George A. Romero

"Years ago I did research for a World War II movie. I came across some Nazi documents. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Element 115, raising from the dead, real creepy stuff. The coolest thing is? Some of that crazy shit happened right here."

- George A. Romero

George A. Romero, stars as a boss-character in the Zombies map Call of the Dead from the map pack Escalation. He is also referred to as "The Director". Romero was doing research for a World War II movie when he came across Nazi documents pertaining to Element 115.

Entrance
George A. Romero's appears via a lightning strike in the spawn area at the water to the front of the Quick Revive machine at the very beginning of the game and walks out of the smoke and sea foam.

Origin
George was at first human while working on a zombie movie with Danny Trejo, Robert Englund, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michael Rooker. During one of the breaks due to a mistake by Michael, a real zombie crawls out of the window and snatches Romero away; meaning he was likely infected by the zombie.

"Calm State"
When first appearing, Romero is calmly walking around while groaning as a massive blue aura surrounds him. Sometimes when he is calmed down after attacking, he says in a scared voice "I'm okay, I'm okay", indicating he cannot control these fits of rage. In this state, except for the blue aura, he looks fairly human.

"Berserk State"
After being damaged enough, he transforms into his "Berserk State", which has him chasing the players swinging his movie light weapon, roaring spontaneously, and distracting the player from the other zombies until he is reverted to his usual state. He also can electrify surrounding zombies in this state. To calm him down, lure him into water and he will return to his calm state. In this state, his clothes are ripped, and the exposed flesh is rotten and decomposing.

Killing Romero
Romero has very high health and it takes a lot of time and ammunition to damage him enough to retreat. A Pack-A-Punched Scavenger /M1911 works best. Whenever he is close to dying, his blue aura will disappear and a yellow aura will surround his weapon. During this near-death state Romero's speed increases. When finally damaged enough, he will drop on death a Death Machine power-up as well as a Random Perk Bottle, then he will retreat back into the water. It should be noted that whenever Romero goes back into the water, any damage to him will be healed. Also Romero will drop a Lightning Bolt power-up instead of a Death Machine if the Player has the Stand-In Achievement

Dossiers
5.5.11 - Alex P - United Kingdom: "On offline co-op mode, I managed to procure a Scavenger sniper rifle and upgraded it and my colleague had an Afterburner (upgraded MP40) and Cobra (upgraded Python). We had kept a crawler zombie away from Romero as we led him into the frozen waters in the beginning area. We stood on the island with the Quick-Revive Perk Machine and threw everything we had at him. As he was in the water, he could not go berserk because he was constantly changing back, that gave us the time needed to deplete his health. Eventually we noticed a change in colour of the electrical light in his weapon (now a yellow colour) We continued to fire and eventually it went to red and we knew then that he wasn;t far off. Eventually he exclaimed and collapsed into the frozen water we had led him into. I went through my entire upgraded Scavenger ammunition, and my colleague used up all the Cobra and Afterburner ammo, he had even procured a Ray Gun and fired many shots at Romero. To us this seemed like the most versatile tactic, although probably not the best method in hindsight as we were unaware that the water could sustain his health."

Custom Weapon
His weapon is a spotlight with exposed wires protruding out of the end causing it to glow blue. One of his main attacks is to strike the ground to temporarily disorient players and fill their screens with electricity similar to the effect of the Teleporter which can only be avoided by jumping, he can also use it to strike the player when close enough, temporarily covering the player's screen with electricity.

Achievements

 * "Quiet on the Set" - Cut the lights on the Director

Trivia

 * The scene of the trailer where George comes out of the water is a reference to his movie: Land of the Dead, in which the Zombies cross the lake and come out of the water.
 * Insta-Kill doesn't affect him.
 * When a Nuke has been activated, George will laugh.
 * If Romero is killed, he will drop a Death Machine and a Random Perk Bottle.
 * George will only attack you if you get too close or hit him.
 * The only way to calm him down is to lure him into any of the bodies of water located around the map or use the V-R11. As seen in the opening cutscene of Call of the Dead, Romero has a pony tail, but in his zombie form, he lacks the pony tail.
 * It is possible to get Romero stuck on the zipline. This can be achieved by making him angry, making him get up close to you, jumping on the zipline and having a teammate jump on the zipline the same time Romero does, and he will be floating in the air, and some times he'll fall into the water.
 * Due to him dropping a Random Perk Bottle at "death", Romero's killing is required for 7 perks.