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Raising the Dead dives into the expansive, extraordinary body of work found in Romero's archive, going beyond his iconic zombie movies into a deep and varied trove of work that never made it to the big screen. Based on years of archival research, the book moves between unfilmed scripts and familiar classics, showing the remarkable scope and range of Romero's interests and the full extent of his genius.
Raising the Dead is a testament to an extraordinarily productive and inventive artist who never let the restrictions of the film industry limit his imagination.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Text
- George A. Romero's Official Filmography
- Selected Unfilmed Projects by George A. Romero
- Introduction: Resurrections
- Part 1: The Long Night
- Chapter 1: A Life in Zombies
- Chapter 2: Some People in Pittsburgh: Early Labors
- Chapter 3: Just Another Horror Movie - Or Is It?: Night of the Living Dead
- Part 2: Daybreak
- Chapter 4: That Something Extra, An Added Dimension: Re-Shaping the Horror Genre
- Chapter 5: The Failures of the Human Race: Politics After the Apocalypse
- Chapter 6: Now and Future Time: Science Fiction Futures and Visions of Control
- Part 3: Twilight
- Chapter 7: The Camera Virus: The Destructive Power of the Cinema
- Chapter 8: Sucking the Life Out of You: Corporations and Other Evil Creatures
- Chapter 9: Oh, I Know I'm Different: The Psychology of Monsters
- Epilogue: A Monstrous Legacy: Three Reckonings
- Index
About the author
Adam Charles Hart is the author of Monstrous Forms: Moving Image Horror Across Media.
Summary
George A. Romero never intended to become a master of horror, but Night of the Living Dead made him a legend of the genre.
Raising the Dead dives into the expansive, extraordinary body of work found in Romero's archive, going beyond his iconic zombie movies into a deep and varied collection of writings that never made it to the big screen. From the early 1960s until his death in 2017, Romero was a hugely prolific writer, producing scripts in every conceivable genre, from arty medieval allegories to wacky comedies to grand-scale science fiction epics. Though he had difficulty funding non-horror projects, he continued to write in whatever mode his imagination dictated, and he rarely abandoned his ideas. Themes, story ideas, and even characters were re-purposed for new scripts, evolving and transforming with each new iteration and, sometimes, finding a home in a horror film. But in order to accommodate ideas that began in such different contexts, Romero would have to change the horror genre itself: a zombie movie could become a savage satire of consumerism or an excoriating critique of militaristic or capitalist hierarchies. The horror genre became what Romero made of it.
Based on years of archival research, the book moves between unfilmed scripts and familiar classics, showing the remarkable scope and range of Romero's interests and the full extent of his genius. Raising the Dead is a testament to an extraordinarily productive and inventive artist who never let the restrictions of the film industry limit his imagination.
Additional text
Thoroughly researched while still being accessible to a general audience, Raising the Dead will likely appeal to both fans and academics.
