Zombies are everywhere in pop culture today thanks to video games, movies, tv shows, books, toys, costumes, etc. Some people are a bit tired of zombies but without them, we'd be without great games like The Last of Us, Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, and so much more. We have one man to thank for that, George Romero.
Romero popularized the modern day zombie as we know it with a low budget film called Night of the Living Dead in the late 1960s. He basically helped shoot the flesh eating, slow walking, pale skinned monsters we know and love today into the main stream.
Sadly, George Romero has died at age 77 listening to the score of his favorite movie, The Quiet Man, after a brief battle with lung cancer. The director has been influential for filmmaking and the horror genre due to the fact that he made a terrifying film with a budget of just $114,000, proving to those like John Carpenter you don't need a big Hollywood budget to scare your audience. After Night of the Living Dead, Romero went on to make the classic Dawn of the Dead film which was remade in 2005 and is the biggest inspiration for Dead Rising.
George Romero was even featured as a boss in Call of Duty: Black Ops' Call of the Dead DLC map which sees a film set for a zombie movie get overrun by actual zombies. Romero then turns into a giant bullet sponge and terrorizes players throughout the match.
It would be hard to find any person who has made a zombie movie or game that doesn't say Romero was an inspiration for them. Creative director and writer of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann, was one of many who posted their thoughts on Twitter about the tragic passing of Romero.
RIP George Romero… as a student I had the privilege of briefly working with you. The Last of Us wouldn't exist without your inspiration.
— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) July 16, 2017
Rest in peace George Romero (1940 – 2017).
