Thursday, March 12 at 7:00: The screening will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with author Daniel Kraus, celebrating the release of his new book Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World, moderated by horror author Grady Hendrix
Shot outside of Pittsburgh at a fraction of the cost of a Hollywood feature by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is one of the great stories of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of flesh-eating ghouls newly arisen from their graves, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-sixties America (literally) tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a Black actor (Duane Jones) in the lead role.
About Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World:
“A stroke of genius! This is the definitive love letter to the film, written with such meticulous passion and demented glee that you feel yourself standing on the set during the shoot.” —Greg Nicotero
The New York Times bestselling author of Whalefall and Angel Down dives into a horror movie classic to examine his favorite film’s importance to our history, culture, and psychology—a perfect blend of research and memoir for fans of the movie, the genre, and beyond
Daniel Kraus first saw George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD when he was five years old. Through watching it approximately three hundred times since, Kraus discovered the many ways the film is tied to his childhood trauma and how its influence has carried into his adulthood. He couldn’t help but wonder: Are there other admirers of the film out there who feel the same?
Partially Devoured uses a frame-by-frame deep dive into NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to produce a kaleidoscopic cultural investigation of the film’s importance and to examine the author’s early life of rural isolation and local violence.
Careening from film analysis to rabbit-hole tangents, Partially Devoured will take readers from screaming laughter to the depths of grief, all while illustrating how a beloved genre film has woven itself into so many facets of our lives.