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[R.I.P.] Master of Horror Stuart Gordon Has Passed Away at 72
We’ve lost another true Master of Horror, waking up to the terrible news this morning that legendary filmmaker Stuart Gordon passed away at the age of 72 this week.
Stuart Gordon directed a handful of fan favorite gems within the horror genre, most notably an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator in 1985. He subsequently ensured his “Master of Horror” status with films like From Beyond, Dolls and Castle Freak. Gordon’s other directorial credits include Robot Jox, The Pit and the Pendulum, Fortress, Dagon, King of the Ants and Stuck. He also co-wrote the 1996 horror movie The Dentist, directed by Brian Yuzna.
Fittingly, Gordon directed two episodes of Showtime’s short-lived “Masters of Horror” television series: Season 1’s “Dreams in the Witch House” and Season 2’s “The Black Cat.”
It’s interesting to note that the 1989 family film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids features a “story by” credit to Stuart Gordon. Indeed, he and Brian Yuzna brought the project to Disney.
Most recently, Gordon directed the stage play Nevermore…An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe, which starred frequent collaborator Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe.
Re-Animator, From Beyond and Castle Freak star Barbara Crampton wrote on Twitter, “An enormous talent, vibrant & boundary breaking, his work was in a class by itself. He created countless moments on film which were at once, funny, scary, daring & smart. He gave me my career. I lost a dear friend. I’m heartbroken. No words can do him justice. RIP Stuart Gordon.”
Stuart Gordon is survived by his wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, daughters Suzanna, Jillian and Margaret Gordon, four grandchildren and his brother, David George Gordon.
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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