Why do we like Romero's films?

[Mr_Vindictive]

I started thinking about this last night after unsuccesfully attempting to get my wife to watch Dawn Of The Dead.  I told her that it was quite possibly the best horror film ever made.

And then I wondered why.

He's not quite and amazing director and the screenplays are sometimes cheesy.  But why then is it that we love his films?  I understand that yes this is a bad movie site, but I'm looking at it from the POV of a regular film viewer.  

So anyone, any thoughts on why his films are so good?

[jmc]

I think only one of his films is really great, his first.  The rest have varying degrees of success and failure, DAWN is about 20 minutes too long, has weak acting, and it's debatable whether some of the humor works for the movie or not...I always liked it but some have said it's silly and takes away from the impact of the movie.  So I can see why someone might not like it.   I'm itching to see the Argento cut, because I think it might trim a lot of the fat and have more Goblin music to boot.
I still think DAWN is a good movie overall because the stuff that works is really great.   KNIGHTRIDERS rounds out the top 3 for me.  None of his other stuff has really worked for me.   I used to like MARTIN when I was in my teens but I tried to watch it a few months ago and just could not get into it.  Way too slow.

If I had to pick only one of his to watch it would be NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which is my favorite horror film of all time.

[The Burgomaster]

I wish we could put George Romero, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and David Cronenberg into a time machine and send them back to the 1970s.  We would end up with some great horror movies to watch.  It seems like they left all of their creativity behind in a time warp or something.

[Evil Matt]

Can we throw John Carpenter, Spielberg, and George Lucas in there while we're at it?

[Chopper2]

Romero is by no means a perfect filmmaker, but who is? Everyone has their successes and failures and it's really not Romero's falt he hasn't made some grandoise horror film in a while because the studios know he's creative and they don't want to "gamble" with him. I think the thing about Romero's films I love the most is his ability to create great atmosphere.

   "There is no whole
      there is a hole in the world."  -Thursday