Romero's take on The Walking Dead

Director George Romero sounded off on his opinion of the hit TV show, The Walking Dead, in the interview below. I first saw this posted on Facebook last week, and have seen it again several times since.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-george-romero-walking-dead-soap-opera-20131101,0,1375253.story#axzz2jgfARCAR

 

 In it Romero dismisses The Walking Dead as being merely a soap opera. Well, that makes sense, as he started the whole modern zombie movement, and these are people having huge success based on the work he created. Kind of not fair, in a way, but you know what? The Walking Dead is scarier and has better effects than either of Romero’s last two movies – particularly SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, which features some embarrassing CGI blood effects and an equally embarrassing storyline. There is NOTHING scary about Romero’s zombies in that film. The humans have learned to cope with the dead, which have become about as threatening to them as mosquitos.

Romero says…

“I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism, and I find that missing in what's happening now."

… Yeah. And honestly, that’s exactly why I enjoy The Walking Dead. Romero’s heavy-handed commentaries bug me to no end. He is so busy trying to send a message – and believe me, there is no subtlety in those messages, even the most dense viewer would “get” it – that he has worked everything scary out of the movie. His zombies are a joke, an afterthought. The humans don’t fear them any longer, so why should we? In fact his zombies are now learning, regaining consciousness, and becoming more humanistic. One of them even rode a horse, fer cryin out loud - Again, losing everything frightening about them. Man, just tell a monster movie, George!!

 

 

George sounds sour about TWD to me. It is way more successful than his last two film ventures, and with good reason. TWD is fun. It isn’t beating you over the head with a message, and features killer special effects. Look at the bicycle zombie from Season One of TWD – that is probably the single greatest zombie makeup ever created. Great work, KNB!

 

This is the type of show I used to dream about seeing when I was a kid – I am not going to miss this for anything. I love George’s first three zombie movies, they’re fantastic – but his later three are more interested in the message than the story. And that is the problem with them.

Here there be Zombies!

I re-watched Fulci's ZOMBIE last night from the Blue Underground bluray and man that thing looks and sounds great! One of my favorite horror scores - I need to track down a copy of that soundtrack.

This was shot, of course, after Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, and is not officially connected to it. However, DAWN OF THE DEAD was released in Italy under the title ZOMBI, so Fulci released his film in Italy as ZOMBI 2 to cash in on Romero's success, thus the unofficial tie-in.

I personally HAVE always thought of it as taking place in the same universe as Romero's films, however.

But this film to me is actually closer to Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD than DAWN. There isn't that comic book sensibility to it that DAWN OF THE DEAD has - the biker gang comes to mind, Savini and company campily loping off zombie heads with machetes, hooting and hollering and having a blast. There is never any humor injected into Fulci's Zombi. It stays deadpan serious throughout, much like Night. The tone is dark throughout the film, and both it and Night end on down notes.

The final shot of zombies slowly marching into New York City made me think - what if this is actually a prequel to Romero's films? In Night it is never explained exactly where the plague came from. What if this is how the plague arrived in America, first infecting NYC then swiftly moving across the states? Interesting to consider...!

My thoughts on Survival of the Dead…

I finally got a chance to see SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD late last week, and I decided to let it sink in a bit before writing about it. I had been looking forward to a new Romero zombie movie since the project was first announced. I’m a fan of Romero’s work and the first three movies in his “Dead” series are a really interesting trilogy of films.

Survival of the Dead, unfortunately, really struck me as kind of hollow. It kind of took a few days for me to be able to put my finger on just exactly what bothered me about it.

It wasn’t the plot that bothered me. Although this isn’t the story I had hoped to see, I was ok with it. Romero created this universe, and this threat, so I will go along with him on this point.

*Spoiler alert *

To recap, a group of soldiers make their way to an island and find themselves smack in the middle of a feud between two families who live on the island. This feud has been going on for years, and the zombie plague has served to intensify the rivalry. One family wants to exterminate the walking dead, the other side to capture and hold them in case a cure comes about. They hope to train them to feed on something besides human flesh.

*End of Spoiler alert *

Many of the special effects in this movie were done digitally, primarily the blood spray effects. However, this didn’t bother me near as much as I feared they would. It looked passable for the most part, although there were a few spots where it was pretty fake looking.

The main problem I have with this movie is with the zombies themselves, or rather the way they are portrayed. Look back at the 68’ NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. In that movie the dead are creepy, and scary, and a real threat. The living are in fear of these things, and don’t understand what is happening, and are running scared.

It’s been 40+ years and thousands of zombie movies later in real time, and unfortunately this has had an effect on the entire genre, Romero included. At the beginning of Survival we are told it takes place five days after infection. Five days. However, the people in this movie act as if they’ve been dealing with these things for years. They dispatch them with as little effort as taking out a bag of trash. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING scary about these zombies. People walk right up to them and shoot them, chop them, push them, hell, even punch them with no fear whatsoever. The islanders corral them and heard them like cattle, even keeping them in barn stalls like livestock. Oh, there are occasional adrenaline rushes where the characters jump into action at a moment’s notice, but little fear.

The zombies are relegated to a mere annoyance, and are robbed of everything that made them scary in the original. I think the reason Romero resisted making more zombie movies for so long is he felt he didn’t have anything more to say. The zombie genre is just tired, and Romero seems tired of it.

Midnight Movie - The Crazies 1973 at the Belcourt

Just found out the Belcourt theater, our arthouse theater in Nashville, is showing the original George Romero 1973 cult classic THE CRAZIES on:

Friday April 2nd and Sat. April 3rd at Midnight both nights! 

Now this is film, folks - none of that video projection crap - so if you are in the Nashville area April 2-3 make plans now to come to this midnight movie madness!!

Recommended Movie of the Week #12

The recommended movie of the week #12 was the George Romero classic, Night of the Living Dead, perhaps the greatest horror movie ever made.

Happy Birthday George Romero!

I woke this morning and turned on the news and saw a birthday greeting for George Romero - a quick trip by IMDB confirmed the master of horror turned 69 today! Happy birthday George! Here's to many, many more. And thanks for making more zombie movies - nobody does em like you!