034 Halloween Bonus: Zombie Mastermind transcript (George Romero)

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Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. You can also play our mobile quiz app at deadorliveapp.com.

Michael: This person died in 2017, age 77. One of his early commercial films was a segment for Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

Friend: I have no earthly idea. Is it Jim Henson?

Michael: Not Jim Henson. Boy, what a great guess. He'd be good for the show. His first movie made for $100,000 was released when racial tensions were high in the United States.

Friend: I mean, unfortunately, that doesn't really narrow down too much, Michael. Um,

Michael: True. This could be a year ago.

Friend: This could be the 60s. Last year.

Michael: His 2005 film was his largest studio backed film and became one of his biggest box office successes.

Friend: Is Rob Zombie Alive?

Michael: Rob Zombie is still with us age 57, so not Rob Zombie.

Friend: And I aged him considerably. Apologies, Mr. Zombie.

Michael: Of his creations. He said they are multipurpose. You can't really get angry at them. They have no hidden agendas. They are what they are. I sympathize with them.

Friend: I mean, I'm still going, Rob Zombie here. I think your sources are wrong.

Michael: It's not. The film critic, Roger Ebert called one of his movies, one of the best horror films of all time.

Friend: Not um, Wes Craven, but I'm wrong.

Michael: Not Wes Craven, but I love that guess. He was a horror visionary who created the modern zombie genre with his 1968 cult film. Night of the Living Dead.

Friend: Wait, hold on. Is George Romero? George Romero?

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is George Romero.

Archival: Do you think it's cathartic? I think when we go to the movies, if it moves us emotionally, that somehow is confirming of our humanity. If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it makes you be startled or afraid, those are involuntary human responses that confirm our humanity.

But we don't get that in life. We don't get that when we're dealing with each other. We're not allowed. We're not allowed to show our fears. We're not allowed to cry if we're men. There are a lot of kind of morays that keep that stuff down, whereas you go to a movie and it's a very safe, safe place to let them out.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Drew: And I'm Drew Tinnen,

Michael: And we'll get back to that in a second. On this show, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, Would I want that life today?

George Romero died 2017, age 77. So before we grew the first line of the obituary,

Amit, Hello. Hi.

Amit: Why was that Not me.

Michael: Uh, well, you and I have been talking about this for a while and you know, we're having some fun trying different things out for special episodes.

Amit: Oh, right. So this is not a coup because you're jealous of me like Steve Jobs getting kicked out of his own company in the eighties?

Michael: No, this is not a coup, uh, this has nothing to do with Steve Jobs. Nobody's kicking anybody out.

Amit: Okay. Right. And at some point I may bring in a guest to fill your seat for a special episode as well.

Michael: Absolutely. I would hope so.

Amit: Okay. I, I remember now. Good luck to Drew Tinnen.

Michael: This is a special, famous and gravy Halloween episode.

Uh, and I guess before we get into it, I just wanna talk a little bit about how you and I know each.

Drew: We went to high school together, we went to McAllen High School in Austin, Texas.

Michael: Can I actually back up even further than that? Cuz we had a common friend in eighth grade, Mitch McGee. That's right. And the reason I wanted to bring up Mitch is cuz Mitch, like I have an association with Mitch and Fan Goia.

Drew: Mitch and I were definitely best friends growing up, but we mostly traded baseball cards and we. That into horror back then, and I don't think he was either, but he was the one that got me into lots of trouble though.

Michael: Yeah. He was the one that got me, his first cigarette I ever smoked was with Mitch. First time I think I'd ever smoked pot was with Mitch.

I think the first time I ever drank was with Mitch anyway. He was the friend who got me into trouble. So when I knew that you and him were friends growing up, I was very excited to, to meet you. I was either

Drew: to be excited or stay the hell away from me. Yeah.

Michael: Drew, what do you do today? What is your job? I

Drew: am a, uh, film critic in the horror space in the genre world.

I started at Fangoria Radio back in New York City years ago, and uh, FGO Radio was a serious XM show. That was hosted by Debbie Roan, who Chma fans, um, might know she's kind of a legend, um, in the Trama horror films like Tramo and Juliet .

Michael: No, I don't know these movies at all.

Drew: They're. Sick if you're in the right head

Michael: space. So you're a film critic for horror movies, film critic for horror movies, which is why I wanted to have you on this special Halloween episode because you and I are both George Romero fans. Definitely. Yeah. I'm actually, you know, before we get into this, I wanna just make a brief case for why George Romero and zombie movies are are worth talking about and are interesting, even if you're not in on zombie movies.

Cuz I get it. You know, not everybody likes. Zombies and not everybody thinks they're as great as you and I do. Definitely. Yeah. The main case I wanna make is that like this monster and this genre are popular for a reason. That there's something about our collective cultural fears about where we are and what society is dealing with.

George Romero sometimes has been. You know, how did it start? You know, what is the origin of the zombie apocalypse? And he makes the point. You know, maybe it's an act of God, maybe it's retribution for something, but in a way it doesn't matter. And what is interesting are not the flesh eating ghouls outside the farmhouse or outside the mall.

What what should matter is that this extraordinary thing is happening and people are still arguing about upstairs down. Who's the boss, You know, they're still arguing about their own agendas instead of facing the problem. And that's really what all of my zombie films have been about. Okay. Let's get to it.

You ready to do this? Definitely, yeah. Category one, Creating the first line of the obituary. George A. Romero, a horror visionary who created the modern zombie genre with his 1968 cult film. Night of the Living Dead, which has influenced generations of horror Enthusiasts died on Sunday in Toronto. He was 77.

What do you

think?

Drew: I think it's obviously really matter of fact, right? When he created Night of the Living Dead, that was gonna be the first line.

Michael: What do you mean? Matter of fact, like do you think it undersells his significance?

Drew: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just the wording of an obituary, like maybe being a writer.

I would like to make it a little more

Michael: colorful. So what's missing for you? Like does it not capture the man? Does it not have personality aspects? Well, I

Drew: knew him a little bit, so I would immediately say like how jovial he was. We

Michael: should pause on that. Tell me about your meeting George Rome.

Drew: The first time I actually met him was waiting in line at an all night horror marathon in front of an abandoned mental asylum

Michael: And he's, I mean, he's an unmistakable figure. He's a tall guy. He's got the ponytail in the glasses. So you knew immediately who he was. And are you, did you just strike up a conversation with him? Yeah, we

Drew: talked for a while and he, I remember he csig my, um, my little ticket stub and he would always, Autograph everything and he would just say, Stay scared.

Yeah. With a little exclamation point. That's cool. Yeah. So he was always, uh, really enthusiastic about the horror genre, but he said jovial. He just has like working class vibe and is just always like easy to laugh. Yeah. And makes you just feel at home

Michael: immediately. Let's get back to the first time of the obituary.

So horror, visionary, who created the. Zombie genre. Is that true? I mean, I've always thought it is true modern being the operative word

Drew: there. It has to be. I mean, and, and there's also what people refer to as the Romero rules. Mm. Slow moving zombies, for example, because they have rigor mortis. Right. And fleshing.

Flesh eating for sure. Um, and the Walking Dead ended up staying with those Romero rules, mostly

Michael: following the Romero rules, uh, influence generations of horror enthusiasts. I mean, I think this is actually, you said matter of fact, but I think this is a, a pretty glowing first line of the obituary. Yeah, it is.

Drew: I don't know. It is, it's, It's nice to see that he inspired so many people and they mentioned that right

off

Michael: the bat. Yeah. But yeah, you still felt, I mean, you seemed disappointed. What word would you want in here to capture, even if you were to go for the personality a little bit and jovial, you mentioned maybe there's something else.

Maybe

Drew: somebody that should be considered more of an aur. I mean, all of his films, I feel like you can tell they're Romero films.

Michael: Yeah. And that, so that's a, that's an omission that's missing. The way I understand it is what an AUR is, is uh, kind of a, a director who's got a singular vision, but, uh, somebody who's also independent.

I mean, a lot of George Romero's career was outside of the, you know, traditional Hollywood infrastructure. Yes. I mean, he. He is renowned as an independent filmmaker and you know, I really like that you used the word auteur because I think it's a great way to capture his independence as well as his sort of singular vision and his commitment to, you know, what it means to make a movie.

Yeah. That's not to say he's not a really collaborative guy, cuz I think he is a very collaborative guy. So the word Artur is really good. All right. Scale of one to 10, what's your score? I'll give it

Drew: a seven. It's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty

Michael: good. I think it may go. Okay. And I almost want to go nine, but I, I actually like a lot what you said there about the word aur because I feel like that is something that needs to be used sparingly.

And actually he qualifies. I think he qualifies. Yeah. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Drew and I are gonna work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. Do you wanna start? You start.

Drew: I love hearing about what people were doing when they were passing away or when they were about to pass away, what was important to them.

Yeah. You

Michael: know, dude, I think I have this, Dave, is this the quiet man? Yes. So what is the quiet man? He died listening to the soundtrack

Drew: of The Quiet Man. Yeah, The Quiet Man is John Ford movie starting John Wayne. And it makes sense that, you know, somebody of his age would really love that movie, but the fact that he went.

And he died and passed away listening to it. It, yeah, I just think it's beautiful. It just shows that he still loved movies and, and it's a movie that he loved when he was a kid. So maybe he was thinking back to his memories as a child or just kind of growing up and, um, wanted to be in that place again.

Michael: Um,

I love that we both independently had this, this was, this was on my list. Yeah. Just like, I want to die listening to music, Man. The idea of somebody dying while they're listening to music that has a setting to it. Right. You imagine, you know, put that on loop. I'm ready. And I hadn't thought about it before, but when I learned about that, I thought what a great thing to, to be true about it.

Do

Drew: you think the music you would listen to would be on a, from a soundtrack or a.

Michael: It's a good question. I mean, I think it'd have to be something largely atmospheric. I, I don't think I wanna like die listening to the stones or something. Right. And I don't think I want it to be a jam band, you know? So I'd really have to think about it.

It'd have to be something that it really is transport and feels like bigger and greater than me. Something cinematic actually makes a lot of sense. All right. Can I take number two, please? So he created not just the modern zombie, but I think it's actually a new age in horror movies. Overall, I think you can mark Night of The Living Dead as a real hinge point in the history of horror films.

Night of The Living Dead represents a real inflection point in the history of film and, and this is the other thing I want to add in terms of something I love about George Romero. He seemed kind of humble about that.

Drew: Yeah, I think it did take time too. Him to be kind of credited with that. And it doesn't seem like a movie like Nile Living Dead would actually come out in 1968.

I think one of the reasons is cuz it's in black and white. Yeah. So it feels like it's older immediately, but that's just because that's what they could afford. But 1968 too was also one of the most tumultuous like violent years in

Michael: America, Vietnam Civil rights movement. On and

Drew: on. Yeah. I mean, this came out in October.

And Robert F. Kennedy passed away in June or July. Killed him. No. Passed away. He was shot kill. He was shot kill. He was totally assassinated by Sirhan. Sirhan. Yeah, right. I think audiences kind of needed something like that and maybe they didn't know it, but they needed something that was total

Michael: escapism.

Well, I mean the things that I think are unique about not living dead are one black protagonist, but I think also the level of gore, you know of, of like the zombies actually eating flesh off the bone, those things are like shock. In 1968. Right, But I mean it shortly after that you get Wes Craven and Kronenberg and John Carpenter and like you, you know, throughout the seventies you get a new generation of horror film directors.

But I wanna talk about the humility around it. Do you think he had a discomfort with the credit and praise he was given for? I think he always

Drew: played it down. You

Michael: birthed an entire modern genre entirely by yourself with that. I had no idea.

you know how it is. You just don't even think that way at all. You come up with an idea and you say, Okay, but it big. But a big but big. And then people read what they want to read into it. And , I love the idea that I'm credited with this, but I don't think. I really

Drew: deserve, especially with the casting of Dwayne Jones, um, he a black man

Michael: and being the lead in 1968.

Drew: Yeah. But he's also talked about how maybe publicly he never talked about it, but, um, when they were filming that a Living Dead, Dwayne Jones and Romero definitely talked about. The risk they were taking. Dwayne Jones felt that way. Yeah. You know, he, he, he felt like that this hasn't happened very often, you know, to be the lead of a film like this.

So he knew it a lot more than Romero did.

Michael: The story Romero tells is that the reason we cast Dwayne in that role is because he was just the best actor among our groups of friends. We were not trying to make necessarily a political statement by casting a black man as the lead, but because of that, you know, people have read a lot of commentary into not a living.

Even though when Jack Russo and I wrote the script, the character in the script, we assumed him to be white. When Dwayne agreed to play the role, we didn't change the script. The same things would've happened to him if the actor had been white. The fact that these redneck Posse guys shot him, that became racial instead of just a mistaken identity.

I think that's one of the reason. People believe to this day that it's important and in, in a certain way, it was a mistake. So I, I almost felt like an internal tension around his legacy that I felt like came out in every interview I saw with him. Do you think that's a fair description? Yeah.

Drew: I think the association over time maybe got to him a little bit.

Yeah. Um, and he was always a really humble person and not living dead was a little bit of an accident. Yeah. I think that to happen and then. We'll talk about Donna the Dead, but he did go in saying, I need to have an idea here first if I'm gonna do a sequel to something that's so well known.

Michael: Totally. So that's my thing.

Number two, why don't you go with number three. I

Drew: think my number three would be kind of inspiring filmmakers like Edgar Wright, uh, to make classics like Shauna The Dead, when I talked about meeting him for the first time at that all night movie Marathon, Shawn the Dead had just come out and Romero was talking about it and saying how brilliant it was, and that kind of felt like a new.

Kind of movie too, when Edgar Wright suddenly was a part of a new filmmaking style,

Michael: I think. Yeah. Did you watch that interview? He did with Gareth Del Toro. Gaer Del Toro. Gaer Del Toro, yeah. Thank you. I always grew up his name. It's a similar sort of thing where he is like, There is a beautifully painful, sick, gorgeous, , tragic, poetic, such a sense of tragic injustice in your film.

That is seminal for me for the strain blade, Chronos, whatever you name it. And I think that you gave boys to an entire, to an entire, uh, like at the anxiety that was in the air. There's no question that he inspired a generation of directors.

Drew: Absolutely. You're right. I think he, he is really surprised, especially when it's, you know, Oscar winning.

And directors that are, that are mentioning it too, so he doesn't take it seriously. I think George

Michael: A. Romero, as far as I'm concerned, that A stands for a genius.

I owe this man a huge debt and so does every filmmaker, whoever dared to declare their own. Because George Romero did it first, and he did it with more guts and more gore than anybody. Uh, I'm gonna go with my number for you. Ok. I. Pittsburgh creative tradition. I love his association with Pittsburgh. So I was trying to think of other kind of like great artists or works of art that came out of Pittsburgh.

My short list is Andy Warhol, Mr. Rogers, and then this one turns out not to be true. I thought talking heads were outta Pittsburgh and I thought that there was sp some special association with talking heads in Pittsburgh. It turns out just the basis is from there, so I shouldn't have even brought him up.

Andy Warhol and Mr. Rogers is good enough, but it's pretty big. Yeah. But , have you been

Drew: to Pittsburgh? I have, yeah. Yeah. And went to the Warhol Museum.

Michael: It's a creative city, like there's a lot of creative energy there, and it's sort of like great to me that. Romero was anchored there, at least for a time. What makes Pittsburgh kind of interesting?

I mean, it's this, you know, kind of a post-industrial city, you know, And so there is a little bit of, you know, urban decay and it's also got like a real kind of gothic feel, right? I mean, there's something about the environment of Pittsburgh that is, you know, a great starting place for thinking about horror movies, right?

It's just not hard to see. The vibe of that place and the aesthetics of Pittsburgh, what it is, what it was, you know, kind of play into the, the zombie apocalypse idea or really horror movies overall. So that's my number four, Pittsburgh creative tradition. Uh, all right. What do you got for number five, Drew?

Drew: I think it's kind of a personal one, but I loved how he always wore the same outfit. Oh, wow. You know, just even like more later in life. Yeah. Um, but he had this outdoor vest on. All the time, and I love this. This is, and yeah, and his kind of black rimmed, huge glasses, always in a ponytail. And it always seemed like he was ready to go to work.

Yeah. Like he, um, had notes in his back pocket and, you know, a couple pencils and pens and was just ready to rock. And, um, he just got comfortable in it. And I just love thinking about. How many pairs of the same clothes he has in his closet.

Michael: Yeah. Isn't there a movie? I feel like there's a movie where somebody's got the same

Drew: wardrobe.

You might be thinking of, uh, Seth Brunel and the Fly .

Michael: I don't think that's what I

Drew: think of. That's what I think of. I think I am. Yeah. It's like Jeff Goldblum and Gina Davis says, Why are you always wearing the same thing? And like, Oh, I, I'm not wearing the same thing. I have just the same pair, the same outfit repeated, because he's such a genius.

Jeff Goldblum in the movie, um, that he doesn't wanna have to think about clothes. He's too busy thinking about other things. So maybe Romero felt that

Michael: way too. I like little simple life hacks like that. Mm-hmm. , if people are gonna accept you for who you are, wherever you show up, I mean, George Romero does not need to put on a suit for anybody.

No. So why not wear the same thing every

Drew: day? You could tell he was just really comfortable and it, yeah, it was his.

Michael: I wish I could do that. This is actually, uh, I don't think so. I don't think I'm quite there. I'd like to get to that. This is desirable though. If the North Star of Famous and Gravy is desirable life decisions, having the same outfit speaks to self-acceptance on some level, or it speaks to like, I'm just not gonna think about this anymore.

I'm just gonna wear mm-hmm. this outfit . That's a great one. All right, well those are our five things. Let's recap. You started off with died listening to the Quiet Man soundtrack. I love that you had that too. I said not just a creator, but a somewhat humble creator of perhaps the modern horror movie genre.

Then influenced a generation of directors, some of whom won Oscars. I said Pittsburgh creative tradition, and you said, Same outfit every day. Same outfit. Yeah. That's a great list. All right. Category three, Melich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people take little portal into John Markovic's mind, where they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

The point of this category is to imagine what an interesting memory or experience might have been. What do you got here? Drew,

Drew: going back to night Living Dead is when they found out, while they were shooting the movie that Martin Luther King had. I think that they were driving and they heard it on

Michael: the radio and I think, yeah, they were try, they had like wrapped the film and they were driving to New York to, to screen it, right?

Yeah.

Drew: I think they had prints in the car and essentially just going and, and showing it for, I think one of the first times,

Michael: and this is the way Romero tells that story, Little did we know right when we made the first print of that, of the movie and we were driving it to New York to show it to potential dis.

Um, we heard driving in the car, uh, one of the producers Riner, and I heard the news on the radio that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Now all of a sudden, it was a black film. It became a black. This is the first time he realized that the racial overtones, um, that Dwayne was telling him about on set may actually, maybe this guy has a point something to be maybe we're not in a post-racial society in 1968.

Drew: Not quite. Uh, I've always thought personally that even though he's always said that he. You know, just cast the best actor. I think he had an inkling pretty quickly. I think he almost did that out of respect for Dwayne Jones, cuz he was a very good actor. Yeah. But he had to have been, you know, aware of all that and, and of course when something that monumentous happens, he's going to be thinking about the impact of that a little bit more, especially after the conversations that he'd had with Jones.

Michael: Do you think he was surprised by the success of the film? I mean, definitely. Yeah. Okay. Why do you think Night is so successful as a

Drew: film? People have really hadn't seen anything like that before. Um, it's almost kind of a home invasion movie too that I think a lot of people are innately afraid of.

Michael: And so you think people are like attracted to the survivalist aspect of it?

I think so, yeah. Yeah. I think there's more to it though. Night a living dead has a lot of happy accidents where happen to have a black man as the protagonist and therefore the movie has racial overtones that symbolize, you know, the to malt of the late 1960s. I think that there's also a, I had a friend put it this way to me recently.

He said one thing that's really interesting about the horror genre, Is that it's asking a very primal question, which is what is human, right? So if you look at other genres, like, you know, if you look at arom com, there's a kind of question of what is love, right? Or if you look at action adventure, it may be like, what would you do?

Or how. Far would you be willing to go in a given situation? Genres ask a deeper question, and horror asks this question, What is human? And I think that what's so interesting to me about zombies is that they are humanlike, they've got the human form they do consume, and that there's a real interesting metaphor in terms.

Consumption. Right? It, it's as if you are being eaten up by something that you don't want to become. So there's just like all this symbolism built in that I'm not, I don't think Romero really thought that much about when he did not the living dead. I think that that all those metaphors come out with Dawn of the dead.

Well, it's

Drew: just seeing a zombie like that too. It's really an unnatural thing. It's people that used to be human and they're not anymore. Yeah. But you might still recognize them. But I think that's really something. Scares people a little bit is the idea of thinking about these people, that they used to be human and eventually they're not going to be, that they're going to be dead.

To sort

Michael: of extrapolate out from that, I mean, if you're in a zombie scenario and somebody you love transforms, I mean, that is the idea of. Like people growing apart or you know, somebody becoming something you don't want them to be and you having no power over that. But now it's threatening to you. I mean there, there's something very humanistic about the whole thought exercise of what a zombie is and what it, what it means.

And to get back to your Malcolm, which moment, I mean, I think that if there are accidental, you know, sort. Overtones of racial commentary and, and speaking to what's going on in 1968. It sort of accidentally works very, very well in night, a living dead. It was

Drew: definitely tapping into a cultural zeitgeist sort of

Michael: things in the ether.

That and in a cultural moment that you're grabbing from that wind up being in the screenplay and on the camera when you actually make the film.

Drew: Yeah, I think with art and music, Because you're a part of a scene. Yeah. Sometimes if you go to a museum and you see a series of paintings, a cubism, whatever it is.

You kind of think maybe I could paint that. Maybe you could, but the reason why it's well known and the reason why it's famous is because it was part of a movement. I

Michael: mean, this is what artists do. I think a lot of the elements that can wind up in art are subconscious. Right. They're only so intentional.

Like that's the whole idea in a way. Mm-hmm. , I mean, I think we create movies and then 50% is what we wanna say, and 50% is what? Say without knowing. I really believe that. I think that's actually true because I certainly was not saying some of those things. Yeah. But, uh, in the, but they were in the air. We know that directing is managing choices, whether your choices or or the weather or the budget.

Yeah. Right. And when you manage, you imprint who you are in your essence, and you've always, that runs through your movies, through all the dead movies on every other. That's a good maich moment, Drew. All right. Uh, can I bring you my maich moment? Yes, please. Are you up to speed on this tales of Hoff? Yes. Do are you know where this is going, The story?

Cause I have actually not seen it. What the story I saw was that Romero was obsessed with it when he was a teenager and he grew up in New York. Right. And he used to go, and this was before VHS is before you could rent movies. And he used to go and borrow it. And I used to ran projectors. I'd use all my allowance money to rent a projector, rent a movie.

I would have these screen. For friends and family. And whenever I would go to try to rent out the tales of Hoffman, it was always there because nobody wanted it. Nobody ever would rent the tales of Hoffman. One day it was out, and the the guy, I said, Mm, this kid from Brooklyn has it. I said, Okay. So several weeks later when I, when I, I came back again and it was out again and I.

And the guy says to me, Finance kid from Brooklyn, His name is Scorsese

To this day, Martin and I rag each other about this cuz we are the only two guys that were ever renting the Tales of Hoffman. What do you know about this movie?

Drew: You've seen it? Yeah, and actually I've, I think I saw it for the first time because I knew that Romero liked it. Yeah. So, so he actually, you know, helps my, my, um, I M D B I Q as I like to call it.

Yeah. And I think the reason why it resonates too is because they kept coming back and seeing. just one name. If it had been a few, they never would've thought anything of it, but they're like, Who is this George Guy? Who is this Martin guy?

Michael: Yeah. So my Melich moment here, I was actually gonna say the first time Romero saw.

I'm gonna go with Main Streets cuz I think he probably didn't really know who Martin's Scorsese was until, and he wasn't able to put it together until he saw Main Streets. Oh, that's that kid who had that movie

Drew: when I was a teenager. It's interesting too because none of the, again, either filmmaker made a movie that remotely looks like Tales a Hoffman at all.

Yeah. Why, why do these two guys care about it? Well, it's gorgeous for one thing, and it's Faustian, it's kind of a, uh, Faustian. What does that mean? Um, well it's, that's, it's kind of based on these like, um, Faust stories, like from, um, the kind of like fables. Okay. So, and it's, it's told and it's almost, it's kind of an anthology, which is interesting cuz Romero ended up.

Making creep show, which is one of the best horror anthologies ever made. So maybe that was his, his version of it in a

way,

Michael: The Tales of Hopman and it has since become my favorite film of all time. It made me wanna make movies cuz he used, he had a, he had a low budget and I could see what he was doing. I could see that he was running scenes in reverse and, and flipping images and I could actually see the way he was doing it.

And I, and I, I began, Believe that maybe I could do that. And you know, cuz at the same age, if I had seen something like Jurassic Park, I would've just puzzled over it and forget

Drew: about it. And I wonder if Scorsese realized it before Romero did. Yeah. Not the other way around. Yeah. That

Michael: feels possible. Maybe he got a call.

Drew: Yeah. Cause he, he definitely saw Night of the Living Dead George. It's,

Michael: it's Martin . It's just one, you know, tells Hoffman Man.

Drew: And I love Night of the

Michael: Living Dead. Yeah. Category four, Love and marriage. How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Okay, I'll go through this.

George was married three times, First to Nancy in 1971. George is 31 at the time. They divorced in 1978, Georges 38. During that divorce, second wife, actress, Christine Forrest, they met on the set of season of the witch, uh, in 1973. They married in 1981, Georges 41. At the time, they had two children, Andrew and Tina.

The couple divorced in 2010 after three decades of marriage when George was 70. I wrote down, Wow. With an exclamation point. That's a long time to be married and have kids and then get divorced. And then George, uh, Romero met Suzanne while filming Land of the Dead in 2005. They married in September of 2011 when George was 71 and they were together until his death.

You mentioned before this interview, he's a pretty private guy. What, if anything, do you know about these marriages? Drew,

Drew: the, the one that I know the most is Christine Forrest cuz she appeared. So many of the movies. Yeah. I mean she was, uh, played like a TV producer at the beginning of Donna The Dead. Uh, she was in Martin.

She was even in night writers, which is an a time. Yeah, they, yeah, A time. So good. One of the best scores ever by, um, Donald Rubinstein. These are

Michael: some of his non zombie movies. And then

Drew: there was also the story that, I don't know if it's true or not, but when Stephen King was on set, um, on creep show, he met Christine for the first time and was like, I like that name.

Michael: I'm gonna use it in my next book. I'm gonna use it for a book. Yeah. I wasn't able to dig up much more. I Googled around and tried to find out, you know, what led to the breakup and with all of these women, he did meet the next wife years before his divorce. So there's a kind of potential story to tell of maybe he fell in love with somebody.

And then thus began the end of the next marriage. But it was sort of, I don't know, it was kind of bummed out there. There's something

Drew: romantic too about meeting on set as as well too, I think, cuz they, I believe Christ Christine and George met on set as well. But love that you're telling

Michael: the happy story about all this.

Like I, I think

Drew: it's great that they were married 30 years.

Michael: It's really? Yeah. Is that what you want? That's sure. It's not with

Drew: you wife. I'm, well, I I just celebrate my sixth, uh, wedding anniversary. Wouldn't do 24 more to go. That sounds great. . Yes.

Michael: That's great. By the time you get there, put it on my calendar.

But a Google reminder, you know, many years into the future, but I, I don't know. I like it. Did. If I make it to 70, stuck it out with you. I just hope I'm happy enough that we're gonna like ride off. Death together listening to the same soundtrack, or at least,

Drew: you know, that's the last argument. What are we gonna listen to?

Michael: I guess that's right. Uh, alright, well that's love and marriage. Do you know anything else on the family front?

Drew: He, he always said that he was still the same guy. This, this kind of grew apart. Um, I don't know if that's, that, that's, uh, Is that what he said about it? Yeah. I don't know how she would view that.

Yeah. Um, I think his son is doing commercials, but I'd met Christine before cuz she was kind of around him, kind of, um, helped support him at the conventions Yeah. That he was going to and talking to thousands of

Michael: fans. All right. Let's go on category five. Net worth. Uh, Google the net worth. If anybody, and for better or worse, Google will return an answer.

I saw 35 million. These are

Drew: always wrong . Every time you, Every time you, These are

Michael: always wrong. Are you criticizing famous and gravy's categories?

Drew: No, not at all. I just think, well, in this particular case, I would say less, Yeah. Okay. Why? Maybe in Canadian dollars, but yeah, I just. When I really think about financially, how he benefited from, let's be honest, the dead franchise there was, I mean, he had success for sure in in other films, and he's known for other films, probably most notably creep show.

Yeah. I just don't see how that series of films translates to tons of money. It's Night Living Dead

Michael: went out. It cost us a hundred some thousand dollars to make it. It returned in its first six months of. 700 grand or something like that. So we're sitting there going, This is an easy business. and, And the , you know, we found out it was not so easy.

In fact, Night At a Living Dead had an original title that was something like Night of the Ghouls or something like that. And then they changed the title and it led to all this curfuffle with the rights. There's

Drew: a lot of legal things with that. Yeah. There was another,

Michael: like, nobody owns it. There's no copyright

Drew: protection on it.

Well, there's. of the Dead and then living Dead too. So there's the original producer, another Living Dead, another producer, John Russo. Mm-hmm. , when they split. Romero was allowed to do of the dead films. And then John Roo was doing Living Dead films, so he did like Return of Living Dead Oh. Um, in the eighties, which is one of the best eighties movies ever made.

Michael: That's the one that turned me onto zombie movies in the first place. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. What were we talking

about?

Drew: We were talking about the, the legal, um, separation between Oh, right, Yes. Yeah. And, and how that would maybe translate to monies for, uh, Romero.

Michael: So it's, here's my read on Romero's career. He does night a living dead Early on.

He gets a deal to do some other things. That's kind of interesting. Night writer. He tries, uh, season of the witch, you know, Martin eventually, and then comes back and does Donna the Dead, which is I think his best. You'd probably agree. I would agree. And then he does a lot of horror movies in the eighties, including Day of the Dead, which rounds out the Trilogy Creep Show, which isn't a zombie movie, but has a zombie vignette in it.

But then by the 21st Century, like everything he's doing is capitalizing on his association with Zombies, Land, and Diary, and all the other ones that are like gonna make money at some point in his. Story A, a kind of like, Well, this is where the money's at. I'm gonna do dead movies. Which, there's nothing wrong with that, but that, But that's why I think 35 million is not a crazy number because he is so revered in this genre.

You're starting to convince me a little bit. I think that there is a little bit of an uncomfortable relationship between the movies he really wanted to do and was able to do overtime because of the outsized fandom around. His zombie movies. I

Drew: used to joke that he should make whatever movie he wants to make, but just add of the dead to the end of it.

Yeah, and he gets to make

Michael: it. Don't even have to have zombies. I think 35 million seems about right for somebody who is credited with creating a moderate genre,

Drew: I love thinking that it's

Michael: right. Category six, Simpson Cite Live or Hall of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons, as well as Imperson.

Okay, I'll go through this real quick. Simpsons. In season 11, there is an episode called E I E I Dough, where, uh, Homer grows tomatoes. Uh, so it's very, very addictive. Tomatoes and the animals on the farm eat the tobaccos, go crazy

every on the farm, takes refuge in the farmhouse vis-a-vis, not a living dad. George Romero never did voice, uh, on the Simpsons, but Tom Savini did. Yes, he did. All right. Saturday Night Live, he was never on it, and I saw almost nothing. There have been a handful of zombie skits, but Romero was never on Saturday Night Live, he does have a Hollywood star, but it was posthumous wouldn't Granite until 2017.

That's right. I think this tracks, he's not that famous. I took him to be a household name and I don't think he is. And I think that's tragic, but I think that you actually have to be in on zombie movies to know who this guy is.

Drew: I'm the wrong one to ask cuz every household that I've been in knows, knows who he is for the most part, you know?

But I've been in some weird houses.

Michael: Yeah. All right. Category seven over under. In this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds and as a measure of grace. So the life expectancy for men born in the US in 1940 was 60.8. He died at 77 over by about 16 or 17 years, aged pretty gracefully.

Like he did, like, but pictures I saw between, you know, 2015 and 2005, like, you know, seemed like graceful aging. So, but he was always a smoker. Yeah. No. And that's what got him, right? Yeah. When lung cancer in the end. Mm-hmm. . Um, so, uh, are you still smoking? No. No, no, No. When did you quit? years ago, you and I used to smoke quite a lot of cigarettes too.

We

Drew: used to smoke all, all the time. Yeah. I kind of miss him. But that it was cool back then and we had young lungs. Yeah, it's true. You know,

Michael: just walking

Drew: off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I stopped a few years ago. I just, just, it was one of those, I was in a car, I was in my friend's smoking car, you know, He had two cars.

Yeah. . Really? Yeah. I was in his smoking car. in, in Pennsylvania, actually. I'll be down, uh, not in Pittsburgh, but uh, in York, Pennsylvania, and, yeah. And just, just, um, I was like, this doesn't taste good, and just threw it out the window. Didn't touch it.

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Hey, Famous and Gravy listeners. There's a podcast I want to tell you about called Dismembering Horror. It's hosted by Ryan McDuffy and Tim Aslan, and on each show they choose a horror film and they break down what did and didn't work. There's something about a horror movie where there's always something to talk about.

It's a unique format where you really learn a lot about filmmaking and it sort of just captures the spirit of what it's like to walk out of a horror movie and sit around having drinks with your friends and breaking it down. I was actually on a recent episode and had a ton of fun talking to these guys, so Dismembering her with Ryan McDuffy and Tim Aslan highly re.

The first of the inner life categories we call man and the mirror. What did they think about their own reflection before the break? You and I were talking, he is very tall and seemed a little awkward to me with his height plus the ponytail, the big square glasses. Which are kind of cartoonish to me. His, he doesn't smile very easily for the camera.

Looked a little forced. He looked a smidge awkward to me. Andy wore the same outfit every day, which I didn't know until you told me. I'm going, No, pretty close. I'm going, No, I'm not sure. Uh, he likes his reflection. I don't know how much

Drew: he thought about it. Maybe, maybe early on, but I think he found his character.

I think he found a look that worked for him, and then he could just stop thinking about

Michael: it. Yeah. But, uh, I mean, I, I also get the sense that he was exhausted by his character and the character. Gave to him. I mean, the name for those zombie movie fanatics out there, you know, carries such weight and such like genius and brilliance behind it.

And I, I feel like, you know, as we were talking about earlier, he's got a real mixed relationship with his own legacy. You know, because we have to make a call. My take was that he did not like his

Drew: own reflection. I would agree with that. I think it makes me sad, but I agree.

Michael: Category nine, outgoing message like man in the mirror.

We want to know how they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or uh, would they even leave it in their outgoing voicemail? I think he's a talker. I think he liked his

Drew: voice. I think he definitely did. Yeah, it's still Bronx to it. Got a little Pittsburgh maybe, but.

Bronx Accent

Michael: through and through. That's a great voice though. He's a, he's a fun guy to listen to talk. I do think he's a little bit, as time went on, I think he became a little bit less eloquent. The interviews I saw of him younger. He's a little more thoughtful, a little bit more engaged, I think, as he gets sort of cast as this character who's led this revolution in zombie horror movies.

I felt like, you know, he had a little bit less to say. Even the setting of the mall in uh, Donna the Dead was a little not happy accident. That was the inspiration. He was waiting to have something to say before he did a sequel to not a Living Dead. And that was when he learned about, you know, through a social connection, that there was this mall being

Drew: built.

And I've actually been to Monroeville Mall as well. They have a statue of him now, actually a little, Um, Did you visit by yourself? No, I forced my wife's parents and my wife to tag along . Yeah, they, they, they drove me there. Back up. What

Michael: are the circumstances? Where were you?

Drew: We have family members in Pittsburgh and we were there for a wedding.

Michael: And you said, Can we go visit the mall? And I was like, If we have

Drew: time . If we can't buy, if we can't go by Evan's Cemetery for Night Living Dead, that's cool, I guess, but could we maybe go buy

Michael: them all? And was this like an all day outing or an a. It didn't take

Drew: too long. I got surprisingly emotional too, . I was riding up the escalator recreating things.

And what's interesting about them mall is that sure, the, the shops have changed, but it, the interior of it looks the same really. It really does. And I don't think they intentionally kept it that way, but it really, you can see all the scenes happening right in front of your rise. If you know the movie really well.

I

Michael: love that you got emotional in front of your in-laws.

Drew: They video, I mean, they actually took footage of me doing it too. Yeah. On their. It's great. So I still have those and me posing with his, his statue.

Michael: And might have to put this on YouTube and add it to the show notes. I think I put it on Instagram.

Drew: Okay, we'll find it. Follow me . Yo

Michael: DS 10. We'll do the plugs. Do you wanna talk about Donna the Dead now?

Drew: Totally . Yeah, sure.

Michael: Talk about Donna Dead . Why? Why is this the best film we ever made?

Drew: Well, it's a masterpiece. I mean, first of all, what makes it a masterpiece? Well, I think it. The commentary on consumerism that's really on the nose and you get it, um, pretty much right off the bat by

Michael: setting the film in the, in the

Drew: shopping mall.

Yeah. And, and I, I think that, or largely in the shopping mall, there's, there's a level of fantasy to it too, where, um, the characters end up having fun. And, and that's, that's, and that's something, um, that, uh, I'm, I was really surprised by when I first saw it, because you start thinking, Oh, well, maybe the zombie apocalypse in a mall could be a lot of fun.

Hold up there all the time. But it, it's, it also the film makes, does a really good job of making it kind of a survival, horror movie. Then they feel safe in the mall, then they get complacent. And so it becomes a little bit of a metaphor for life and struggle, I think of, of saying, Hey, um, now we're good.

And then suddenly at the end, the ugliness of the life out there comes roaring in literally to the mall. Um, and. They have to escape. Yeah. And they have to kind of, they're forced to kind of leave, um, this kind of heaven they've created for themselves. But they get, they get so bored over the process that I think they needed

Michael: it.

I mean, the basic point is that there's a limit to consumerism, Right? And that e e, even with material needs met, you are going to be left lacking and wanting, and that's not sufficient for life satisfaction. I mean, this is the thing I've about Romero I've also seen is that when asked about how others have tried to do the zombie genre, he does seem frustrated that nobody's trying to quite make a statement.

Walking Dead may adopt the Romero rules, but it's like it's melodrama that happens to have zombies. You know, Zach Snyder's, remake of Dawn of the Dead. You know, he is like, eh, it's sort of interesting at first, but then it just becomes an action flick. I kind of agree with that. I, I actually am frustrated that not more filmmakers have tried to milk the metaphors for what they're worth.

I mean, Dawn of the Dead is a masterpiece in a way. It's also very rooted in time and there's some shit that's like, like it's more funny than it is scary. Yeah. Despite what Roger Ebert has to say,

Drew: I think definitely intent.

Michael: Donna the Dead. And some of the things that I did later are really overtly funny.

I mean, they're just, In fact, Donna the Dead is slapstick. I consider it to be slapstick humor. People that love the genre, people that are really into horror will sit around and tell each other, But I saw this movie, man, and you know what happened? And they're laughing all the way, you know, and, and I'm laughing all the way when we're making one of these, It's like an amusement park ride.

It's like a laugh in the dark, which is fun. And it's meant to be fun and at its root somewhere. Is that kind of fun? So what is your message? I guess , if there's, there is a message or there is, there's some thought in the zombie films anyway, uh, which is more societal. It's kind of, uh, social, uh, satire one society, uh, swallowing another society in this case literally.

Yes. Because what is scary is the masses coming to eat you. This is what we deal with in life that we feel like we're gonna get eaten up by, you know, corporate machinery or getting up, eaten up by consumer culture. This is what's so brilliant about the zombie.

Drew: To me. That's another reason why Don the dead is still the kinda evergreen a little bit.

Yeah. Cause you, it's it, you can look at it as consumerism. You can look at it. Corporate greed. You can even ai, whatever you want to plug into it, you can.

Michael: All those things are there. Uh, next category regrets, Public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night?

Public. Uh, we mentioned the deal he signed with, uh, where he lost the copyright to Night Living Dead. I think that one has to be mentioned. He talked later about his portrayal of women because he was like, um, especially in night Living dead, Barbara is like so unbelievably incompetent at everything and he's like, Man, that didn't, I'm not proud of that.

And he really begins to. Some people have described it Day of the Dead as a feminist movie because I forget the woman's name, but Lori Cardell. . Thank you. You're welcome. So, uh, I like the idea that day is a feminist movie. I also think that the big one for me, this is beyond his control, but the way other adopters of the genre did not.

Take up, you know, the sort of metaphor and allegory and commentary as he would've wanted it. That I think he was trying to say something. Um, and I, I think he, perhaps it's a public regret that others didn't take up that mantle. I

Drew: think that's one of the reasons he likes Edgar Wright's film so much. Cause I think that did say a little bit about British culture and just in about the stodginess of it.

Yeah. And maybe the slacker generation a little bit too. Yeah. And stoner generation. Uh, so I think that, I think he really appreciated that.

Michael: Cause he did. He was, I mean he invited those guys on set and they were like in zombies

Drew: and That's right. That's right. They were, um, they were zombies in Land of the Dead, Simon,

Michael: Peg and Edgar.

Right? Yeah. , did you have anything else on public regrets?

Drew: No, not really. No. I,

Michael: I think, I think you touched on it. Okay. Uh, private. I have questions about wife number two. You're saying it's a like badge of honor that he made it to 30 years? I think to get divorced at 70, that just bumps me the fuck out, man.

I just don't get it. So I'm, I'm putting that in private regrets. And then I think the other one is I think he struggled to do non zombie things, particularly in the latter half of his career. I think he felt, definitely felt in a way kind of typecast and that sucks. You know, it's hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened or how that happened.

And you know, maybe the industry just passed him by, cuz he was pretty hardcore about being fairly independent and wanting a lot of control. You called them an A tour at the top of this episode and I think that that has a downside. It means you might not get green lights for things that. Whoever's financing your films gonna back.

Drew: Yeah. I would assume it'd be around the time when Land of the Dead came out, cuz that was with Universal, who had, who had, um, done the Don of the Dead remake, which was like you said, turned into an action film and I think they kind of wanted Land of the Dead to be an action film. Yeah. And I think that bummed him out.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why he moved to Canada and started making smaller films. Yeah.

Michael: All right. Category 11. Good dreams, Bad dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma.

He's kind of an along for the ride kind of guy. Seems to me he's pretty quick with a smile and a laugh. I wrote Good, which is sort of surprising giving that he's a horror movie. Uh, Tour and pioneer.

Drew: Well, I think Romero is one of the examples of when you. People making some of the most despicable movies or the most quarry movies, they get all that out of their system.

You think

Michael: so? Yeah. I've seen You think there's an exercising of demons? You've seen

Drew: this. I've seen it a lot. Yeah. And I think, I think he's one of them. I think,

Michael: um, actually that's interesting. Let me push on this a little bit. So you see this in creators who make horror movies, that they have a, a relationship with their deepest fears, that there's some sort of.

Creative outlet.

Drew: Absolutely. I mean, just to take your nightmares, for example, if you're having zombie nightmares and then you go make a zombie film. Yeah. You might be sleeping better at

Michael: night. I'm sleeping pretty good now. I've mostly worked it through, but that's good. That's good to hear. You know, But I'm also looking at death on this podcast, , so maybe that's where

Drew: some of that's coming from.

But I think, I think it's, I think it was cathartic for, for Romero. I'm, I'm sure he had, because of the difficulty making some films, um, outside of the zombie genre or maybe he had some problems with it. But I think. He was. He was a pretty happy, mellow guy on the inside and pretty

content.

Michael: All right, Category 12, second to last category.

This is cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead guests. This may be a question of what sounds like the most fun. Or maybe it's about a drug that would allow access to a part of him that we're most curious about. What do

Drew: you got? So I would have to go with, I'd love to see him stoned.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to get some smoke, a big joint with him. Why? I think we could really get riff in, man. You know, I think he, the way, the way he talks sometimes, he loved to just wax philosophical and, and, And maybe he would've let its scar down a little bit more. Um, and laugh his ass off, I'm sure. And h his laugh is infectious.

Michael: I do think there's some good humor there with him. I think he's got like, I wonder what else he finds funny. I'd be really fun to watch Shawna the Dead with him actually

Drew: get Stone and watch Shauna The Dead

Michael: with him. I think so. I went coffee because of the Happy Accident thing. I think that there is, Genius can reside with someone in a way that they themselves don't necessarily understand and don't necessarily recognized.

I think, you know, as he's gets put on this pedestal, you know, I, I felt like that question of what makes you so brilliant almost seemed to burdensome and not necessarily universally recognized. I think you have to be a zombie movie fan, to use the word genius. I think if you're not a fan of Zo, Maybe you don't see all that much.

So, but, but again, I think that there's this sort of tension of like how much credit to give or to not give him, because I think that without his movies, I'm not sure like the zombie ever would've been created. But I also felt like he picked up on a bunch of things that were in the air. I wonder how he understands his own brilliance or lack thereof and, and I kind of feel like coffee's the way to get at that.

I can't tell if he's trying to control his legacy or, or, or just like get people to think deeper about it before they credit him with too much.

Drew: Yeah, it would've been nice maybe every once in a while to hear Romero. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good. And he doesn't have to be Tarantino about it, but you know, he can say, Yeah, I've, It wasn't just happy accidents that I, I actually, some of this was really thought out.

I'm gonna Yeah. And he's really is an incredible filmmaker that did deserve a chance to take some bigger swings. Yeah.

Michael: All right. Well, I think we've arrived the Vander Beak named after James Vander Beak, who's famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want your life Drew. Do you want George Romero's life?

Drew: No.

Whoa. I don't want his life, You know, if I could know some of the people that he knew and had close relationships with some of those people, um, that, that would be very meaningful to me. But I would not want his, his, his life. But, um,

Michael: Well, why, why not? Wow. You were you, you, you came to that

Drew: fast. Well, I think that it, it might be something, uh, It's kind of the time he was born too.

Um, which I think would, I would come into this problem I think a lot, um, with Famous and Gravy. I love the time that I've, that I was brought up in and that I live in. Yeah. But with him specifically, um, if I look at maybe the frustrations he had, I don't think I'd want to go through that. And I don't know if everything that he, he made, um, would, would be worth it for me personally, I think it was for him,

Michael: the struggles he had as an artist.

Like they. Hard for you. Yeah, I think and non desirable.

Drew: I think it was more frustrating than, I think he was okay with it. I think he was at peace with it, but I think it was a little more frustrating than, than, uh, we realize,

Michael: Okay. You know, I was not expecting that I. I need to talk it out a little bit.

I'll tell you that marriage record really troubles me to get divorced at age 70. I don't get it. And that does sound like living in a state of frustration for many decades. And you know, the films he was able to make and not able to make, and the creative license he was and was not granted, it does feel like there were things that he wanted to do that he didn't get to.

You know, the legacy here is incredible. He was graced with some pretty cool opportunities. Night of the Living Dead sounds like a lot of fun to make with mostly friends over the course of a year, and it kind of takes off and that's gotta be exciting. Then he comes back and does do a incredible sequel that puts him in this whole other category, but it also seals his f.

In terms of how people are gonna associate with him, First of all, he is confined to horror. But even more than that, as time goes on, confined to zombie movies, to the extent that I have creative interest and I believe in a creative life, I want to have a creative life. I never want to be pigeonholed. And maybe that's the reason enough that plus getting divorced at 70, I think I'm It's a big one for you.

Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. No, man. I want a. Soulmate and, uh, and I don't wanna display, which is a lot to ask, but I'm, I'm a lucky man that way, so, yeah. I'm also a, No, I don't want your life. George Romero. I think we're at the pearl of the gates. Let's assume that there's room in heaven, even if there's no more room in hell.

Well done. Thank you. Drew, you are George Romero. You've. And you're really dead and you are gonna get a chance to meet St. Peter. The um, Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. The floor is yours.

Drew: Well, I know that I created the modern zombie film, but that's not why I should get in. I've made a lot of people happy and I didn't care about the adoration and I wasn't conceded about it.

Um, I was always humble throughout my life. Everyone that I came in contact with, all the fans that I've had, I feel like I've really always given them, um, a hug and always smiled for them and made them feel good and made them happy to be a horror fan. And I think that I've. Really kept people scared, and that's all I really want is for people to stay scared, and if I get allowed into heaven, I wanna scare the hell out of all of you.

Let me

Michael: in.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying our. Please tell your friends about us. Help spread the word. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous and Gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com.

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, Original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thanks for listening. See you next time.