George A Romero’s failed attempt at making a family-friendly movie: “Too good to be true”
Whenever anyone thinks of George A Romero and his contributions to cinema, the first thing that will always come to mind is slow-moving, shuffling hordes of the undead with an unquenchable thirst for human brains. That’s the way it’s been, and that’s the way it’ll remain.
It’s not a bad legacy to leave behind, with Romero enshrined in cinema history as the godfather of the zombie movie, who introduced and popularised many of the tropes that remain firmly in place to this day after Night of the Living Dead tore through the underground scene like a tornado in 1968.
One of the most profitable films ever made, and the movie that’s appeared in more movies than any other movie, thanks to a rights issue, his first foray into the world of zombies is also one of the most influential horror flicks of all time, and he arguably topped it when Dawn of the Dead turned out even better.
While he dabbled in other forms of terror, helming the likes of The Crazies, The Dark Half, and Bruiser, not to mention his ill-fated detour into action with Knightriders, Romero was an R-rated auteur. At no point in his career did he ever direct a PG-rated film, and it’s not because he didn’t want to. In fact, the opposite was true.
Romero constantly yearned for the opportunity to take the reins on a production geared towards audiences of all ages, but his status as a titan of horror became an insurmountable obstacle. Admittedly, when he did set his sights on a family-oriented feature, it was still technically supposed to scare people, but adapting RL Stine’s Goosebumps was a million miles away from his Dead days.
In 1995, plans were put in place to bring Goosebumps to the big screen, and after discovering he was on the shortlist of contenders, Romero wrote a letter to the vice president of 20th Century Fox’s family film division, Kevin Bannerman, illustrating why he was the standout candidate for the job.
“I’m delighted to be under consideration for the Goosebumps feature project,” he began. “I’ve read several books as the father of a 12-year-old. As a 12-year-old myself, at heart, I’ve read several others on my own. I’ve long felt the series to be a natural for film and/or television.”
Acknowledging that even directors can be typecast, Romero explained why family fare had eluded him thus far: “I have always wanted to make films for a family audience, but my reputation has insisted, or caused those with chequebooks to insist that I was best suited for ‘the hard stuff’. Horror, and the fact somebody is taking it seriously for a young audience, seems not only too good to be true, and a genre to which I would love to contribute, but also a genre which the aforementioned chequebook types might be willing to see as ‘not too big of a stretch’ for me.”
The zombie maestro singled out Welcome to Dead House as his preferred adaptation, which finds two youngsters move into a creepy old abode in the town of Dark Falls, where it quickly becomes clear that something is seriously amiss. Romero was clearly passionate about Goosebumps, but that’s as far as it went.
