Raising the Dead

Abstract George A. Romero never intended to become a master of horror, but he made Night of the Living Dead and became a legend. Raising the Dead: The Work of George A. Romero is an account of Romero coming to terms with horror, reshaping the genre to fit his expansive imagination in the process. 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. 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 and grand-scale science fiction epics. Themes, story ideas, and even characters were repurposed 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. Based on years of archival research, Raising the Dead 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.