Birth of the Living Dead Page #3

Most of the zombies were people

we used to work with.

People that, that

were giving us jobs.

Advertising people,

a couple of news guys.

A lot of the zombies

were clients of ours

from ad agencies.

Humoring us,

saying, "Sure, okay.

I'll come out."

A woman came out and was willing

to appear nude from behind.

I don't know if there's any

such thing as a bad zombie.

I mean, I love them all.

But, you know, you get

people who come out.

I mean, if I do anything,

if I make a gesture,

if I'm talking

to twenty zombies

and they're all looking at me

saying, "Well, what do I do?"

"Well, you walk

over here."

And if I go like that,

everybody does that.

So, pretty much just say,

"Do whatever you want.

Do your best zombie, man."

And you get some

incredibly creative things.

One of the investors

Ross Harris was a meat packer.

So he brought

all these entrails,

so it was pretty rough.

That was all real stuff,

real intestines,

real livers, cow livers.

We wanted to push the envelope,

let's see what

we can do with this.

Just bring out buckets of stuff

and... I'm telling you, boy,

people that come to be zombies

they're really dedicated.

They'll dig into that

stuff and chew on it

and I'm going, "Oy!"

You'll never get me to do that!

That's guts!

It's guts!

When I was gonna show it,

I'm thinking to myself

they're probably just gonna say,

"That sucked Mr. Chris."

Or whatever it may be.

And sure enough, it was the--

it was the complete opposite.

It's amazing the impact

that this movie made,

that this guy made--

you know, with no budget.

How it still was important

and how it still resonates

with everyone who watches it.

When they were dead, they, um,

they were acting

like with no muscles,

they had like, to stay.

What's the name of that?

What's the name of that?

Starts with "R."

- Riga...

- Who said it?

The whole curriculum I have with

the kids is where they learn

literacy through the process

of making movies.

Rigor mortis.

Say it again.

Rigor mortis.

Say it again.

Rigor mortis.

And what happens with that?

Christopher Cruz teaches his

literacy through film program

in the Bronx, New York.

George Romero

grew up in the Bronx

before moving to Pittsburgh.

And it was the old days

of the Sharks and the Jets.

And people, most people

thought I was Italian

so I got away, I think

I got away with my hide,

the Golden Guineas

left me alone,

until they found

out I was Spanish.

Then I was a Shark, you know.

I was never really

into any of that stuff.

I just wanted to make movies.

This movie to me

what's so gorgeous,

even the way it starts,

just that road,

and there are different ways

to make horror films,

what I enjoy about this

is that right away,

the music is very disturbing

and telegraphs that you're

going to get into something

that's going to be scary.

But then, you know,

they go to a graveyard,

and they have their little

dialogue about the length

of the trip and they got

started late and so on.

They ought to make

the day the time changes

the first day of summer.

What?

Well, it's 8 o'clock

and it's still light.

A lot of good the extra

day light does us.

We've still got

a 3 hour drive back.

We're not going to be home

until after midnight.

So it's mundane you know,

there's a mundanity to it

and that is um, I think

a very modern approach.

It even came following

a bunch of low budget films

that basically, like

white girls in bikinis

being chased by guys

wearing shag carpeting

being kind of monster.

Before "Night," audiences

of horror were accustomed

to space aliens,

radioactive mutations

and traditional

gothic monsters.

And by not doing

that kind of stuff,

by making it just

as real as possible,

it became this

whole other thing.

It's not even

a haunted cemetery,

it looks like a big open place

where they can park their car

and they can go to the grave

and it'll be fine.

It's still spooky, the music

is indicating something to come

but it's essentially

a day in the life episode

of these characters.

Boy, you used to really

be scared here.

Johnny!

You're still afraid!

It's to me one of the first sort

of post-modern horror movies

in that it is

commenting on itself.

They're coming

to get you, Barbara!

That's what's so brilliant

about that famous line,

"They're coming

to get you, Barbara!"

is that he's commenting

on a horror movie.

They're coming for you!

Look, there comes

one of them now!

Now, of course,

years later we have "Scream"

and other films like that,

and they're self-reflexive,

but in this obnoxious

nudge-nudge, wink-wink way,

where it's like the audience,

well we've seen all this before

let's make fun

of the characters.

That's not how it

functions in this movie.

It functions

as two people, you know

the brother is kind of teasing

and scare the sister,

and then when it comes true,

to me this is absolutely

stunningly awesome.

Johnny!

Help me!

The horror just

came out of nowhere.

It just kind of shocked you.

It scared me to death.

It disorients you just right

from the beginning of the movie;

you're being told that places

that shouldn't be very scary

are actually going

to be really scary.

Situations where

you should feel safe,

you're not going to feel safe.

The new horror comes

stumbling towards them

which is the zombie.

He really reinvents the zombie

and the zombie becomes one

of the great new monsters.

The image of the zombie

in the cemetery

is a key image that we

all felt was so iconic

and we patterned our

zombies for the series

"The Walking Dead"

after that zombie.

We patterned both in terms

of its kind of gait,

his speed.

Not only is it creepy,

but it just seems

like it's unrelenting

and it's not going to stop.

Before "Night of

the Living Dead,"

there were movies like

"I Walk with a Zombie,"

they were this sort

of tribal character.

Very different.

Now, arguably, the zombie is

as important as the werewolf.

But right below the vampire

is probably the most

important horror monster

in the history of scary movies.

All these zombies

all go back to Romero.

There's no movie director that's

responsible for the vampire.

There's no movie director that's

responsible for Frankenstein.

There's no movie director that's

responsible for the werewolf.

There's people who've

made key movies of that.

But, those are much

older characters,

which have this kind

of literary pedigree.

And while there have been

undead and zombies, et cetera,

what we know of as a zombie,

the kind of the it's alive

moment of it, was 1968,

George Romero in "Night of

the Living Dead" in Pittsburgh.

Dead face!

Hold it.

Don't smile.

Smiling is your enemy.

Follow the sound guys!

What are George Romero's

rules of zombies?

Aria.

That zombies,

they, they walk slow.

They drag their feet

when they're walking.

Jared, what else?

And they don't smile or laugh.

They don't smile or laugh.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes