Suzanne Romero believed the future of horror belonged to everyone willing to create it. She spent the last eight years proving what that belief could become.
The George A. Romero Foundation mourns the loss of our founder, president, colleague, mentor, and friend. While it is difficult to imagine this Foundation without Suz at its center, every part of it reflects her vision, her generosity, and her determination to leave the horror community stronger than she found it.
When Suz founded the George A. Romero Foundation in 2018, her goal was to preserve the spirit behind her husband’s work: independent creativity, artistic courage, and the belief that horror has something meaningful to say about the world around us.
In May, in what would become her final letter to our community, she reflected on that vision, ultimately creating our blueprint:
“From the beginning, I have believed that everyone who contributes to the horror genre has a stake in its future. We are all shareholders in this public offering. Writers, directors, authors, fine artists, producers, distributors, publications, and every member of our community all help keep the genre vibrant, healthy, open, fruitful, and independent.”
That belief shaped every initiative she championed. Through scholarships, mentorships, and fellowships, she opened doors for aspiring filmmakers. She was especially passionate about creating space for voices that had too often been overlooked. The Foundation’s Women in Horror initiative reflected that commitment, celebrating and elevating women filmmakers and artists while creating new opportunities for them to share their work and connect with the community.
She also proudly supported Screams in a Box, helping young people explore filmmaking through access to tools and hands-on support, because she believed the next great storyteller simply needed someone to believe in them first. More broadly, the Foundation sought out projects from underrepresented creators, ensuring that horror’s future would be as diverse, vibrant, and fearless as the community itself.
Under her leadership, the Foundation restored and preserved George’s work, launched scholarships, mentorships, and fellowships for emerging filmmakers, partnered with the University of Pittsburgh to establish first the George A. Romero Horror Archive and then the world’s first Horror Studies Center, and most recently poured her heart into George A. Romero’s A Night at the Symphony. She believed horror deserved the same academic respect as any other artistic discipline, and she worked tirelessly to make that a reality.
She often described the Horror Studies Center as our “north star,” representing the future she wanted to build: a permanent home where horror could be studied as one of humanity’s oldest forms of storytelling, examined through countless cultural, artistic, and scientific lenses, and celebrated for generations to come.
Our work remains threefold: to support creatives, to strengthen the Horror Archive, and to champion the Horror Studies Center so it could continue to grow. Suz believed that humans have been telling scary stories since the beginning of time, and that horror is worthy of study because it reflects who we are, what we fear, and the cultures we come from. It wasn’t enough to preserve the genre. She wanted it to keep evolving.
Anyone who volunteered with Suz knows that this work was deeply personal to her.
She remembered names and details. She welcomed new volunteers as though they had always belonged. She celebrated every milestone, whether it was a student’s first scholarship, a filmmaker’s first screening, or an artist seeing their work recognized. She had an incredible ability to make people feel like they had something valuable to contribute, regardless of where they were in their creative journey.
The GARF has always been a volunteer organization, and Suz was proud of that. She consistently thanked the people who gave their time because she knew the Foundation only existed through a shared belief that this community was worth investing in.
That belief never wavered.
In recent months, Suz poured herself into what would become one of our most ambitious projects: George A. Romero’s A Night at the Symphony. Like so many of her ideas, it wasn’t simply a celebration of George’s work. It was designed to create something lasting, to generate support for the Horror Studies Center and ensure that future creators, students, and scholars would continue to benefit from the Foundation’s work long after any one project had ended.
That is the legacy Suz leaves behind.
A community.
A generation of artists she encouraged.
Students whose work she believed in.
Volunteers she inspired.
Friends she welcomed.
And institutions that will continue serving the horror community for decades to come.
In the closing lines of her final letter, Suz left us with the same encouragement she had shared for years:
“Keep musing, writing, drawing, painting, and shooting. Whatever the medium, tell your stories.”
Thank you, Suz, for your friendship, your generosity, and for believing in all of us.
We intend to honor her the best way we know how: supporting creators, protecting George’s legacy, building the future she believed was possible, and by making sure the community she loved continues to thrive.
– The GARF Team