Looking back at George A. Romero’s films shot in Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania was as ingrained within George A. Romero’s film work as the zombies he created.
Every film Romero directed from his debut with “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968 to his 1993 Stephen King adaptation “The Dark Half” was shot primarily in the area.
Romero passed away Sunday at age 77 after a brief battle with lung cancer, leaving behind a legacy of iconic horror films.
Though he changed the face of horror forever by developing the blueprint for modern zombie fiction such as “The Walking Dead,” Romero’s local productions also helped make Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas into viable filming locations for films such as “The Dark Knight Rises,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and the upcoming Netflix series “Mindhunter.”
Ironically, the rising cost of shooting in Pennsylvania led to the final four films of Romero’s career to be filmed in Canada, which offered better tax breaks for his admittedly low-budget productions. Despite being financially forced out of his filmmaking home, he still set his 2005 return to the big screen, “Land of the Dead,” in Pittsburgh and used digital effects to alter the footage filmed in Toronto to look like his preferred location.
In honor of Romero’s cinematic legacy in the area, we’ve compiled this look back at the films he created in Western Pennsylvania.
Romero’s first feature film, “Night of the Living Dead,” was the one that cemented his legacy as a master of horror. While it was filmed mostly in Evans City in Butler County, “Night of the Living Dead” also had scenes shot in the basement of The Latent Image offices on Carson Street in Pittsburgh’s South Side.
The basement location was necessary, as the iconic farmhouse in the film only had a small cellar that couldn’t accommodate the scenes Romero had scripted with John A. Russo.
After its release in 1968, this tale of survivors barricading themselves from corpses who inexplicably return to life and feast on the flesh of the living became regarded for its bleak tone and social commentary.
Lighting director Joe Unitas is now a Peters Township resident and spoke recently with the Observer-Reporter about his time working on the film.
”Night of the Living Dead” is a hard show to follow and Romero ran into difficulties with his next three films.
Instead of going for another horror film as a follow-up, Romero turned his sights to a drama. His second feature, “There’s Always Vanilla” (also released under the title “The Affair”) follows a former U.S. Army soldier who returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and begins a relationship with an older woman played by “Night” cast member Judith Ridley. The film only played in a handful of theaters.
”I don’t know if the film would have ever been a big success on any level,” Romero told British journalist Jonathan Ross on a 1989 episode of “The Incredibly Strange Film Show. “But this guy just literally opened it in a few theaters and then folded his hand. I mean, he never even tried.”
Romero then returned to the horror genre with 1973’s Pittsburgh-lensed film “Season of the Witch” about a group of housewives who begin experimenting with witchcraft. The film was troubled by financial difficulties and failed to interest any distributors. When it was released, the distributor cut over 40 minutes, retitled it “Hungry Wives!” and promoted it as a softcore pornographic film, where it failed to attract an audience.
Romero’s next film, “The Crazies,” a science-fiction horror tale shot in Evans City and Zelienople, suffered a similar box-office fate. However, the film has since become a cult classic and was later remade in 2010.
The film that brought Romero back into the public eye was his 1978 vampire film “Martin.” Following a young man who claims to be an 84-year-old vampire, “Martin” was a critical success and was released by famed art-house film distributor Ben Barenholtz’s company Libra Films.
Braddock provided the backdrop for “Martin” and the collapse of the steel industry at the time makes the film an interesting time capsule for the financially distressed Allegheny County borough.
”Martin” is also notable for being Romero’s first collaboration with makeup effects artist Tom Savini, who would go on to create some of the most memorable and gruesome horror film effects under Romero and other filmmakers’ direction.
Every year, horror fanatics flock to the Monroeville Mall to see the legendary space where Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” was filmed.
Mark Mason of Oxford Development Company, which managed the mall at the time, invited Romero for a tour and quipped that it would be a great place for an emergency. This suggestion spawned the idea of survivors of a zombie apocalypse seeking shelter in a shopping mall.
When Italian horror maestro Dario Argento (“Suspiria,” “Deep Red”) heard that Romero was considering a follow-up to “Night of the Living Dead,” he offered him a three-week retreat to his villa in Rome to write the script. The script was entirely finished with the mall as a setting before Romero even reached out to Oxford Development about the availability of the location. Fortunately for Romero – and horror fans across the world – they not only agreed to the film, but also helped fund the production.
Another change of pace for Romero, “Nightriders” is a drama about a traveling renaissance fair theater troupe who use motorcycles instead of horses for jousting. The troupe’s leader, played by Ed Harris in his first lead role, struggles to keep the group together after brushes with law enforcement, influence from the entertainment industry and his own delusions of grandeur.
Filming locations included Natrona, Tarentum and Fawn Township. Famed horror author Stephen King also appeared as an extra in one scene, likely because he was working with Romero on his next film, “Creepshow.”
After “Dawn of the Dead,” the major studios began looking to Romero and when Warner Bros. released “Creepshow,” it marked the first time one of his films hit No. 1 at the box office.
A collaboration between Romero and King, “Creepshow” echoed the style of vintage EC Comics such as “Tales from the Crypt” and “Vault of Horror” with five short scary stories presented as tales within a young child’s comic book.
Most of the film was shot in an empty all-girls school in Greensburg that was converted into a film studio. Exteriors were shot at Carnegie-Mellon University – Romero’s alma mater – as well as locations in Fox Chapel and Romero’s own backyard in Shadyside.
The opening scene of Romero’s third zombie film, “Day of the Dead,” marked a new territory for his zombie films: it was the first time one was filmed outside of Pennsylvania.
Despite the opening scenes shot in Florida, “Day of the Dead” was mostly filmed in a former limestone mine in Wampum that had been converted into a bomb-proof storage depot. “Day” showed the conflict of a group of scientists and the military living in an underground bunker while seeking survivors and a possible cure for the zombie epidemic.
The Wampum mine provided the perfect location for these scenes, though some above-ground scenes were filmed at a Nike Missile Site and near Monroeville.
While “Creepshow” had a major studio release, “Monkey Shines” marks the first time a Romero film was funded by a film studio. Orion Pictures provided funding and later recut the film without his permission. However, Orion did not prevent Romero from shooting the film, a horror tale about a quadriplegic man whose trained monkey develops rage toward its owner, in Pittsburgh.
Twelve years after their collaboration on “Dawn of the Dead,” Dario Argento contacted Romero about another collaboration for “Two Evil Eyes,” an anthology film adapting stories from Edgar Allen Poe.
According to Romero’s interview on the film’s DVD release, he was excited for the project because he thought Argento would be flying him to Italy for filming. However, Argento wanted to work with Romero because he wanted to film in Pittsburgh.
In the same DVD extra, Savini and Romero discuss that Argento’s first exposure to chicken wings was during the Pittsburgh shoot and he would request them on many occasions during the production.
Romero’s final film to be shot in Pittsburgh was also his first to be shot in Washington County.
In another collaboration with Stephen King, “The Dark Half” is about a writer whose fictional alter ego begins to take over his life.
Timothy Hutton played the lead character and Washington & Jefferson College stood in for a college in King’s famous fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. The chapel at Old Main is visible in the film and faculty members and students were extras during the film shoot in October 1990.