible for someone hitting a button and nuking the U.S. Paranoia was at epic levels back then. Its interesting because theres a lot of that happening these days, especially now with the quarantine [and COVID-19]. Theres a visceral exposed nerve from the 60s that can be poked with a stick in 2020.

When it came to research, I did a lot on the science of the times and a lot on the history of actual zombie stuff before my dad made Night, all the zombie stuff was Vodou-based. Theres a reason for that.

In 1962 there was genetic research being done, people trying to figure out how humans could survive mutually assured destruction... That was the nugget I landed on when I started the story of the science behind it.

I was looking through Rises production diary and I saw that somewhere in the pitching process, people came to you and asked to turn it into a CW-style musical?

I stopped pitching the concept for a while after that... It was one of those stories from Hollywood where you go in and have your meeting at Paramount.

They gonna get contracts in front of you, deal memos and all this other s***, then you go to sign and in comes the partner youve never met. He says, As soon as you sign this, my first call is going to be to The CW network and we want to really update this thing. Were thinking High School Musical with zombies and well put your dads name on it. Then youve got two choices: You can either sit there and be polite, or you do what I do and stand up and walk out of the room. F****** see ya.

But its tricky because that actually gave me a reputation for a minute that I was some kind of hard-to-work-with, precious guy that didnt want to change my s***. The reality of that situation is that Im the most collaborative person anybodys ever met.

Everybody just wants to sell and for the longest time, the only value anybody ever saw in anything I wanted to do was my fathers name. Everyone just wanted to slap his name on things. The biggest struggle Ive had trying to get stuff done is finding people who were willing to not tell me, You know whatd be great? If you do all this work and then we just put your dads name on it instead of yours because yours doesnt carry as much weight.

Joe Hill wrote about his back-and-forth relationship with the work of his father, Stephen King. Part of him said dont be defined by this, part of him said, Well, I was raised by this; its who I am. How do you navigate both sides of that?

I used to be this guy where if youd say something to me, Id go out and prove you wrong. People said to me when I was young and trying to do this, The problem is that youre Georges kid and George wasnt commercially minded. He only cared about his art and didnt understand the commercial side of it. So I opened an advertising agency.

A lot of my early content I was motivated by not wanting to be like him or be defined by that. I think thats normal... a lot of my fans may have found me because of who my father was, but Im grateful every day my life that they stuck around because they liked what they saw when they found me.

You spend so long, especially as the kid of somebody like George, trying to forge your own path and find your own voice that you over-worry that people are being too critical. And most of those are coming from people whose opinions dont really f****** matter. Then you realize one day that it doesnt f****** matter and all you gotta do is be true to yourself, true to your story, and true to your inner creative.

Back to planning out a universe. Does that mean yall are string-and-corkboarding it right now, where theres Rise and youre saying This can go here, this can go here in the future?

Yeah. [Laughs] Were not talking about it a whole lot just yet, but yes I think thats safe to say.

(This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity)

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George C. Romero is finally entering the zombie 'Deadverse' on his own terms - SYFY WIRE

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero