Pajiba

"Shaun of the Dead" put a permanent moratorium on slow, boring, mindless zombies. Poor Romero. Too old to know that he sucks now.
I do like his legacy, though: Zombies, cockroaches, and Ted Danson's head.

Let's look at his zombie track record:
Night of the Living Dead -1968
Dawn of the Dead -1978
Day of the Dead -1985
Land of the Dead -2005
Diary of the Dead -2007
Survival of the Dead -2010

Anyone else notice that 20 year gap between good and suck? Land of the Dead was just a fuck up for me. Mainly because they have a super smart zombie who basically has an army of zombies. Diary of the Dead was a shit fest...I just...I can't even describe. With Survival of the Dead it appears he's now making a zombie comedy. Really? Just let it go man.

This is coming from a massive zombie fan. One of the few people who doesn't care that there are 30 new zombie movies a year. I will watch them all.

Now THIS was a man with but one good idea. He was however able to milk it for all that it was worth and then some. But the teat has long gone dry for him and other people have since taken it up and perhaps with a better perception of present day audiences.

To his credit and legacy, he nearly single handedly created this sub-genre. But even if one could argue the zombie vein has not been completely exhausted, I think it's a fair bet to say that it's passed Romero by. I by no means say Romero should walk away from film making, rather that like many of you, I feel he should try his hand at something different. If he doesn't, I have no doubt his next movie will be some sort of zombie musical- and even that avenue has already been covered.

Bingo Night of the Dead

Liberty Mutual Commercial of the Dead

15 MPH Drive of the Dead

Romero should start focusing on these, post-haste.

Stroumboulopoulos is in it? The dude has a show on the CBC witch is actually pretty decent. Really, it's saying something when your movie career is actually a step down from Canadian television.

I'm also not sure why they've got the age verification on this. There was probably bad language or something... but I think the under 18's could probably make it through those 58 seconds relatively unscathed.

(This time around I claimed to have been born in 1953. I'm a master of deception!)

There's just so much you can do with a zombie; to say nothing about a zombie film. It doesn't matter how funny (Loved "Shaun" by the way.), self-referential or "important" the movies are: In all of the films, a group of survivors gets picked off, and the hero and maybe a lover gets away from the growing zombie horde that eventually swarms the remaining group. The only exception is the progenitor of the modern zombie movie, "Night of the Living Dead" directed by Romero.

His last effort, "Diary of the Dead," suffered largely because it didn't have a seasoned cast; and it's point, that there can be a strong desire to document events and other peoples' lives instead of living your own, was more annoying than poignant.

The film before "Diary," "Land of the Dead" was actually not the worst thing ever (How's that for a blurb on the DVD box?). It had real, honest to goodness actors, a bit of a budget and the idea that zombies may not be that mindless could have raised some interesting ethical questions within this storyline.

Rumor has it that this latest film is supposed to be a commentary on reality TV. Timely and fresh! Again, the real evil is more annoying than evil.

Yeah, it seems like that whereas the earlier films could be interpreted to be about racism, consumerism and conformity (a younger man's fighting passion) the more recent ones are about this high fallutin' technology and "my stories" getting replaced by "Fornicating Island," "So You Want To Have Saline Bags Crammed Into Your Chest" and "Flava of Whores," dagnabbit.

Did you guys know that there's a DVD that exists for reals at this moment called "Retard Dead?" It wasn't directed by Romero and I haven't seen it, but judging from the box, someone slapped some green makeup on some Down's kids and made a zombie movie.

Dude, that's pretty fucked up right there.

Romero and company struck gold with NOTLD. Dawn was really a remake of Night, with a slightly hopeful ending. He should have stopped there. Day was lousy, with characters behaving stupidly. I didn't see Land and wish I hadn't seen Diary.

All I know is that poster is pretty wicked. I like it. That is all.

I'm a Romero fan, not an apologist. I don't see how Dawn of the Dead, his best zombie film, is a remake of NotLD with a different cast of characters. The argument certainly can't apply to Day of the Dead, which is just a bizarre hot mess worth seeing only for completists.

Land of the Dead is a pretty low-rent version of Dawn of the Dead, but again, I'm not seeing the rehash of NotLD factor there. Diary of the Dead had an interesting gimmick that grew tired far too quickly when nothing was done with it. Again, not really a NotLD rehash, either. Is your claim just that a group of strangers fighting off zombies means it's a remake? Because then every musical Disney film is just a remake of Snow White, with a plucky hero or heroine fighting against an evil force with catchy songs. The argument doesn't hold up.

This Survival of the Dead seems to be trying to inject a bit more humor than usual for Romero, which is a plus.

Slow zombies are the scary and realistic ones. Romero stays true to that (except for Land where they learned to use tools, communicate, and cross great rivers underwater), which I respect.

VOD early release doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad film. It means that someone is willing to experiment with distribution methods in a very stale marketplace. It's one thing when former Oscar-bait like Burning Plains is knowingly disqualified from awards contention by premiering on TV a week before opening its limited run; it's quite another when something a bit off the mainstream, like Bubble, chooses to get the film to the people as easily as possible.

BTW, I have a weekend diversion coming up in a few that will reference a movie made in 1958 that if it hadn't lost its nerve would have beaten "Night of the Living Dead" to the punch by 10 years. Stay tuned ...

I'll wait for Leisurely Sunday Afternoon Walk With A Scottish Terrier By Lake Michigan That Should Be Taking Your Mind Off Her, But Everything You See Is Reminding You Of The Places You Two Used To Go, Her Laugh, And The Feeling Of Your Body Next To Hers And Why Oh God Why Did I Think We Needed Time Apart Because She Was The Best Goddamn Thing That Ever Happened To Me And I Completely Blew It So I'm Trying to Forget That I'm a Fucking Idiot By Walking My Dog Along The Lake Of The Damned.

Agree with everyone on Romero hanging it up, but I'm still internally debating which are scarier, the slow or the fast zombies.

While the zombie genre has moved pretty solidly toward the fast ones, there's something so creepy about the slow ones to me. Maybe its that there's time to really comprehend the horror that's befalling you as they lurch in slow motion toward you, whereas the fast ones are on you before you can even think.

Related question: are zombie movies for men what vampire movies are for women? (see Pajiba's awesome analysis of what the Twilight movies offer to girls for what I mean) Seems to me the zombie genre offers the same sort of escapist fantasy, but aimed at men. Like nearly everyone here, I'll see pretty much ANY zombie movie, no matter how terrible...I just can't say no.

Vampire flicks combine sensuality, adventure and longing, etc. in a package that hits the spot for women. Zombie movies do the same thing for men via weapon-aided kickass, rescue of the womenfolk, and generally being the lone tough guy on whom everyone else depends. What's not for a guy to like?

Oh, Simon Pegg, how I love thee. I like slow zombies and fast zombies and zombies who aren't really zombies, they just have a rage virus, and any other kind of zombie you can dream up. But Simon makes a good, eloquent argument for the slow zombie.

DeistBrawler writes: "Anyone else notice that 20 year gap between good and suck?"

Dude, for me it was almost 30. I HATED Day of the Dead.

I know it's heresy around these parts, but what about Bored of the Dead?

Night was a great example of the diy indie spirit. Romero didn't wait for studio backing, he scraped together what he could to make something he believed in and in doing so gave birth to a horror classic. AFAIC the old fella can get the project car out of the garage and take it for a Sunday spin any time he likes. I won't be watching, but I won't be telling him what to do either.

God, what a great bit of writing by Pegg. I love him even more now, eloquent bastard.

Jim Doggie, you need to win EE this week with that fantastic entry.

(500) Days of Zombies
District 10: The One with Zombies
Zombie Precious Based on the Novel Push by The Corpse of Sapphire

Well, I seem to be the only one who actually saw SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, two weeks ago in a press screening in Germany. That doesn't make any difference, though, because all of the above made comments pretty much nail it: This film is plain bad. Terribly written (by Romero himself), badly acted and with the lousiest CGI splatter effects I've ever seen. And what's worse: There is none of the anger left that simmered through NIGHT, DAWN and DAY, none of the political furor, none of the wicked humor. It's just a lousy, unfunny, uninspired comedy with the falsest "emotional" death scene of one of the characters I've ever seen. It breaks my heart to write this, because for me, Romero was the one who really awoke my never ending love for the genre.

Both diary and survival sucked rotten zombie flesh.diary made no sense how the hell was he getting millions of facebook or myspace (which ever the hell it was) hits when everyones fucking dying there were scenes where the zombies walked right the fuck past jason(the guy filming) and up to one of the other kids like o he's filming cant fucking eat him and survival seemed to be filled with stereotypical irish hillbillies from an island near Delaware uuuummmmm what? alright I guess thats believeable I suspect the next one will be called horticultural of the dead it will tackle the social and cultural issues of zombies who smoke pot that will be a masterpiece cant wait

Are all of those articles written you or did you appoint a ghost writer?