Presented with support from Shudder, the series accompanies the first month of the major museum exhibition Living with The Walking Dead.
From June 25 through January 1, Museum of the Moving Image will present Living with The Walking Dead, a major new exhibition that explores the origins, production, fandom, and impact of the long-running AMC series The Walking Dead. The first month of the exhibition will be accompanied by the screening series Films of the Dead: Romero and Co., anchored by the seminal films of George A. Romero, starting with his 1968 independent masterpiece Night of the Living Dead.
The eleven-film series, presented with support from horror streamer Shudder, includes films from Romero’s cinematic zombie corpus, plus a delirious selection of modern variations from directors as varied as Edgar Wright, Zack Snyder, Jim Jarmusch, and Shinichiro Ueda. Many of the films will be paired as double-feature presentations (one ticket price for two films).
Few film subgenres have proven more resilient than the zombie horror movie. The original Night of the Living Dead with its mixture of low-budget innovation, shocking horror, and political commentary launched a half-century-plus of zombie movies, including a remarkably generative cycle of films from Romero himself: brainy movies about the brain-dead — satires on contemporary American life that used the zombie as metaphor.
Tickets are $15 (with discounts for seniors, students, youth / free or discounted for MoMI members). Advance tickets are available online at www.movingimage.us/films-of-the-dead. Ticket holders may add on a visit to the Living with The Walking Dead exhibition for $10. With New York City’s COVID-19 alert level set at high, the Museum is requiring all visitors to wear face masks (ages 2+) throughout the building. Please review all visitor safety guidelines here.
SCHEDULE FOR FILMS OF THE DEAD: ROMERO AND CO. (JUNE 25–JULY 30, 2022)
All screenings take place at Museum of the Moving Image, in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater or the Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room. Unless noted, tickets are $15 adults, $11 senior citizens and students, $9 youth (ages 3–17), and free or discounted for MoMI members. Advance tickets are available online at www.movingimage.us. Please note: Dawn of the Dead (1978) will be scheduled at a later date.
Night of the Living Dead SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with The Return of the Living Dead SATURDAY, JULY 2, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with One Cut of the Dead SUNDAY, JULY 3, 3:30 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Shaun of the Dead SATURDAY, JULY 9, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with The Dead Don’t Die SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2:00 P.M. Dir. George A. Romero. 1968, 96 mins. DCP. With Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne. This is how it all began.
Romero’s seminal, independent zombie movie laid the groundwork for the indie horror film. And there has yet to be another film about the cannibalistic undead as scary as the original. This black-and-white nightmare, in which a motley group of terrified people barricade themselves in a farmhouse to ward off legions of hungry zombies, is a masterful work of horror that also functions as a work of social commentary at the close of a decade defined by a reckoning with American racism. The Return of the Living Dead SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.) SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1:30 P.M. Dir. Dan O’Bannon. 1985, 91 mins. With Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Matthews, Linnea Quigley, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Don Calfa. Freddy is having one hell of a first day on the job at a medical supply warehouse. He inadvertently releases a gas that reanimates the dead. Now, the undead are leaving their graves to wreak havoc and eat brains!
The Return of the Living Dead is a fiendishly fun horror comedy with an enduring cult status, offering an entirely different take on the zombie film from its predecessors. With a story by John A. Russo, George A. Romero’s co-writer on Night of the Living Dead, this film ditches the social commentary and seriousness, instead dialing the madness all the way up with slapstick antics, cartoony special effects, punk rock sleaze, and a memorable appearance by ’80s horror favorite Linnea Quigley. The June 25 double feature is presented as part of the ongoing series Disreputable Cinema. Day of the Dead FRIDAY, JULY 1, 7:00 P.M. SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1:00 P.M. SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2:00 P.M. Dir. George A. Romero. 1985, 100 mins. With Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joe Pilato, Jarlath Conroy, Richard Liberty. From the master of the zombie film comes the darkest day of horror the world has ever known. Society has collapsed, driving people underground; there, a small team of scientists, civilians, and trigger-happy soldiers battle for the survival of the human race. And we haven’t even mentioned the zombies waiting up above. Day of the Dead marks the reunion of Romero and special effects legend Tom Savini, and together they deliver a picture that pushes the envelope on every level, from body-munching gore to biting social critique. One Cut of the Dead SATURDAY, JULY 2, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.) SUNDAY, JULY 10, 3:30 P.M. Dir. Shinichiro Ueda. Japan. 2017, 91 mins. With Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Harumi Shuhama, Yuzuki Akiyama, Kazuaki Nagaya. In Japanese with English subtitles. An independent film crew making a low-budget zombie film encounters real life zombies on the set. Rather than running for their lives, our fearless director Higurashi (Hamatsu) demands the cast and crew fight off the corps of corpses while capturing it all for their film. And that’s only half the story!
One Cut of the Dead offers possibly the freshest take on the zombie film since Night of the Living Dead, evoking the original’s maverick creativity, while also providing the heart and charm so often missing from the modern horror movie. These screenings are also part of the Museum's ongoing series Disreputable Cinema. Shaun of the Dead SUNDAY, JULY 3, 5:30 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.) SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1:30 P.M. Dir. Edgar Wright. 2004, 99 mins. With Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton. Though they’d rather spend the day on the couch, slackers Shaun (Pegg) and Ed (Frost) leap—or rather limp—into action when zombies rise from the grave, saving their friends and heading to the only safe place left on Earth: the pub. And Shaun hopes he can make up with his girlfriend before the undead tear them apart. Hilarious, endlessly quotable, gloriously gory, and endearingly sweet, Shaun of the Dead is a zombie film like no other—the world’s first “rom-zom-com.” Land of the Dead FRIDAY, JULY 15, 7:00 P.M. SUNDAY, JULY 17, 4:30 P.M. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1:30 P.M. Dir. George A. Romero. 2005, 97 mins. With Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, John Leguizamo, Eugene Clark. Romero wraps up his original cycle of zombie films in bombastic fashion with a gory spectacle that sees humanity further surviving the zombie apocalypse by creating a makeshift society away from the menace outside their safe compounds. However, true to Romero’s penchant for biting social satire, all is not well in this new society after its leaders enforce a painfully classist system on its workforce, who must contend with their malicious masters as well as the undead breaking down barriers into their world. Night of the Living Dead (1990) SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Dawn of the Dead (2004) (4:00 p.m.) SATURDAY, JULY 23, 4:30 P.M. Dir. Tom Savini. 1990, 88 mins. With Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Bill Moseley. The dead have risen to feast on the flesh of the living, and seven survivors find refuge in the Pennsylvanian countryside. However, tensions soon arise within this group, putting them on a collision course with each other and the undead horde outside. This remake of George A. Romero’s enduring 1968 masterpiece is a cult classic in its own right thanks to director and makeup legend Tom Savini’s thoughtful approach to the original source material, world-class special effects, and careful updates to the original’s iconic characters. Dawn of the Dead (2004) FRIDAY, JULY 8, 7:00 P.M. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 4:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (1990) (2:00 p.m.) Dir. Zack Snyder. 2004, 100 mins. With Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer. Before Synder moved over to big-budget comic book blockbusters, he made his mark in the horror genre with this ambitious remake of Romero’s 1970s zombie classic.
As an all-out zombie assault gets underway, a group of survivors make their way to the local mall; here they must work together to survive and thrive, which proves more difficult than anyone could imagine. Snyder sacrifices much of the black humor prevalent in the original for a deeply cynical atmosphere, complete with bleak, washed-out colors, but keeps the pressure high with claustrophobic set design and the addition of fast-moving, highly aggressive undead monsters. The Dead Don’t Die SATURDAY, JULY 9, 6:00 P.M. DOUBLE FEATURE with Night of the Living Dead (4:00 p.m.) SUNDAY, JULY 10, 1:00 P.M. Dir. Jim Jarmusch. 2019, 103 mins. DCP. With Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Selena Gomez, Tom Waits. Jarmusch’s Trump-era allegory imagines a placid upstate New York community overrun by zombies who have been reanimated by the addictive consumerism they practiced in life.
Decentralized and drained of suspense, this rhythmically loose collection of comic sketches for the coming American apocalypse veers unpredictably between the deadpan and the poetic on its way to a bleakly tragic anticlimax. The ensemble cast, pitch perfect from top to bottom, is led by Driver and Murray as the town’s hapless local sheriffs. DOUBLE FEATURE Diary of the Dead + Survival of the Dead SUNDAY, JULY 24, 3:00 P.M. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 3:30 P.M. Diary of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. 2008, 92 mins. With Michelle Morgan, Josh Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Philip Riccio, Chris Violette, Tatiana Maslany. Romero evokes the low-budget ingenuity and social concern of his original Night of the Living Dead, taking advantage of the burgeoning found-footage horror subgenre of the 2000s. Diary chronicles a group of young filmmakers who find themselves in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. They run for their lives but keep the camera rolling, even as members of the group are picked off one by one.
Romero takes aim at modern society’s obsession with social media and constant recording of events in this fresh approach to the zombie film. Followed by: Survival of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. 2009, 90 mins. With Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe, Richard Fitzpatrick, Athena Karkanis, Stefano Di Matteo, Joris Jarsky. Picking up a thread of characters from Diary of the Dead, Romero’s final entry in the series sees two families on a remote island at war with each other as they go to war with the zombie horde invading their isolated home. Though divisive upon release, Romero’s film showcases his maturity, attempting to explore new ground in his zombie filmography, expressing that society is fundamentally doomed in the face of a crisis.
About Shudder
AMC Networks’ Shudder is a premium streaming video service, super-serving members with the best selection in genre entertainment, covering horror, thrillers and the supernatural. Shudder’s expanding library of film, TV series, and originals is available on most streaming devices in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. About Museum of the Moving Image
Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) is the only institution in the United States that deals comprehensively with the art, technology, enjoyment, and social impact of film, television, and digital media. In its acclaimed facility in Astoria, New York, the Museum presents exhibitions; screenings; discussion programs featuring actors, directors, and creative leaders; and education programs. It houses the nation’s largest collection of moving image artifacts and screens over 500 films annually. Its exhibitions—including the core exhibition Behind the Screen and The Jim Henson Exhibition—are noted for their integration of material objects, interactive experiences, and audiovisual presentations. MUSEUM INFORMATION Hours: Thursday, 2:00–6:00 p.m. Friday, 2:00–8:00 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m. Museum Admission: $15 adults; $11 senior citizens (ages 65+) and students (ages 18+) with ID; $9 youth (ages 3–17). Children under 3 and Museum members are admitted free. Free gallery hours every Thursday, 2:00–6:00 p.m. Address: 36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street), Astoria (Queens), NY, 11106 Subway: M (weekdays only) or R to Steinway Street. W (weekdays only) or N to 36 Ave. Program Information: Telephone: 718 777 6888; Website: movingimage.us Membership: https://movingimage.us/join-and-support/become-a-member/ or 718 777 6877 Film Screenings: Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, and as scheduled. Unless noted, tickets are $15 adults / $11 students and seniors / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / free or discounted for Museum members. Advance online purchase is recommended. Please note safety protocols for visiting the Museum.
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Museum of the Moving Image is housed in a building owned by the City of New York and has received significant support from the following public agencies: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Council; New York City Economic Development Corporation; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Institute of Museum and Library Services; National Endowment for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; and Natural Heritage Trust (administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation). For more information, please visit movingimage.us.