MONTREAL - What scares George A. Romero, the director credited with creating the modern zombie horror genre with his landmark "Night of the Living Dead"?

"Rob Ford," he says, bursting into laughter.

The New York-born Romero, who moved to Toronto about a decade ago after marrying a Canadian, didn't elaborate on why the controversial mayor gives him the shivers, but he's pretty clear that current horror movies aren't rattling him.

There are "very few horror films that I think are worth their salt," says Romero, who has directed several other "Dead" movies as well as "Creepshow" and the Stephen King-inspired "Monkey Shines," among others.

"Oddly, I'm not a big horror fan," he says. His favourite movie is, in fact, 1951's fantasy opera "The Tales of Hoffmann."

"I like the oldies," Romero says. "I find that the craftsmanship ... the amount of time that they had to shoot them, it just makes me drool."

Romero points out he's never done a horror movie just for the sake of being horrifying.

"The horror films that I've made have been satirical in one way or another or political and I really think that's the purpose of horror. I don't see that happening very often."

Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" was shot for $114,000 in black and white in 1968. Considered the father of the modern zombie flick, its tale of people besieged by shambling, grunting reanimated corpses is considered a landmark film now and has been endlessly examined for its social and political messages.

It is even in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art where it was screened in May with the warning, "Attendees are reminded: NO BITING IN THE AUDIENCE."

Romero will be a guest of honour at this weekend's Montreal Comiccon, kicking off his appearance with a screening of "Night of the Living Dead" on Friday.

Fans won't just be saluting his cinematic legacy, however. He's also in the midst of writing "Empire of the Dead," a 15-issue comic book series for Marvel.

Romero doesn't mind not making zombie movies for a while.

"It seems like everybody's doing it. I'm happy to be taking a little break from it and doing this."

The 74-year-old says comic book creation has a different rhythm than making a film. For example, you're working with an artist and there are often adjustments that have to be made before the book goes to press.

"It's a surprisingly slow process," he says. "Writing it is really just the start."

Romero, who says he was always interested in horror going back to when he was a kid devouring the lurid EC Comics and watching the old "Flash Gordon" sci-fi serials, made "Night of the Living Dead" when he was living in Pittsburgh.

It was there he got his start in movies, while working for local TV station WQED on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." He laughs that a short film on tonsillectomies he made for the children's show launched his horror movie career.

"I often joke about it and say that was the scariest movie I ever made."