Land of the Dead Premier, June, 2005, by Katelyn Pepper
From MemoryArchive
Who: Katelyn P. What: Land of the Dead Premier When: June, 2005 Where: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
In the 1970s, George Romero filmed his cult classic Night of the Living Dead in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. He continued with Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead, both filmed in the Pittsburgh area, and Dawn was actually filmed in one of the most popular malls at the time.
Anyone who calls Pittsburgh home takes pride in the fact these films were filmed there, at least grudgingly. So when Romero made his newest installment, Land of the Dead, he tried to get approval to film in the city. In the end it was too expensive, so he had to film in Canada. To make up for the disappointment, he scheduled a premier in Pittsburgh the night after the typical L.A. premier instead of a New York one. Tickets were sold to the general public, and a limited number of student priced tickets were available for only 25 dollars each. He had his friend and makeup artist Tom Savini, who has a special effects makeup school in the Pittsburgh area, make the old lady ushers look like zombies and provide fully zombified students to help as well.
The premier was in one of the several performance theaters in downtown Pittsburgh on June 21st, 2005. I had gotten tickets for my boyfriend at the time and myself just a week previously, apparently right before they ran out of the student priced ones. We arrived, waited in line for awhile to get in, and eventually got seats on the floor level near the back to the left. Eventually, the famous people began to file in. Tom Savini was one of the first, and there was a slight commotion as he entered and less than 6 rows in front of us. When Robert Rodríguez and Quentin Tarantino (friends and admirers of George Romero) came in on the right side, nearly everyone between them and us started fidgeting and standing to get a good look at them. The press at the front went wild. At this point, the buzz in the room went way up, and everyone was excitedly talking to each other.
In the midst of this, a girl in the row before us got up and asked her friend if he wanted a beer, then exited with a “hang loose” and matching hand gesture. My boyfriend and I quietly laughed about it and good-naturedly mocked her, until later when we recognized her as the person in the first shot of the movie. It turned out she was one of the fairly important minor characters.
George Romero finally got there, and was introduced by the mayor of Pittsburgh. He spoke on the stage for a while, and as soon as he left the stage (to much cheering), the movie started. Watching the movie with a crowd that was at least as hyped as me was great. There were cheers, groans, and laughs, in all the right places. Watching it again later was not nearly the same.
After the movie ended and people started to file out, there was a frenzied crowd around all of the big name people who attended. I almost got Tom Savini’s autograph, but he was trying his best to get away. I got his autograph a month later when he showed up to see War of the Worlds at the movie theater where I worked. I did manage to get a picture with Simon Pegg, the star and co-writer/director of the zombie comedy Sean of the Dead. We milled around for awhile trying to find Quentin Tarentino and other big name people, but eventually left still star-struck from the other people we saw. As we crossed the street to the parking garage, we saw a couple being picked up by a hearse—the perfect ending to a zombie movie premier.
