From June 25, 2022, through January 1, 2023, the Museum of the Moving Image will present Living with The Walking Dead, a major new exhibition exploring the origins, production, fandom, and impact of the long-running AMC series “The Walking Dead.” The event is presented with support from Shudder, and the series accompanies the first month of the major museum exhibition “Living with The Walking Dead.”
The first month of the exhibition will be accompanied by the screening series Films of the Dead: Romero and Co., anchored by the seminal films of George A. Romero, starting with his 1968 independent masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. The eleven-film series, presented with support from horror streamer Shudder, includes films from Romero’s cinematic zombie corpus, plus a delirious selection of modern variations from directors as varied as Edgar Wright, Zack Snyder, Jim Jarmusch, and Shinichiro Ueda. Many films will be paired as double-feature presentations (one ticket price for two films).
Few film subgenres have proven more resilient than zombie horror movies. The original Night of the Living Dead, with its mixture of low-budget innovation, shocking horror, and political commentary, launched a half-century-plus of zombie movies, including a remarkably generative cycle of films from Romero himself: brainy movies about the brain-dead—satires on contemporary American life that used the zombie as a metaphor.
Tickets are $15 (with discounts for seniors, students, and youth / free or discounted for MoMI members). Advance tickets are available online at www.movingimage.com. Ticketholders may add a visit to the Living with The Walking Dead exhibition for $10.
SCHEDULE FOR ‘FILMS OF THE DEAD: ROMERO AND CO.” (JUNE 25–JULY 30, 2022)
All screenings are at the Museum of the Moving Image, in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater, or the Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room. Unless noted, tickets are $15 for adults, $11 for senior citizens and students, $9 for youth (ages 3–17), and free or discounted for MoMI members. Advance tickets are available online at www.movingimage.us.
Please note: Dawn of the Dead (1978) will be scheduled later.
Night of the Living Dead
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with The Return of the Living Dead
SATURDAY, JULY 2, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with One Cut of the Dead
SUNDAY, JULY 3, 3:30 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Shaun of the Dead
SATURDAY, JULY 9, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with The Dead Don’t Die
SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2:00 P.M.
Dir. George A. Romero. 1968, 96 mins. DCP. Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne. This is how it all began. Romero’s seminal, independent zombie movie laid the groundwork for the indie horror film. And there has yet to be another film about the cannibalistic undead as scary as the original. This black-and-white nightmare, in which a motley group of terrified people barricades themselves in a farmhouse to ward off legions of hungry zombies, is a masterful work of horror that functions as a work of social commentary at the close of a decade defined by reckoning with American racism.
The Return of the Living Dead
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.)
SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1:30 P.M.
Dir. Dan O’Bannon. 1985, 91 mins. Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Matthews, Linnea Quigley, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., and Don Calfa. Freddy is having one hell of a first day at a medical supply warehouse. He inadvertently releases a gas that reanimates the dead. Now, the undead is leaving their graves to wreak havoc and eat brains! The Return of the Living Dead is a fiendishly fun horror-comedy with enduring cult status, offering an entirely different take on the zombie film from its predecessors. With a story by John A. Russo, George A. Romero’s co-writer on Night of the Living Dead, this film ditches the social commentary and seriousness, instead of dialing the madness all the way up with slapstick antics, cartoony special effects, punk rock sleaze, and a memorable appearance by ’80s horror favorite Linnea Quigley. The June 25 double feature is presented as part of the ongoing series Disreputable Cinema.
Day of the Dead
FRIDAY, JULY 1, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2:00 P.M.
Dir. George A. Romero. 1985, 100 mins. With Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joe Pilato, Jarlath Conroy, Richard Liberty. From the master of the zombie film comes the darkest day of horror the world has ever known. Society has collapsed, driving people underground; a small team of scientists, civilians, and trigger-happy soldiers battle to survive the human race. And we haven’t even mentioned the zombies waiting up above. Day of the Dead marks the reunion of Romero and special effects legend Tom Savini. Together, they deliver a picture that pushes the envelope on every level, from body-munching gore to biting social critique.
One Cut of the Dead
SATURDAY, JULY 2, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.)
SUNDAY, JULY 10, 3:30 P.M.
Dir. Shinichiro Ueda. Japan. 2017, 91 mins. With Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Harumi Shuhama, Yuzuki Akiyama, Kazuaki Nagaya. In Japanese with English subtitles. An independent film crew making a low-budget zombie film encounters real-life zombies on the set. Rather than running for their lives, our fearless director Higurashi (Hamamatsu) demands the cast and crew fight off the corps of corpses while capturing it all for their film. And that’s only half the story! One Cut of the Dead offers possibly the freshest take on the zombie film since Night of the Living Dead, evoking the original’s maverick creativity and providing the heart and charm so often missing from the modern horror movie. These screenings are also part of the Museum’s ongoing series Disreputable Cinema.
Shaun of the Dead
SUNDAY, JULY 3, 5:30 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.)
SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1:30 P.M.
Dir. Edgar Wright. 2004, 99 mins. Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton. Though they’d rather spend the day on the couch, slackers Shaun (Pegg) and Ed (Frost) leap—or rather limp—into action when zombies rise from the grave, saving their friends and heading to the only safe place left on Earth: the pub. And Shaun hopes he can make up with his girlfriend before the undead tears them apart. Hilarious, endlessly quotable, gloriously gory, and endearingly sweet, Shaun of the Dead is a zombie film like no other—the world’s first “rom-com-com.”
Land of the Dead
FRIDAY, JULY 15, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, JULY 17, 4:30 P.M.
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1:30 P.M.
Dir. George A. Romero. 2005, 97 mins. Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, John Leguizamo, and Eugene Clark. Romero wraps up his initial cycle of zombie films bombastic with a gory spectacle that sees humanity further surviving the zombie apocalypse by creating a makeshift society away from the menace outside their safe compounds. However, true to Romero’s penchant for biting social satire, all is not well in this new society after its leaders enforce a painfully classist system on its workforce, who must contend with their malicious masters and the undead breaking down barriers in their world.
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Dawn of the Dead (2004) (4:00 p.m.)
SATURDAY, JULY 23, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Tom Savini. 1990, 88 mins. With Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, and Bill Moseley. The dead have risen to feast on the flesh of the living, and seven survivors find refuge in the Pennsylvanian countryside. However, tensions soon arise within this group, putting them on a collision course with each other and the undead horde outside. This remake of George A. Romero’s enduring 1968 masterpiece is a cult classic in its own right, thanks to director and makeup legend Tom Savini’s thoughtful approach to the source material, world-class special effects, and careful updates to the original’s iconic characters.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
FRIDAY, JULY 8, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, JULY 16, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (1990) (2:00 p.m.)
Dir. Zack Snyder. 2004, 100 mins. With Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer. Before Synder moved over to big-budget comic book blockbusters, he made his mark in the horror genre with this ambitious remake of Romero’s 1970s zombie classic. As an all-out zombie assault gets underway, survivors make their way to the local mall; they must work together to survive and thrive, proving more difficult than anyone could imagine. Snyder sacrifices much of the black humor prevalent in the original for a profoundly cynical atmosphere, complete with bleak, washed-out colors, but keeps the pressure high with claustrophobic set design and the addition of fast-moving, highly aggressive undead monsters.
The Dead Don’t Die
SATURDAY, JULY 9, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.)
SUNDAY, JULY 10, 1:00 P.M.
Dir. Jim Jarmusch. 2019, 103 mins. DCP. Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Selena Gomez, and Tom Waits. Jarmusch’s Trump-era allegory imagines a peaceful upstate New York community overrun by zombies who have been reanimated by the addictive consumerism they practiced in life. Decentralized and drained of suspense, this rhythmically loose collection of comic sketches for the coming American apocalypse veers unpredictably between the deadpan and the poetic to a bleakly tragic anticlimax. The ensemble cast, pitch-perfect from top to bottom, is led by Driver and Murray as the town’s hapless local sheriffs.
DOUBLE FEATURE
Diary of the Dead + Survival of the Dead
SUNDAY, JULY 24, 3:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 3:30 P.M.
Diary of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. 2008, 92 mins. Michelle Morgan, Josh Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Philip Riccio, Chris Violette, and Tatiana Maslany. Romero evokes the low-budget ingenuity and social concern of his original Night of the Living Dead, taking advantage of the burgeoning found-footage horror subgenre of the 2000s. Diary chronicles a group of young filmmakers who find themselves in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. They run for their lives but keep the camera rolling, even as group members are picked off one by one. Romero aims at modern society’s obsession with social media and constant recording of events in this fresh approach to the zombie film. They were followed by: Survival of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. 2009, 90 mins. Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe, Richard Fitzpatrick, Athena Karkanis, Stefano Di Matteo, and Joris Jarsky. Picking up a thread of characters from Diary of the Dead, Romero’s final entry in the series sees two families on a remote island at war as they go to war with the zombie horde invading their isolated home. Though divisive upon release, Romero’s film showcases his maturity, attempting to explore new ground in his zombie filmography, expressing that society is fundamentally doomed in the face of a crisis.
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