Night Of The Living Dead director George A. Romero has a horror novel to be published posthumously this year, following his death in 2017 at age 77.
Romero created the Night Of The Living Dead franchise with the series’ original film in 1968 and has since been regarded as a titan of the zombie film genre.
Later in his career, he broke into books and collaborated with author Daniel Kraus on the horror novel The Living Dead, published three years after Romero’s death.
Another novel co-written by the two men, Pay The Piper, is now scheduled to be published sometime this fall, according to People.
The book follows a Louisiana town whose residents are threatened by a swamp creature that kills children, forcing them to confront their ill-fated ancestral history.
Night Of The Living Dead director George A. Romero has a horror novel to be published posthumously this year, following his death in 2017 at age 77; photographed in 2005
Titled Pay The Piper and co-written by Daniel Kraus, the book follows a Louisiana town whose residents are threatened by a swamp creature that kills children.
Renée Pontiac, the nine-year-old protagonist, is one of the inhabitants of the fictional backwater of Alligator Point in Louisiana.
She escapes her troubled home life with an alcoholic father by taking refuge in books, such as the works of British horror master HP Lovecraft.
When children start being killed by a swamp creature named Piper, all the horror stories Renée heard about the monster seem to be confirmed.
Ultimately, the townspeople have to confront the memory of their own ancestors: the Lafitte Pirates, a gang of slave traders.
Daniel Kraus, who has also collaborated with Guillermo Del Toro, completed Pay The Piper with the help of the Romero estate.
Kraus discovered Romero’s manuscript for Pay The Piper among the late filmmaker’s papers in the University of Pittsburgh library.
Romero died in July 2017 at the age of 77, after what his family described as a “brief but aggressive battle with cancer.”
Night Of The Living Dead was his first feature film, made cheaply, with simple special effects and a budget of only $114,000.
Romero created the Night Of The Living Dead franchise with the series’ original film in 1968 (pictured), and has since been regarded as a titan of the zombie film genre.
Romero broke into books late in his career and collaborated with Kraus on the horror novel The Living Dead, published three years after Romero’s death.
Night Of The Living Dead was his first feature film, made cheaply, with simple special effects and a budget of only $114,000.
The film burst onto the scene in 1968 and shocked audiences, becoming a huge hit despite critics who complained about the gore.
The film burst onto the scene in 1968 and shocked audiences, becoming a huge hit despite critics who complained about the gore.
Romero continued making films in the franchise and established himself as a long-time beloved icon of the horror genre.
Despite his association with zombie films in particular, he turned down an offer to direct several episodes of AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead.
“I always used the zombie as a character of satire or political criticism, and I think that’s missing in what’s happening now,” he said. The big problemdismissing The Walking Dead as “just a soap opera with an occasional zombie.”
Romero was survived by his widow Suzanne Desrocher Romero, as well as his son Andrew and daughter Tina.
