My Life with the Living Dead (2024)

My Life with the Living Dead

I’m a big fan of John Russo, so when I heard there was a documentary being made about his life directed by James Harland Lockhart V I was nervous. Would anyone love Russo and his contributions to horror as much as me? Would they treat him with too much reverence or not enough? In all honesty, I didn’t watch this as soon as I should have and that was my mistake.

The fact that Russo wrote this helps; it’s basically an on camera interview of him talking about his career. So we get it straight from the horse’s mouth, with him explaining what it was like to be one of the creators of Night of the Living Dead and work with that legendary cast and crew. From the actual filming to him wanting to take Walter Reade to court for stealing money from the filmmakers, it’s a passionate part of this movie and everything you would want it to be.

As a Pittsburgher, I also appreciate that he went with Oyster Bar owner Louis J. Grippo as his attorney.

I’ve read some Letterboxd reviews mocking this movie for spending twenty minutes on Night of the Living Dead before moving onto Russo’s other films. Look I love that movie. I own so many copies of it, grew up within walking distance of the cemetery where they shot it and have seen it more times than I can count. But we know everything there is to know, down to how both Russo, Bill Hinzman and Gary Streiner were set on fire during its production.

What we don’t know is about these other movies.

There’s some good dirt on Return of the Living Dead and how Romero and Russo couldn’t agree on the sequel they had planned. The end result was that Russo would get “Living Dead” for his titles while Romero would own “of the Dead.” Although mistakes in how the original film was retitled meant its already all in public domain anyway. Throughout, Russo speaks very highly of Romero but not so much Dawn of the Dead producer Richard P. Rubinstein.

As someone who loves Midnight and The Majorettes more than most things, hearing behind the scenes info let alone finding out that it was retitled One by One in England because they have no idea what majorettes are overseas is why I’m watching this.

He also talks about how hard it was to work with 21st Century on the remake of Night without mentioning Menahem Golan. I was worried about how he’d talk about working with Karl Hardman, Hinzman and Streiner on the poorly received 30th anniversary remix, let alone Children of the Dead, a film that he’s very frank about. That movie is shot down near one of region’s biggest swingers clubs and you can see my uncle’s bowling alley while zombies eat people.

This ticked so many of my boxes. Will it talk about There’s Always Vanilla? What about The Devil and Sam Silverstein? The Booby Hatch? Voodoo Dawn? It even has a bunch of footage from My Uncle John Is a Zombie, which is a late Russo film; this might be the first time some people see it.

When I was 19 or 20 years old, I was going crazy trying to find Heartstopper. It’s on this! Santa Claws? You bet. As someone who once took a signed Midnight poster that was stained with coffee from Russo’s mug and framed it as the centerpiece of my movie room you have no idea how exciting all this is for me. Even if it doesn’t include Midnight 2, his Scream Queens softcore magazine, Monster Makeup, Horror Rock, Horror Effects with Tom Savini, Scream Queens’ Naked Christmas and Zombie Jamboree: The 25th Anniversary of Night of the Living Dead (which is basically just Russo walking around the old Monroeville Expo Mart during a convention) … I understand my mania runs deep and others just want to hear about his first movie.

I mean, seeing the Calgon commercials I grew up near the plant and hearing Russo discuss them is why I’ll put this on again.

People have been talking about the audio quality on this. I didn’t notice. But then again, I watch everything with closed captions. This is not only that kind of material but also something that plays to every inch of my attention span being short as hell right now. So yes … maybe not an unbiased reviewer here but if you have even the slightest interest in one of the most important American horror films ever made (and/or one modern Pittsburgh legend who helped make it), please carve out some time for this documentary.

Watch My Life with the Living Dead For Free On Gomovies.