Andrew and Matt discuss the 1968 George Romero film Night of the Living Dead

Topics Discussed

• Podcast and movie introductions
• Fathom Events
• Perfect Blue
• Andrew does the plot recap
• “They’re coming to get you Barbara!”
• The films of George Romero and Dawn of the Dead in particular
• Ganja and Hess
• Duane Johnson
• The peculiar 20th century specificity of Romero style zombie
• Tell My Horse

I thought I Am Legend was about revolution. I said if you’re going to do something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. I mean, Richard starts his book with one man left; everybody in the world has become a vampire. I said we got to start at the beginning and tweak it up a little bit. I couldn’t use vampires because he did, so I wanted something that would be an earth-shaking change. Something that was forever, something that was really at the heart of it. I said, so what if the dead stop staying dead? … And the stories are about how people respond or fail to respond to this. That’s really all [the zombies] ever represented to me. In Richard’s book, in the original I Am Legend, that’s what I thought that book was about. There’s this global change and there’s one guy holding out saying, wait a minute, I’m still a human. He’s wrong. Go ahead. Join them. You’ll live forever! In a certain sense he’s wrong but on the other hand, you’ve got to respect him for taking that position.

George Romero on the influence of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend on Night of the Living Dead

Citations/Reference

The film’s wikipedia page

There is a great Criterion Collection edition of the film.

Next episode we will discuss Hour of the Wolf! (And Mandy)

We’d like to start taking listener questions and comments on the show – if you have a message, you can leave a message for us by calling (508) 817-3408, or you can email me at matt@goldenagehorror.com.