‘Barbarian’: Writer/Director Zach Cregger on Horror Influences and Mixing Terror with Comedy [Interview]

This installment of Phantom Limbs finds us digging up George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead: The Series, a proposed television show set within the world of the celebrated horror filmmaker’s signature Dead franchise. Though it exists now only as an unproduced twenty-seven page treatment, NOTLD: The Series nevertheless displays Romero’s patented blend of horror and black humor, bolstered by a large cast of characters and some promising Pittsburgh locations. While the project may have never made it to screens, it is nevertheless a fascinating peek into Romero’s potential return to zombie storytelling which might have predated his work on Resident Evil and the final three Dead films, which closed out his career.

In researching this article, your writer paid a visit to the George A. Romero Archival Collection at the University of Pittsburgh, which houses numerous works from the late horror legend, including produced and unproduced screenplays, treatments, artwork, correspondence, props, posters and more!

Learn more about the collection at https://romero.library.pitt.edu/

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From a first draft treatment dated October, 1997, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead: The Series opens with the famous tagline from the director’s second Dead installment, Dawn of the Dead: “When there’s no more room in hell…the dead will walk the earth!” Romero then sets the stage for his tale, revealing that the show is starting at the very beginning, when the dead are just starting to return to life, baffling scientists. “With society in a state of chaos, and people fighting for survival,” the treatment notes, “‘explaining’ the phenomenon is far less important than ‘surviving it’.” As such, the earlier Voodoo explanation is as good as any other.

Surprisingly, Romero notes in his opening pages that the series will have a more comedic bent, describing it as a “sophisticated black satire of man’s behavior in crisis”. However, he insists that the show must be concerned with mankind’s “urgent, terrifying future”, suggesting that it should take a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman approach to horror, referring to the cult soap opera satire. He namedrops a few films to reference the intended tone, including Little Big Man, Prizzi’s Honor and the then newly-released Scream – “all which took dark subjects and treated them with irreverence and wit,” Romero writes. Not a spoof, but some “good dark fun” nevertheless.

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To have been set in Pittsburgh, the Night of the Living Dead: The Series treatment features brief outlines of nineteen episodes, boasting a core cast of a half dozen leads, including:

BEN REMINGTON: 21 years old, “an African American version of Atticus Finch.” After a brief stint in the Army, Ben turned to journalism in college, and even hosts a “chat and bicker” radio program called Viewpoints on campus. While Ben has not committed to any political system or belief, and is noted by Romero as being a cynic, deep down he has hope for humanity. Curiously, given his name, one wonders if this character is meant to be the lead character from Romero’s 1968 film, as played by Duane Jones (perhaps making this series a prequel to the original movie). However, as the treatment continues on, the links between the two characters become increasingly tenuous, especially in regards to how we first meet Ben in the film.

JOHN SUTTON: 23 years old, a handsome hothead who’s heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. “One to overindulge in just about everything,” John isn’t really a bad guy, and harbors a hidden love for computer engineering even as he studies Business Management to appease his parents.

ANTHONY JUSTIN: 57 years old. A blind former reconstructive surgeon who lost his eyesight two decades prior when a city bus struck him. Justin was left blind, but with a considerable financial settlement which allowed him to return to college and study a wide array of subjects, including Anthropological Geography, Chemo-Psychiatry, Sociology, Philosophy, Mythology, and Theology. “He’s become a walking library of the world’s most saged wisdoms,” Romero writes, further pointing out that the character began to brood over “the hopeless confusion of human existence” following his studies.

TANYA BEVELL: 26 years old. The tough, gorgeous Assistant Supervisor of the Campus Security Force. Tanya never drinks, has been taking marksmanship lessons, and is “a bit too quick to kick ass.” Romero describes her as a “powder keg ready to explode”, and a Catholic who confessed to hating the world, admitting a desire to hurt people.

BECKY DUVREEN: 19 years old, “pretending to be 21”. A “cute little hometown girl” employed at the liquor store John Sutton frequents. The two have started dating, with John finding himself taken with Becky’s realism and complete disregard for his fortune. Before he passed away, Becky’s father imparted that the best she could expect our of life is a little bit of honesty. “Don’t ask for it all the time,” he told her, “you won’t get it. But once in a while…when it matters…ask for it…insist on it, daughter.”

HELEN “PEE-WEE” REESE: 39 years old, a “Zelda Rubinstein type” who stands at four-foot-two. Repressed by circumstance and the limitations she’s placed on herself, Reese spent her early years as a carny oddity. After a relationship with a Presidential advisor who had a “thing” for her tiny feet, Reese saw herself appointed as an advisor in the Defense Department in charge of “P-BEEFS” (“Phenomena Beyond Explanation by Existing Fictional Scenarios”). Unwaveringly loyal to the government, Helen is the villain of the piece.

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The pilot opens with Ben and John heading to a frat party, headed off by HARRY STENGEL (“a Doogie Howser type” who, at a mere 13 years of age, is a scientific genius). Harry informs the duo that a frat guy named Chud Guzzo has dropped dead at the party after chugging an entire keg of Iron City. After he passed, Chud rose again and took a bite out of Homecoming Queen Nancy Kominski.

Beneath the cutting edge, government-funded Mercy Hospital (described as being a principal location of the series), we discover Purgatory, an underground research facility that’s a more impressive version of the CDC. It’s there that Chud is restrained by four orderlies, who strap the undead frat boy down and attach leads to him. The monitors show a flatline, revealing him to indeed be dead. Elsewhere in the hospital, Nancy Kominski dies of her bite wound.

Forty miles north of Pittsburgh stands the Hewlitt farm, home to Pewlitt Hewlitt, his wife Mary Ann, and his son GARTH, who has just died in an incident with a mechanical cream-separator which chewed up the boy’s left arm, shoulder and lung. SKINS, the local veterinarian, arrives to assess the situation, finding that Garth died and has since returned to life. The boy attacks Skins, using his teeth to tear out the man’s throat.

Back at Mercy Hospital – Ben, John and Harry are met by DOCTOR ALLAN QUARTERMAIN (40s, morally questionable, with a name acting as a curious nod to H. Rider Haggard’s famous fictional adventurer). The doctor informs the group that Chud has passed away, but neglects to tell them that Chud is still raging after nurses. Harry, suspecting the truth, finds his way to a computer and looks up Chud’s chart, only to find himself locked out of the hospital’s data system. Harry rejoins his friends, ready to leave when a commotion arises: Nancy Kominski, deceased for over an hour, has come back to life and gnawed away the ankle of an unfortunately orderly.

The second episode finds Quartermain meeting with HAROLD DITHERS (hospital Chief of Staff, no conscious to speak of), who informs the doctor that thirty two patients have died within the last day. Quartermain seems unimpressed with this (after all, that many patients generally die in urban hospitals every day), until Dithers notes that the problems with these dead people is that they “STILL WANT THEIR MEALS!”

In Mars, Pennsylvania, Garth Hewlitt and Skins are on a rampage, killing Garth’s parents, then the Cullen family on a nearby farm. Of the many casualties here, two Cullens (MADGE and her youngest son TIMMY) head off into the night with their murderers, forming part of an ever-growing pack of undead predators.

Ben, John and Harry stop at a State Store to visit Becky, who tells them the horrifying story of her manager, MR. BRANCH, who was just shot in a hold-up. Becky had phoned 911, but Branch succumbed to his wounds before the ambulance arrived. However, Branch tore out the senior paramedic’s throat on arrival, then shambled off down Main Street.

Harry realizes the implication, that there could be “hundreds…maybe thousands of them out there. Only ten percent of people who die are thoughtful enough to do it in a hospital.”

Episode 3 finds a debate raging at the hospital amongst the staff, who attempt to determine the threat they’re faced with. They all mostly agree that anyone walking around on two legs isn’t clinically dead, but that if their sole purpose is eating human flesh, they need to be dealt with. But how? “How do you kill a dead man?”

Meanwhile, an ambulance brings in the body of accident victim RODNEY PULSE (in two pieces, placed in two separated bags). Accompanying the body is QUINCY, the County M.E., who will posted at Mercy for the duration of this crisis. In a cold room, Quincy and his assistant LORI CAPAZUTTI (late 20s, early 30s), study the accident victim’s body and make an unusual discovery: while the body half of his body is fully lifeless, the top half is all too lively – though it is turning gray. Quincy realizes that, while he has no other vital organs left, he does have his brain – apparently the only organ that truly matters now. Just after his discovery, Quincy allows his arm to come too close to Rodney, who bites into Quincy’s wrist.

The next episode begins with the “Blue Suits” in Mercy’s administration office, insisting that whatever is happening must be kept under wraps until they know what is going on.

Back in the cold room, Quincy has bandaged his arm and has removed Rodney’s brain to weigh it. The brain continues to pulse in his hands, up until the point that Quincy collapses to the ground from an apparent seizure. Rodney’s brain falls to the floor…then begins to crawl toward a terrified Lori, using its temporal lobes for traction.

She attempts to escape the room, only to find that she’s been locked in. She hits a panic button, the brain hot on her heels. She eventually overturns a filing cabinet onto the brain, liquefying the organ.

A group of guards arrive and unlock the doors, Lori meeting them and demanding to know why she and Quincy were locked in. The guards reply that they were just acting on orders, and then rush to Quincy’s side. Lori slips away, just as Mercy, Purgatory and the entire area is sealed off by soldiers.

Episode 5 brings the arrival of Helen “Pee-Wee” Reese, who takes emergency control over the hospital. While Quartermain argues that the phenomenon they’re experiencing might be nationwide, and that they’re obligated to share whatever information they have, Reese steadfastly refuses. “Whatever knowledge we acquire … is ours, and ours alone.” Reese sees the threat as being almost personal, swearing that she will not be beaten.

The action intensifies over the next three episodes, which find Ben, John, Harry and Becky arriving at Carnegie Mellon University’s Morewood Dorm (noted as being another major location in the series). There, they find Lori packing up her Honda in a rush, prepared to escape to Canada or anywhere else. Harry, always a bit smitten with Lori, persuades her to stay so that her professional skills can possibly help.

Then, GUNFIRE. Our heroes turn to see a number of police officers (including Tanya Bevell) firing on six pursuing figures – zombies. Tanya sees that the gunfire is doing no good, then orders the cops to save their ammo. They race inside of a dormitory, our heroes following. The group bolts the doors against the zombies, now joined by four more of the living dead. A siege ensues, with student joining our heroes to help. Lori tells them to destroy the brain, to “shoot for the head!” Two zombies break through and bite students, who are quickly rescued by our heroes. One of the zombies is dispatched by an institutional-size microwave oven (“which explodes the thing’s brain”), while the second is captured and tied down to a table.

News broadcasts are now reporting on several incidents of violence, which are all blamed on street gangs. Our heroes watch, puzzled why there are no reports on what’s actually happening. One suggests that it’s being covered up, which turns out to be the case in Purgatory, where the suits are refusing to get word out about the real nature of the threat to prevent a widespread panic. While Quartermain is still concerned it might not be a local problem, Reese has cut off all outside communication to the city.

Meanwhile, in the hospital, Chud roams about the hospital for more prey. A montage of terrifying zombie sequences follow, with the hospital staff finding all of the potential exits blocked by soldiers. In the city, “it’s business as usual”, though there is now an increased police presence and military vehicles arriving on scene.

Back at Morewood Dorm, Tanya organizes the students. They barricade the doors and windows and inventory food, realizing that they can stay there for weeks, if need be. Harry begins a series of experiments on the captured zombie, revealed to be a Fine Arts professor named WALTON COOK in his previous life.

John connects to the Internet using “cellular telephones” (it was the 90s, people), discovering reports of similar incidents in Cleveland, Indianapolis, Fort Lauderdale, Havana, Brussels, Sydney, Cape Town. They realize that this is a global event.

Ben goes to the top floor of the dorm and begins reporting on the true nature of what’s going on, something which the other broadcasters aren’t doing.

As more and more of the dead begin attacking the campus, Mr. Branch finds his way through a janitor’s window into the building, only to be promptly killed by Becky, his former employee.

The ninth episode finds panic gripping the city as its people realize what is happening. In the suburbs, it’s even worse. “People who are killed…get up and kill. ZOMBIE SOCIETY is perpetuating itself.”

Elsewhere, arguments are still being waged in Purgatory over the cause of the problem. “Germ warfare? A virus? Alien organisms?” Quartermain speaks up – “What difference does it make?” He wants to take action and determine how to stop the zombies.

Back in the dorm, Ben and Tanya develop a relationship. Meanwhile, Harry flirts with Lori as the two run studies on their zombie. They notice that it has no desire to eat anything, not even raw steak, other than living human flesh.

The tenth episode focuses on two families at a backyard barbecue in a suburb who are attacked by Garth, Skins, Madge and Timmy. More zombies arise as a result, then look off toward Pittsburgh’s city lights. They move together toward the city.

Episode 11 opens with a montage, as zombies attack “homes, shops, and cigar bars all over the city.” It’s during this that we meet HUD NEWMAN (“a gorgeous specimen, lean, smart, wearing 501’s and a tank-top. A born leader trapped in the body of a gas station attendant”). He makes it to the dorm, and is refused entrance – until Lori sees him. She lets him in. The zombies try to push their way through the doors. The students keep them back, firing off loads of ammo and seriously diminishing their stock.

Hud and Lori flirt, which goes unnoticed by Harry, who continues to work with his zombie. Harry unties the zombie, then fixes a dog collar on him, affixing a long leash and attaching it to a water pipe. It’s noted here that the collar and leash belong to CARLY MCGOVERN, a School of Music senior.

At Mercy Hospital, soldiers break into an operating room and discover Nancy Kominski, alongside two dead orderlies and a nurse. The soldiers take out the orderlies and nurse, and are about to kill Nancy when Quartermain intervenes. The doctor has developed a serum which can “interfere” with the brain’s functioning. He injects Nancy with it. She collapses, her legs buckling around her.

Quartermain tells Reese about his serum, that it can be “carbonated” and delivered as an airborne mist. She kisses Quartermain, nibbles his ear, and whispers “Do what you have to, doctor. I’ll be here for you…when it’s over.”

The following episode features Quartermain’s serum misted over the city by army helicopters. While some zombies temporarily lose their motor functions, thousands of citizens are sickened by the mist.

John makes his own serum of sorts from Sterno that he finds in the dorm kitchen, injecting a zombie with it. It drops, then rises again only an hour later (“But, hey…under certain circumstances, an hour could be precious.”) John starts to develop a delivery system for the serum.

A zombie attack ensues at Three-Rivers Stadium. At Mercy, Chud is joined by Quincy, who vaguely remembers that his I.D. card can still open doors in the facility. They use it to gain access to the blood bank and drink plasma.

As Hud and Lori grow closer, Harry continues his experiments. He hands his zombie crayons, which it uses to draw a picture (which sort of resembles a Christmas tree).

Ben broadcasts that the zombies are showing signs of intelligence as Episode 13 opens. As such, they’re still human, and it can’t be right for them to just be killed “willy-nilly”. E-mails pour in, revealing that the consensus is that they must all be destroyed.

At Mercy, a dead woman is found to be pregnant, but still moving (as is the fetus inside of her – “a dilemma”). Patients and soldiers within the hospital team up and stage a breakout. On the streets, they’re immediately attacked by zombies, who are growing in numbers at an alarming rate. The zombies overtake Mercy, with the remaining humans evacuated into Purgatory.

Episodes 14 and 15 find Ben vacating the radio station to have sex with Tanya, allowing Becky to take control of the airwaves for a moment. She vents her frustration to anyone who will listen. Carly McGovern finds her, pulls her out of the booth and into a stairwell, where they have sex. “Becky winds up … with a new perspective on life.”

Downtown, “Precinct Thirteen is assaulted.” Numerous policemen are killed, while others abandon their duties and escape. Electrified fences go up around certain areas of the city. The military have become aware of Ben’s broadcasts, and head toward the dorm to “eliminate the threat”. There, they are met by the mass of zombies now led by Garth and Skins. “The living dead actually seem…organized.”

Harry continues his experiments with Wally the zombie, who draws a picture of troops marching. Excited by the possibility that this zombie could be intelligent, Harry gives him a crossword puzzle to complete. Starving, Wally tries to eat the pieces. “Maybe Harry has been…a bit too hopeful.”

John invents a gun by Episode 16 to deliver his Sterno serum, contained in capsules fired like bullets. Our heroes use Wally’s Volksbus to go shopping and grab the hardware they need to make John’s gun.

Back at the dorm, Wally draws a picture of a sled and intones the word “Rosebud”. Moved by this, Anthony Justin (who has been observing Harry’s experiments) comes to the realization that we cannot simply kill the zombies. “THEY’RE HUMAN,” he shouts. The man has found a cause, at long last – he will defend the civil rights of the dead.

Tanya leads a group into the city to gather up dogs and cats, loading them into a pickup truck. They head to the zoo and gather even more animals to corral onto the tennis courts at the dorm. The animals, protected by the fences surrounding the courts, draw the attention of the zombies away from the humans inside the dorms.

However, the number of zombies grows larger, with the horde overwhelming the fences and attacking the animals on the courts. “The night is filled with the sounds of SQUEALING, HOWLING…”

Five hundred more ghouls, smelling the blood from the slaughter, make their way to the dorms. There, they lay siege to the building, until the military arrives and moves in with force. They bomb and shell the horde until it’s all but gone.

After, Becky convinces the commander in charge that they’ve gotten the wrong place. “There’s no subversive activity here,” she promises. Gullible, the commander moves on with his troops.

In Episode 17, John discovers Becky having sex with Carly. He shoots the latter girl with his Sterno serum gun. She doesn’t die, but is made very ill.

In Purgatory, Quartermain kills himself. Reese refuses to let his body go to the oven, and ultimately kills the undead man herself.

Back at Morewood, a zombie breaks into Harry’s kitchen. Just before he’s about to be eaten, Wally intervenes and snaps the zombie’s neck. Then, Wally speaks: “Wally…love…Harry.”

The final two episodes see more e-mails trailing in, reporting that the world is falling apart. Our heroes believe that they may represent one of humanity’s last strongholds. They draw up a Constitution of sorts, stating that they will always fight with the forces of the dead.

Ben bikes out into the mountains. He is attacked by zombies and narrowly avoids death at their hands and teeth. Later, at a cliffside, he contemplates suicide, but decides to stick around and contribute whatever he can to the universe. He returns to Pittsburgh and discovers a military perimeter set around the city. They are still trying to stifle the truth from getting out, ever committed to the cover up.

Ben reunites with his friends at Morewood Dorm, swearing to continue broadcasting the reality of the situation. He is joined by both Becky and Anthony Justin, who vow to stand against Reese and her deceitful policies.

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Beyond these episodes, Romero notes that “inhabitable sections of the city will get smaller and smaller”. Our heroes will continue to discover themselves, the debates will continue to rage over whether the living dead are us or them, the origin of the zombies, and whether humanity can live alongside them.

The treatment ends with a chilling, yet oddly hopeful speech from Ben: “Don’t you see? They are US! They destroy because we destroy. They hate because we hate. They kill…because we kill. Perhaps now we will realize…that killing…does not bring an end to conflict. It only brings more killing. The dead…lust for life. If only we could…lust for life.”

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Sadly, this fascinating entry in Romero’s signature franchise never came to pass, though we would get three more entries with Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. With so little information out there about this particular project, we’re left to wonder – what might this series have become, had it made it to air? What of its place in the series continuity? How it might have been received by genre enthusiasts and mainstream audiences back in the late 90s, a few years before the zombie subgenre’s resurgence and explosion in popularity?

Let us know in the comments section below – what do you think of this take on Night of the Living Dead?

Very special thanks to Horror Studies Collection Coordinator Benjamin Rubin for his assistance with the research necessary for this article.

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Works Cited:

Night of the Living Dead: The Series, George A. Romero Archival Collection, 1962-2017, SC.2019.03, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System