When George A. Romero and John Russo co-wrote Night of the Living Dead in 1968, they could not have foreseen that their little independent horror movie would change the course of the genre forever, nor that the movie’s groundbreaking success would inevitably lead to a demand for sequels. But instead of collaborating, Romero and Russo would venture off and each create their own variation on the template they had established.
Russo and Romero agreed to give each other the rights to use the words “living dead” and “dead” respectively for their films, with Russo not allowed to promote his film as a Night sequel. While Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1979) and Day of the Dead (1985) were equal parts horrific, satirical, and bitterly cynical, Russo and friends developed The Return of the Living Dead, which was at first a straight successor to Night, but morphed — with the help of writer-director Dan O’Bannon (Alien) — into a “punk rock” take and one of the first “zombie comedies.”
