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JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally,
remembering filmmaker
George Romero, the master
of the zombie movie

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and a man whose influence
in the business went further
than many moviegoers realize.

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Jeffrey Brown has our look.

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ACTOR: Medical examination of
victims bodies show conclusively
that the killers are eating

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the flesh of the
people they kill.

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JEFFREY BROWN: With a $100,000
in 1968, George Romero brought
the undead back to life in

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American culture.

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His "Night of the Living
Dead" became a cult
classic, and launched a
modern zombie industry

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of soulless ghouls with
a taste for human flesh
popping up everywhere today.

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For Romero, his films were
about more than just blood
and graphic violence.

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GEORGE ROMERO, Director:
This series of films have
been sort of my platform.

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It's ripe for metaphor.

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And the zombies, to me, have
always represented the people
that are just unwilling to stand

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up.

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And, you know, there are a
lot of living dead in America.

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JEFFREY BROWN: "Night of the
Living Dead," starring an
African-American actor, was seen

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as a kind of social
commentary on racism and the
paranoid mood of its time.

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A decade later, Romero's
first sequel, "Dawn of
the Dead," played on
the excesses of American

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consumerism.

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Roger Ebert dubbed it one of
the best horror films ever
made, savagely merciless in its

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satiric view.

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Romero followed up with many
other films, including four
more in the "Dead" series,

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with varying degrees
of box office success.

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But the zombie world he
unleashed took on a massive
multibillion-dollar life of its

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own in blockbuster films like
"World War Z," video games,
and AMC's "The Walking Dead."

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That, in turn, led Romero
to sour a bit on the genre
he helped popularize.

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He spoke on NPR in 2014.

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GEORGE ROMERO: It's, all of
a sudden, you can't make a
little zombie film anymore.

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Has to be special
effects and big budget.

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And I'm not -- I'm just
not interested in that.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Later in life,
he shifted to different media,
including teaming up with

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Marvel to publish a
comic book series.

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George Romero died Sunday
in Toronto from lung cancer.

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He was 77 years old.

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And for more on George Romero
and his impact, I'm joined by
Justin Chang, film critic for

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The Los Angeles Times.

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Welcome to you, Justin.

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Zombies, who would have thought?

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What explains the impact
of those early films?

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JUSTIN CHANG, The Los Angeles
Times: Well, I think when you
have a film like "Night of

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the Living Dead," which is, I
think, one of the great debut
films that any director in

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or outside the horror genre
has ever given us, you have to
look at the context, you know,

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Vietnam, Martin Luther
King Jr.'s assassination,
the recent assassinations
of the Kennedy brothers.

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It was a time of, obviously,
great social unrest.

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And George Romero found,
unwittingly or not, a perfect
metaphor for that unrest.

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And I think it was about the
primitiveness of the filmmaking,
the very raw technique.

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It was shot on a $114,000
budget, which is about
$800,000 today, still
a very small budget.

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And he achieved this kind
of -- a film that was almost
like a documentary nightmare.

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And it really captured,
I think, a sense of rage
and of pointlessness,
a kind of senseless,

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arbitrary killing that
was really unsettling for
audiences at the time,
and is still enormously

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unsettling today.

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JEFFREY BROWN: His films, of
course, largely done on the
cheap, but somehow a cult thing

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grew into a very large
cultural phenomenon.

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He wasn't so crazy -- as
we heard, he wasn't so
crazy about what followed?

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JUSTIN CHANG: Absolutely.

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I mean, we live in a culture
where zombies are proliferating
on screens, whether it's

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"World War Z" or "The Walking
Dead," which is still hugely
popular, or the remake of

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"Dawn of the Dead" about 13
years ago, and terrific spoofs
like "Shaun of the Dead,"

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which I think is one of the
few that George Romero has
professed to actually liking.

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So, in a way, he was, I think,
understandably disenchanted with
the way that Hollywood really

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mainstreamed the zombie film and
the zombie TV show, and in some
ways took out that edginess,

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that political subtext that he
was so good at putting in there.

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And I think he especially
resented things like
"The Walking Dead,"
because it made it

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very difficult for him to get
his own zombie movies financed
on an independent level.

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And he was a consummate
independent filmmaker,
and something of a
Hollywood outsider and

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skeptic, I think, all his
career, which makes his success
all the more remarkable.

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JEFFREY BROWN: For a lot of
people, this stuff goes way too
far, right, the graphic violence

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that's part of our society
and that's really part of
our entertainment culture.

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Did he help create that,
for better or for worse?

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JUSTIN CHANG: I don't think
it's entirely fair to lay that
as George Romero's doorstep.

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And I say that as someone who's
on the more squeamish side of
the spectrum as far as horror

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movie viewers goes.

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But I think you have to look
at his films, a film like
"Dawn of the Dead," which is,

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I think, as great a
masterpiece as "Night
of the Living Dead" is.

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There is always something more
going on beneath the violence.

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If you're just there
for the splatter and the
viscera, you will get that.

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But he gives you -- he's
always asking you to look a
little closer, see what's going

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on, see who these zombies
represent, see who the
real monsters are in a way.

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And so I don't think
it's entirely fair to
say that he's responsible
for the fetishization

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and exploitation of
violence in our culture.

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He's using it -- I mean, he's
exploiting violence in his own
way, to very brilliant and very

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provocative ends.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Just briefly, I
do want to mention the passing
of another movie figure,

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the actor Martin Landau.

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He was known early on, on
television, in "Mission:
Impossible," later in
films, including "Ed

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Wood," for which he won an
Oscar for best supporting actor.

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Let's take a look at a short
scene from Woody Allen's 1989
film "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

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MARTIN LANDAU, Actor: This
is what you plan on doing.

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You're going to hold on
to me with threats, right,
stupid threats and slander?

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This is your idea
of love, right?

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ACTRESS: I will
not be tossed out.

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I want to speak to Miriam.

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MARTIN LANDAU: Think.

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For Christ's sake, think
what the hell you are
doing to me, will you?

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Please.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Justin Chang, a
brief thought on Martin Landau?

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JUSTIN CHANG: Martin Landau
was such a wonderful actor.

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And that scene you play sort of,
I think, captures his elegance
and gravitas, his ability

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to play a silken villain
that we feel for.

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In that film, he's an adulterous
husband who contemplates
the murder of his lover.

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And it's -- you know, I'm
reminded, too, of his great
performance many decades earlier

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in Alfred Hitchcock's "North
By Northwest," where he took
the role of a villain's number

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two and made it something
really memorable and really
incisive out of that.

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And so it's not that he could
only play villains, certainly
not, but he had, I think, a real

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talent for playing morally
ambiguous characters,
and doing it superbly.

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JEFFREY BROWN: All right,
Justin Chang of The Los Angeles
Times, thank you very much.

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JUSTIN CHANG: Thank you.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And
we thank you, Jeff.

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And I was covering my eyes
until we got to Martin Landau.