Raves for John Russo and
Night of the Living Dead
“A double mindblower. The child in the cellar was really scary. I never experienced any kind of fear like it in my life.”
—Sam Raimi
“Your book…guided me through my first completed movie.”
—Quentin Tarantino, on Scare Tactics
“Full of terror, nightmares and a good time…very exciting…it scared the hell out of me.”
—Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist
“I was very taken with it. The politics of it were striking. So much going on that it wasn’t a typical horror film. Even now there’s power in it. It’s even bolder than Psycho.”
—John Landis, director of An American Werewolf in London and Animal House
“I screamed and cringed like everyone else. It made me realize that the horror genre could produce something really great.”
—Wes Craven, director of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Last House on the Left
“I remember not being able to sleep at night. It tapped into my primal fears.”
—Chris Gore, Film Threat
UNDEAD
JOHN RUSSO
KENSINGTON BOOKS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
INTRODUCTION: THE BIRTH OF THE DEAD
In developing the concepts and writing the screenplays and novels for Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead, our overriding concern and aim was to give true horror fans the kind of payoff they always hoped for, but seldom got, when they shelled out their hard-earned money at the ticket booth or the bookstore. This was the guiding principle that we were determined not to violate. When I say “we” I am referring to Russ Streiner, George Romero, Rudy Ricci, and others in our group who contributed to the development of the scripts and the movies.
As a teenager, I went to see just about every movie that came to my hometown of Clairton, Pennsylvania. It was a booming iron-and-coke town in those days. There were three movie theaters, and the movies changed twice a week. Often there were double features—and the price of admission was only fifty cents! I loved the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man movies—enduring classics, sophisticated and literate explorations of supernatural horror and dread.
But I also went to see dozens of “B” horror films, always hoping, against the odds, that one of them would turn out to be surprisingly good. This almost never happened. The plots were trite, formulaic, uninspiring. Decidedly unscary.
In the fifties, because of the vaporization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, everyone was scared of nuclear bombs and nuclear energy—especially nuclear energy gone awry. This pervasive psychology of fear was ripe for exploitation, and it gave rise to the “mutant monster” genre of horror films. We were treated to The Attack of the Giant Grasshopper, The Attack of the Giant Ant…the Giant Squid…the Giant Caterpillar… and so on.
Did I say that the “plots” were trite? I should’ve said “plot” (singular) because the same plot was used over and over with each of the different mutated creatures. The giant whatever would be hinted at, but not shown in its entirety, somewhere within the first twenty or so very dull minutes. The audience at first would be teased with just a fleeting glimpse of some aspect of the monster. Then a bigger piece of it would appear to the town drunk, who was never believed by the authorities. He would usually be
