Waiting For George A. Romero...

I did something today, that I would not do for many people. I went to the Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas, and met one of my filmmaking idols. I waited three and a half hours in a line to meet the master of modern film horror and the Godfather of Zombie movies, George A. Romero. George directed "Night of the Living Dead", and my one of my favorite films of all time, its sequel "Dawn of the Dead" He also did Day , Land, and the upcoming Diary of the Dead.




It was a long line and my dogs were barking way before I got there. Several times I considered bailing early on but after I got past the hotel lobby in line there was no going back. I made friends from Dallas and Oklahoma while in line. Once there I found George to be a very nice person indeed. I asked several questions and he always stopped what he was doing and looked you in the eye and gave you his full attention. He was quite impressed with my selection of things to have signed. My vinyl Dawn of the Dead soundtrack and Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead posters and laser discs. He told me has about two weeks left in post tweaking the cut for ""Diary of the Dead", and that it will prem in Toronto first and then will be released theatrically overseas before it opens in the States. By the way he was telling me it seemed that it had yet to find a distributor in the US, but was all sold overseas.It was the capper to a long day.





I also ran into Tom Savini and got him to sign a few items as well. He seemed less than thrilled to be there and was not all that personal. Also got Gaylen Ross from Dawn of the Dead to sign over a few items as well. She was awesome and very friendly to speak with. The very cool Jeffery Combs of Re-Animator fame signed my laserdisc of Re-Animator, to which he recalled a story to me that was funny. He said that Peter Jackson gave him that very disc for him to sign when they made The Frighteners back in the day from his huge horror laser disc collection. I was thankful to have the opportunity to geek out horror style this weekend and meet some real legends of the horror genre.