A killer monkey. Suburban witchcraft. Motorcycle jousting. A cockroach invasion. Despite this enticing list of other subjects, George A. Romero is best known for the genre-defining 1968 film
Night of the Living Dead
and subsequent zombie films. The non-zombie films in his decades-long career have gotten varied degrees of critical examination but they remain underexamined compared to the
Dead
flicks.
This book focuses on Romero's "other" work, highlighting lesser-known films such as
There's Always Vanilla
(1971) and
Bruiser
(2000), as well as more popular films such as
Martin
(1977) and
The Crazies
(1973). It examines how his body of work participates in social critique by delving into issues such as capitalism's pitfalls and excesses, domestic and racial power imbalances, and our patriarchal culture's expectations of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality.