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feAtuRe : dead man talking Saw Massacre’ going on to claim that ‘it takes its inspiration from the racial and political strife of late-60s America to create an anarchic veritè nightmare, which overturned the conventions of DeaD man fantastical horror.’ taLking Jon Towlson talks to Larry Fessenden, executive producer of the documentary George A Romero Birth of the Living Dead, which focuses on legendary director George A Romero Now a new documentary, Birth of the Living Dead, shows ghghghg how Romero gathered his the realisation, as Romero has Dead immerses audiences in the Birth of the Living Dead In 1968 a young George A spent weekends in a deserted unlikely team of Pittsburghers remarked, that the living dead are time in which Night was shot. comes alive Romero directed Night of the farmhouse outside of Pittsburgh - policemen, iron workers, simply ‘us’. ‘This is what we have Archival footage of the horrors Birth of the Living Dead was shot Living Dead, a low-budget shooting what would become teachers, ad men, housewives turned into, what we have done to of Vietnam and racial violence at in New York City, Toronto and Los horror film that revolutionised arguably the most influential and a roller-rink owner - to ourselves.’ home, combined with iconic music Angeles between the end of 2006 the horror genre, became an modern horror film ever made, shoot, in guerrilla run-and-gun In the late 1960s cultural from the 60s, invites viewers and the Summer of 2011. It was icon of 1960s counterculture, while during the rest of the week style, his chilling black and white rebellion by the younger to experience how Romero’s directed by Rob Kuhns, who has and spawned a zombie they filmed beer commercials masterpiece. During that process generation brought the tumultuous film reflected this been editing documentaries in New industry worth billions of and adverts for washing powder Romero and his team created hippie lifestyle into the public period in American history. York since 1987. It was produced dollars that continues to this for their advertising company, a new and frightening monster consciousness. At the same time Birth of the Living Dead shows by Kuhns and his wife, Esther. day. Gathering together a team Latent Image. - one that was undead and mass demonstrations against how Romero created a world- Kuhns had been a fan of Romero’s of ten investors (Image Ten), The result became a manifesto feasted upon human flesh. What the war in Vietnam and race renowned horror film that was also work since the early 1980s when each kicking in 600 dollars for the modern horror film. In made the flesh-eating zombie riots in major cities were tearing a profound insight into a society he first saw Night of the Living apiece, Romero and his crew, their 2004 retrospective of the such a potent monster was America apart. Birth of the Living falling apart at the seams. Dead as a midnight movie. Night which included co-writer John horror film, the British Film Russo, actors Duane Jones, Karl Institute described Night of the Hardman and Marilyn Eastman Living Dead as ‘a forerunner of (who also provided sound the angry thrills of Last House effects from their radio station) on the Left and The Texas Chain Larry Fessenden is a huge Romero fan 18 Digital FilmMaker Digital FilmMaker 19 feAtuRe : dead man talking social statement horror films that he has made. As well as directing groundbreaking horrors like Habit (1995), Wendigo (2001), The Last Winter (2006) and Beneath (2013), Fessenden and his production company, Glasseye Pix, has also produced films for the likes of Ti West (The Innkeepers) and Jim Mickle (Stake Land), as well as acting in a whole host of movies for Brad Anderson (Session 9), Jeremy Gardner (The Battery), Mickle, West and others. Alongside lending his services Audiences flocked to see Night of the Living Dead ghghghg had been playing regularly in New “i’ve always felt that horror was York since it first came out in ‘68. Kuhns read about Romero and a very personal genre and that it became fascinated with the story was an essential way to express of the making of Night. “Here was personal anxieties” - Larry Fessenden this crew of mostly working class people, not very experienced think what’s remarkable about Night of the Living Dead had, and in filmmaking and with very few the film is that you can sense similar films like Last House on resources, coming together to the cultural upheaval of America the Left, and some other movies make a seminal and world-shaking x in the late 60s in the DNA of the that came up in that time. But I film. It was a great story of a little- as an onscreen interviewee to Birth project. There’s just a questioning don’t think Romero was being movie-that-could.” of the Living Dead, Fessenden of authority. There’s a sense of political on purpose, I think it After filming extensive interviews also came on board as executive despair, I think, in the movie, was just a sign of the times that with George A Romero in Toronto, producer, offering suggestions especially with the ending, that this young band of filmmakers Kuhns started editing what would to Kuhns for further interviews anticipates movies that were outside of the Hollywood system become Birth of the Dead. But the that would help in the direction more directly addressing the got together and just their way project really began to take shape the film was going, helping with upheaval of the ‘60s. That’s why of thinking coincided with the when Kuhns started to explore the sound mix and generally cultural upheaval of the time.” the television archive footage of providing Kuhns with assistance Habit (1995), your psychological the Vietnam era. He saw the news in getting the film finished. Larry horror vampire movie, reminds me stories of racial violence exploding a bit of Romero’s Martin (1977). across the country and horrific Have you taken any conscious combat footage of the Vietnam influence from Romero’s work, or War - and the US government from 1970s horror in general? responses to both - and realised “I’ve always felt that horror was that Romero and his collaborators a very personal genre and that it had created in Night of the Living Fessenden has probably was an essential way to express Dead a film about the world done more to further the personal anxieties, and Habit was coming to an end at a historic cause of independent such a film. It came out of my time of enormous upheaval - a horror cinema than anyone love of the realism of ‘70s movies, living document of the time in else in the past ten years, combined with my affection for which it was made. Once Kuhns and his own subversive horror tropes that I observed illuminated the historical context, sense of the genre makes when I was a kid watching the old his new documentary evolved into x him the perfect spokesman Universal movies on television, something much richer than the for the documentary and its like Dracula and Frankenstein ‘making of’ film that he originally commentary on Romero’s I think it’s such a remarkable from the ‘30s. So my own films envisaged. legacy: film. Horror movies at that were my effort to combine So then, how did Night time had become almost kids’ the gritty social realism of the Big influence of the Living Dead create entertainment with the old Vincent ‘70s movies with these horror Enter Larry Fessenden, a a template for the political Price and Roger Corman films, tropes. I feel that Romero was filmmaker who has been horror films that followed? haunted castles and stuff, and doing the same thing. I wasn’t compared to Romero for the Larry Fessenden: “I they didn’t have the grit that necessarily influenced by him so 20 Digital FilmMaker Digital FilmMaker 21 x feAtuRe : dead man talking to participate because they’re not sure how it fits in. One of the worst things that happened to horror was Halloween (1978), which was so successful that finally Hollywood realised that rather than being a subversive bastard genre, horror can be a money maker. As a result, we have this landscape of remakes and repetition in the horror genre coming out of the studio system. But, at its best, horror comes as a reaction to the culture, as a way to shake up people’s complacency, and to get them to rethink the choices that we’re making in society. It really should be the punk rock of cinema. It should be rattling cages. That’s one of the pleasures. Because we’re dealing with something ghghghg that most people don’t want to think about: which is death, and death in the larger sense “i feel very strongly that the horror era, the assassinations we were of the self-destructive hubris of having in the States at the time, genre should respond to the and a real sense of anxiety and horrors of the day, and we have despair over what our future was. I think the best horror films rattle them in spades now” you and make you walk away society. For romance you go to of effects. So that’s a problem. feeling unsettled, I mean - that’s your comedies, which is fine. There’s a hundred exceptions. It’s the agenda. Just to make horror much as comforted that there a critique of consumer culture. which is about climate change.

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