Romero’s Latest Zombie Film Has Political Slant, As Usual
by S.T. KarnickFilmmaker George Romero has had exactly one good idea in his life: the original, 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead. Since then, he has been coasting on a reputation as a maker of smarter than average horror films. Although he has made some good movies since Night of the Living Dead, few of his films have above par for the horror genre, and the average quality of horror films in the decades since his breakthrough movie is a very low bar to surpass.
In particular, Romero has revisited the zombie film in quite a few movies over the years, usually providing the press with some serious intellectual/social/political commentary his latest film is supposed to make. So it is once again with his new film, the Venice Film Festival entry Survival of the Dead. Reuters reports that Romero, age 69, said his new film deals with questions about when it’s right to go to war:
“I wasn’t looking at Iraq and saying, well, lets make a movie about Iraq,” Romero told reporters on Wednesday.
“It’s much more about man’s underlying inability to forget enmity, forget their enemies even long after they’ve forgotten what started the conflict in the first place.
“I think that part of the problem is that nobody looks at both sides of any issue, it’s automatically: I’m on this side or I’m on that side.”
There’s nothing dishonorable in being a hack filmmaker; truly accomplished hacks can make enjoyable movies. But hack filmmakers with big ideas just become increasingly worse bores as the years wear on. Their vapid nattering reminds one of . . . zombies.
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101 Comments
I think Day of the Dead may be his best movie in the series, it is almost poetry. Dead Reckoning was pretty good also.
I hate Romero's movies. Mostly because the zombies aren't scary, the humans are unsympathetic, and watching intestines getting eaten isn't pleasurabe.
Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," from which Romero's empire was built, is vastly superior. I'd rather read that again than see another zombie movie.
"Filmmaker George Romero has had exactly one good idea in his life: the original, 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead"
As I indicated above, the idea wasn't his. Aside from replacing vampires with zombies, which in my opinion was a giant leap backwards.
The scary thing is in that photo he fits right in with the "dead". Freaky.
Here's some political-related Zombie humor: "Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters Exploit Obama Terrorism Precedents" http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/08/vampires-were...
and "Speaker Pelosi Vows to Stop Spread of "Nazi Zombie Menace" Before It Infects More Town Hall Meetings" http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/08/speaker-pelos...
This is very true. I don't get why the guy still gets so much respect in the film making community. He hasn't made a good film in decades, and to add insult to injury, his Dawn of the Dead was remade better than he did it.T hat probably wasn't that difficult, though, because as mentioned, he's a hack.
The thing is, if his story is about two views of kill the zombies or hope for a cure then Romero has forgotten a key part of his stories, the zombies are risen from the dead. So if you cure the zombie reanimation part then the body would return to a state of being dead and decay. So why would anyone think that curing them would be a better way to deal with them than just shooting them in the head? Shooting them in the head is the cure and returns them back to the previous state of being dead. DUH George. You've been hanging around libs too long.
Actually, he is right. How he translates this on screen might be bad, however.
I think I saw a few parts of that movie at a drive-in when I was a teenager. Romero's stuff was good drive-in fare since if you were otherwise occupied, you didn't feel as though you had missed much, if anything. Many happy memories from the days of the drive-ins…Somehow, sitting in front of a computer with a date doesn't seem nearly as romantic as sitting next to her on a bench front seat (with high hopes of migrating to the back seat)…bucket seats and floor shifts, another couple of obstacles to teenage romance.
I love Zombie movies, but I wish someone would steer these stories away from the far left edge of the road. Dawn Of The Dead was a critique on consumerism(i.e. capitalism is bad). Day Of The Dead was interesting but the military personnel were over the top bonkers/evil, similar to 28 Days Later(i.e. the military is bad). Land Of The Dead Was horrible. Dennis Hopper played a rich white guy keeping all the poor of the city under his thumb(i.e. rich, white guys are bad).
The 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead was terrific. They avoided so many liberal cliches and had surprisingly interesting characters from all walks of life. The redneck was actually a really cool guy. Now that's rare in Hollywood.
Another awesome zombie movie was Return Of The Living Dead. Absolutely ridiculous and hilarious. Years before 28 Days later, this movie had running zombies. And they could talk! Oh yeah, zombie butterflies!
Hmm… guess there is a reason I haven't seen any of his movies… ever…
Night of The Living Dead: Classic. Original.
Dawn of The Dead: Also classic. Appreciated commentary about mindless consumerism, and malls are a great place to hole up in when zombies attack.
Day of The Dead: "Say hello, Aunt Alicia". (Yawn.)
Land of The Dead: OK, OK, enough already. You're getting old and preachy, Romero. Time for a new idea.
Diary of The Dead: Saw it in the video store, decided not to take a chance and waste the rental fee.
Survival of The Dead: Romero really needs to take the head shot on this series and put it down.
The "Land of the Dead" was astonishingly offensive, with the bad guy described as being "essentially Donald Rumsfeld", which was odd given that the bad guy is a racist who sounds and acts nothing like Donald Rumsfeld.
Not only could they talk, they could order up more victims on the police radio! It is an awesome movie, though I never understood why the two squarest kids in school are hanging out with the punk rockers.
Good point. Those who made it a plague or virus did it better and more plausible before and after Romero.
We live in Day of the Braindead. What are you gonna do…
I did like the first one, and the one in the mall. I like the sense of loneliness and surving on your own skills in the "best" zombie movies. Kind of like holding strong however stupid, mindless and insistent the world is around you.
I'm about to return some library books, I think I will see what Matheson is available. I love reading these comments, I learn so much! And I get many much needed laughs.
They were so square it was punk!
Let's look at the other side of Iraq and Afghanistan. The other side wants to kill lots of people, rob the remaining people of their freedom/dignity/etc. and submit women to horribly cruel living situations.
Fair enough, Mr. Romero?
The slit dog yelping as it was being clubbed was hilarious.
It's a shame that Romero is so heavy handed with his political messages. More of his movies would be so much more entertaining if he wasn't so dogmatic. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are a lot of fun.
Amazing that no one in Lefty land will see the obvious connections between a) mindless hordes of followers who have stopped growing, emotionally and mentally, and b) zombies.
"Chaaaaaaaaaaange…"
I guess it depends on how you watch the movies. I thought Day of the Dead was absolute poetry. It wasn't just the military that was breaking down but science was at the extreme also. Religion wasn't really represented at all as I recall. The linchpin of Day of the Dead was this line:
"That's the trouble with the world, Sarah darlin'. People got different ideas concernin' what they want out of life."
So from my filter Sarah, represented sort of the liberal idealist and John represented a more conservative/libertarian ideal. Eventually Sarah has to give up her ideals because they aren't based in anything real and wait on an island for the zombies from Lucio Fulci's movie to fight sharks and arrive at that island.
I should probably watch Dead Reckoning again, I remember liking it but not too much else. I haven't seen anything by Romero since DR.
“I think that part of the problem is that nobody looks at both sides of any issue, it’s automatically: I’m on this side or I’m on that side.”
Automatically? Hmmm… yah, we keep saying what the bad guys are doing, and liberal commies just blink and keep repeating their B.S. We tell them of genocide, oppression, dictatorships, tyranny, terror, Islam's ideology, and they STILL BLINK with a BLANK look, "Coexist. Let's get along." The truth is, they want us to surrender.
I would hope that this is one issue on which conservatives and liberals like myself could come together. Hating on the zombie genre, and Romero's films in particular, is Un-American.
Agreed! Return of the Living Dead was hilarious but most importantly it had Linnea Quigley, which right there makes it better film than anything Romero has ever squeezed out.
Mmmmm Linnea Quigley.
Oh man, the story with Adrienne Barbeau and Hal Holbrook scared the crap out of me for some reason and I was something like 18 at the time, must have been that post high school anxiety.
Yeah, that was the most unlikely group of friends, just adding to the weirdness.
Dead Alive is the best Zombie movie of all time. My favorite part is when he brings the zombie baby to the part and has to end up mauling it in front of the other parents in order to protect the local children from it
I have to agree though Romero has /never/ had an original or good idea in his life. The only thing he is really responsible for is making eating people alive look realistic without advance computer's ect and I don't think anyone would want to be remember for that.
Romero has become what he portrays.
fantastic book. it is much better than the 3 movies it spawned. (and i actually like all 3)
Why is it that hollywood pseudo intellectual filmmakers always feel they have to include a liberal "teachable moment" in their films to those in fly over country? I'm tired of it and I don't pay to have my entertainment insult my intelligence.
This is a little off-topic, but bear with me and you'll see where I'm going with this.
Personally, I dug Night of the Living Dead, although I agree with a lot of other people on here that the remakes of these movies are better, and the later Living Dead entries were totally unnecessary. I've always liked zombies because of the near-hopelessness of quelling a zombie outbreak…zombies are essentially cannibals that just grow their ranks with everybody that dies. Are they jump-out-at-you scary? No, but are they threatening nonetheless? Absolutely… unless you have people "good" enough to actually kill them all, just leaving one "alive" will mean that someone else will get infected, and start all over again.
If anybody on here's open-minded enough, try out some of the zombie videogames available…Dead Rising is a good one that really embraces the whole "survival" theme of romero's earlier Living Dead movies, and there's another quasi-zombie game called Dead Space that's absolutely fantastic in terms of originality, and it's scary as well. The first 2 entries in the Resident Evil game series are good fun for zombie fans as well.
Zombies are unclean, unshaved, uncultured and cannot create. All they know how to do is destroy, and they are dead-set on destroying civilization. Sounds like an enemy many of us know of on here.
That aside, I loved Night & Dawn to death (Zack Snyder's remake was superior though). I always thought Romero's zombies seemed a little like the hippies of yesteryear. They were unclean, unbathed, stunk to hell, lived like animals, and were intent on destroying all that so many had worked so hard to make it possible for them to have.
I like The Omega Man.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067525/
Politics aside, my main gripe with Romero's filmography is that, since, basically, 1982, with the release of Creepshow, his reputation has far exceeded his skills (to paraphrase Treat Williams' character in Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead– crappy flick, memorable moment).
Day Of The Dead? I'd had high hopes going in, having LOVED the escapist adventure aspects of Dawn Of The Dead just six years earlier, but, aside from Savini's 'unrated' mid-80s FX work, what a letdown. Shrill, one-note actors playing paper-thin characters populating an uninteresting scenario had me scratching my head at the end credits, saying to myself, "Huh? That's it? Six years to work on a follow-up and that's the best Romero could muster?".
At this point, I'm convinced, given what minimal attention he receives from the entertainment media, that, if not for the on-the-nose political slant he's given his "Dead" films since his overtly anti-military Day Of The Dead in 1985, Romero's work would barely rate a mention in the Direct-To-DVD filmmaking universe his contemporary work deserves to reside in.
If you're a survivalist the "dead" cycle of films is a hoot. They almost all demonstrate what no to do in a crisis. An updated version of the original involving the FEMA blueprint would be a 90 minute "teaching moment" .HA!
Another interpretation I had for years of the first two Romero zombie flicks is Night represents the 1960 presidential election of Kennedy by the dead of Chicago and where Johnston dug up his votes and Dawn was an allegory of the 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago.
Artists always have the original meaning of their art but if it is truly art then the viewer is free to have his own interpretation. If it is agitprop than usually there aren't many other interpretations but if one is imaginative enough…And even if another interpretation isn't possible as in Michael Moore's fake documentaries, there is always counter-agitprop like Team America.
To add to the above:
Fight art with art! Damn the Dadists, full speed ahead!
Yes, I actually prefer the 2004 remake over any of Romero's later zombie flicks. "America always sorts its shit out." Damn right. And I loved that little cameo with Tom Savini as the sheriff who figured out "you gotta shoot 'em in the head." Heck, I would've loved to have seen a sequel or spin-off about Savini and his squad of zombie-killer deputies.
And yes, the Return of the Living Dead movies were hilarious.
It seemed like he was a much better director when he wasn't trying to be a political commentator.
Love the Critical Bill reference. Heh heh heh
I thought the best in the series was Shaun of the Dead. But that's just me.
I love Return of the Living Dead and its wacky sense of humor. Did anyone see the sequel? There was a scene where the zombies break into a pet store and attack the animals. It was sick, but it made me laugh so much.
sure, because hack filmmakers have films admitted into the National Film Registry … sadly this guy doesn't see the moral of the story does he?
George A. Romero is not a 'one-note' director. Does anybody remember Martin?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077914/
That would play well in the new realm of vampire fantasies. Monkeyshines was pretty good too. I don't consider Romero slanted in his politics at all. He asks the questions, but does not provide the answers. That's the only decent way to put politics into entertainment, IMO. The metaphoric qualities of zombies are virtually endless, but Romero also knew to play with the difference between zombies and the merely afflicted in The Crazies, which was had some interesting observations about government bureaucracy.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069895/
“It’s much more about man’s underlying inability to forget enmity, forget their enemies even long after they’ve forgotten what started the conflict in the first place."
…And he's going to address this with a ZOMBIE movie? They're zombies! The conflict exists because they want to east your brains! What's so complicated about that?
Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are awesome…..but everything else after that goes downhill fast. Romero should takes notes from those that emulated him, like Edgar Wright. "Shaun of the Dead" was not only hilarious but it had a lot to say about British pub culture, all of it laugh out loud funny.
I love Heston, and enjoy the booknotes of the film. That is, when he's alone in the beginning and when he [SPOILER] dies (Christ-like) at the end. It sinks like a stone into irretrievable 70s campiness as soon as the humans swoop in and save him from the pyre.
"Appreciated commentary about mindless consumerism, and malls are a great place to hole up in when zombies attack."
Apparently not that great, when the zombies' mindless consumerism attracts them to malls.
Heh. I remember the review of the game "Left 4 Dead" in PC Gamer magazine, which came out during the election. It had a screenshot showing a horde of approaching zombies with the caption "Chaaaaaange!"
Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead are terrific. Land of the Dead was lousy. Diary of the Dead was mildly interesting.
That being said, the remake of Dawn of the Dead is absolutely fantastic — better than any of the above. The DVD has extra features about the fall of society as viewed through a CNN-like news station which are very entertaining. Also, check out Richard Cheese's version of "Down With The Sickness" in that film.
For another scary take on zombies, check out "REC" (a Spanish film). Also am looking forward to "Zombieland."
"He asks the questions, but does not provide the answers."
No. The questions he chooses to ask PRE-DEFINE the expected "answers".
George Romeo deserves credit for "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead". Both were outstanding movies for their times. However, his other films are terrible. ("Martin" was boring, "Day of the Dead" had potential but had none of the claustrophobic tension "NOTLD" or action that "DOTD" possessed. "Diary of the Dead" and "Land of the Dead" (on top of being rather dull films) had embarrissingly hackneyed political "messages" which I can only assume Romero will try to repeat with this latest project.
Mr. Romero, please just go into retirement, okay?
But the two stories are nothing alike. If you're going to generalize that much you could say that "I Am Legend" ripped off Erasmus ("in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king").
Yeah I've never gotten the "comment on mindless consumerism" thing, unless you think a pie to the face is great social commentary.
Those who see 'social commentary' in Romero's early work are directly to blame for the actual hamfisted social commentary ruining his later work. ("Who screamed?" "It was me. It only matters if it happens on camera, right? Want to see? AAAAAAAAIEEEEEEE!")
Just saw the great Ghost Breakers for the first time. It's got one of the creepiest zombies I've ever seen and, of course, one of the best anti-Democrat lines ever.
Geoff Montgomery: It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.
Larry Lawrence: You mean like Democrats?
And what, no mention of Sam Raimi?
I'm a big fan of Romero's zombie flicks, but I do have to say they get more and more pretentious as they go on. Night of and Dawn of are superior horror flicks. But that's about it. Sorry George. I'll probably watch "Survival of" because I'm a fan, but I'm pretty sure I'll be disappointed.
Hey, thanks for the tips, I haven't been gaming much the last few years but I just had an Xbox dumped on me, so maybe I'll check those out. I loved the early RE games, and the first Tomb Raider, all because of that strong "You're on your own, and things are getting worse!" feeling. The feeling that you had to think throughout rather than just run/shoot/run/shoot etc. And it's getting to be the time of the year for a good scary game too.
Do not check out his Hunted Beyond Reason. It's a fairly recent book and it is a stinker. A kind Democrat is stalked Deliverence-style (including a grapic man-on-man rape scene) by a psycopathic Republican. Even if all of that wasn't a turnoff, it's as hacky as a Friday the 13th sequel. Stick with his earlier short stories and novellas, or something like Somewhere in Time.
I don't think you'll find a monolithic view on the "issue" here. I quite like zombie films and own every issue of The Walking Dead.
Land of the Dead was not a great video game, but it was a fun video game. It's a little hard to find now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6YdNmK77k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6YdNmK77k
Ed: 'Purple Rain'?
Shaun: No.
Ed: 'Sign o' the Times'?
Shaun: Definitely not.
Ed: The 'Batman' soundtrack?
Shaun: Throw it.
Lost all respect for Romero with "Land of the Dead". The WORST ending in film history, because he couldn't help letting his politics color his craft. He spends 3 films and 40 years showing us that the zombies are relentless, soulless killing machines, only to turn them into misunderstood, oppressed waifs. They're DEAD, George. You have spent your entire career making us hate and fear them, but now (because they are minorities, or something) we should just leave them alone.
That is worse than stupid. That is lazy.
Worse yet, Romero couldn't even bother to make his recent films internally coherent. Donald Rumsfeld…oops, I mean Dennis Hopper…is trying to escape with a suitcase of dollar bills. In a post-apocalyptic world, largely controlled by walking corpses? Romero, trying to make some sort of weak, obvious point, didn't spend 5 minutes thinking this through. Liberal good wishes don't excuse stupid, unthinking filmmaking.
Two things things that Romero has taught me over the years is that gun toting rednecks never die and the "racist" Harry Cooper was right, while the young, good looking, clean, articulate, black guy was wrong. The basement was the safest place!
This is an old hobby horse of mine, but I still hope you hear out my point-headed speculation. I think there's a very good reason Romero's movies have gotten worse and worse. He simply doesn't understand why his original film became such a hit!
This is an old hobby horse of mine, but I still hope you hear out my point-headed speculation. I think there's a very good reason Romero's movies have gotten worse and worse. He simply doesn't understand why his original film became such a hit!
The reason that Night of the Living Dead is so memorable and disturbing to so many is that it is essentially a parody of the story of the End Times. The Judeo-Christian story is that the dead will rise (without corruption mind you – The Valley of Bones) and be reunited with their souls and live in paradise – the best thing possible! In Romero's film the dead rise to kill and destroy with apparently no souls in sight – conceptually one of the worst things possible. The whole concept of souls in general becomes slippery. It's hard to believe the zombies have souls, but are they still alive? Is human life without souls the ultimate end of history? I've always thought that in some ways Night of the Living Dead was the ultimate Lovecraftian movie in positing that men's comforting little religious beliefs were grossly at odds with cosmic plans.
HBO should make the Walking Dead a series (provided they STICK to the source material AND film it in black and white.) Definitely the best zombie story, either in print or on film.
That's why I never bothered to watch "Land" — because of the plot. In a post-apocalyptic city with the walking dead on all sides, y'know who will be considered "rich?" Those with the guns, ammo, and skills to use them. Those who can grow food. Those who can build and maintain equipment. People with lots of bits of paper with dead presidents on them or with imaginary bits of paper in a bank — worthless.
Dude, AMC does a great job with Breaking Bad — maybe they'll do TWD good too! That's awesome.
"Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead" are favorites of mine. "Creepshow" had its moments. But since then, Romero has taken himself too seriously. Especially for genre films, too many in Hollywood forget that it is entertainment first, politics way after (if at all.)
Romero is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Through lack of oversight he lost the rights to NOTLD. It's in the public domain. All thanks to a screw-up by the film’s original distributor. This guy could be sitting on the biggest cash cow of all times. Now he's reduced to making these tired zombie retreads while he wears ridiculous over sized glasses.
Intersting bit about Dawn.
I'm a huge zombie fan myself, but I didn't much like 28 Days Later (enough not to bother watching 28 Weeks). Not because of any negative portrayal of the military, but just because that whole ending sequence didn't make sense for this important reason: They couldn't last a week without sex before going rape crazy? Seriously, the infection had just begun and already they are driven crazy by the lack of sex. They knew they could hold off the infected indefinitely, they knew they were going to be saved eventually… Yet they just couldn't keep it in their pants? I don't buy it, and if I'm watching the film to this point that means that I've already bought into the idea of ZOMBIES running around (well, sorta).
At any rate, if anybody is looking for a real treat of a recent zombie film they should check out Quarantine.
Give me a break. Are Romero's zombies going to start saying things like: "Can't we all just get along?"
You're right. One of his associates said, "We didn't shoot in the mall to make some big political statement. We shot at the mall because it was the only place we could film free of charge." Critics spun it as some anti-capitalist allegory and George bought into it. I still like all the Dead movies, though. The only one I've missed is Diary because I'm waiting for it to air in HD again.
I also like the 28 Days/Weeks movies. Maybe I'm in denial, but I don't see either as anti-military. The first one involved horny guys with power trying to hoard the surviving women. The second one, the US military was acting in a completely logical manner when they began targeting civilians. In that chaos, just try to pick out the infected from the well. And, I've seen some say, "They shouldn't have targeted the car at the end. Obviously, if someone was able to drive, they were not infected." Didn't the ending show that targeting the car was an absolutely correct decision?
I suspect Boyle and Garland may trend right anyway. The Beach is a pretty clear indictment of collectivism and the social Darwinism it entails.
This is an old hobby horse of mine, but I still hope you hear out my point-headed speculation. I think there's a very good reason Romero's movies have gotten worse and worse. He simply doesn't understand why his original film became such a hit!
The reason that Night of the Living Dead is so memorable and disturbing to so many is that it is essentially a parody of the story of the End Times. The Judeo-Christian story is that the dead will rise (without corruption mind you – The Valley of Bones) and be reunited with their souls and live in paradise – the best thing possible! In Romero's film the dead rise to kill and destroy with apparently no souls in sight – conceptually one of the worst things possible. The whole concept of souls in general becomes slippery. It's hard to believe the zombies have souls, but are they still alive? Is human life without souls the ultimate end of history? I've always thought that in some ways Night of the Living Dead was the ultimate Lovecraftian movie in positing that men's comforting little religious beliefs were grossly at odds with cosmic plans.
Do I think Romero thought any of this through? No. But I do think he accidentally hit on a theological nerve in a way very few other modern horror films have. Since he doesn't understand this however, he's taken to belive that zombies are metaphors for something when they're not. Dawn of the Dead is still a good movie, but it's a good movie because the characters are trying to make sense of a soulless pointless existence not because it's some savage indictment of American "consumerism". Day of the Dead is not bad, just boring. He's already played out the character drama and has nothing new to say – just criticism of the military to fall back on. Land of the Dead seemed so dire I've never even wanted to watch it. All of a sudden metaphors for conspicuous consumption are supposed to stand in for the downtrodden of society?? How the hell does that work?
left 4 dead is where the zombie games should be…
AMC is doing it! Frank Darabont is attached as the showrunner (I believe that's his role, but maybe he's an exec. producer or something). I may be the only one on the planet, but that last bit gets a mixed reaction from me. Shawshank is an excellent film, but I had no use for the Green Mile (more King's fault, really) and the Majestic was all about the "red scare" whereas I saw a "red menace." I believe The Mist was supposed to be anti-Christian, but I never saw it.
Anyway, TWD is great as is Kirkman's Invincible.
No, they are just going to go around asking for "change?"
I love zombie movies and I hated the 28 … series. The first one was more a rip-off of "Day of the Triffids" than any zombie story. As Handshakes says, the ending made no sense (besides the cliche rape storyline, how did Cillian Murphy go from nerd to Rambo so quickly? And he was gutshot, but he survives after the zombie apocalypse?!)
I also despise that people credit 28 Days Later with 'inventing' fast zombies when Return of the Living Dead did it first and did it better.
28 Weeks Later was just awful. The ridiculous first scene where they're safe in a boarded-up house and the zombies tear through it like paper; the kids running away and ruining everything; the "my t-shirt will act as a gas mask!" scene, the gas-proof car … ridiculous nonsense.
And I haven't seen Quarantine, but I did watch REC, the movie it was based on. Not bad.
"He spends 3 films and 40 years showing us that the zombies are relentless, soulless killing machines, only to turn them into misunderstood, oppressed waifs."
i think they call that Stockholm Syndrome.
I think there was some dialogue between characters in the film expressing curiousity about why the zombies flocked to the malls, and the reply was something like: "It's what they're used to". Some people go to malls as entertainment, or because of pathology. That's what I responded to. The pies in the zombie faces were just a bonus.
I call B.S. on the claim that I and others like me were somehow to blame for 'hamfisted social commentary', in early OR later work. Romero put it there- not me. I didn't encourage him. I didn't write glowing reviews in papers or magazines. Romero got preachy all on his own.
If you like the whole "you're on your own" vibe then definitely check out Dead Space in particular…they make you think and fight in totally unconventional ways and the story's really interesting. Dead Rising is very traditional for zombies as you're trying to survive in a shopping mall while rescuing survivors, but it's still fun (very difficult, though), and you can find both of these games at budget prices these days.
I remember back when Land of the Dead was a new pc game and the critics pretty much tore it apart…I played the demo and thought it was fun, though. Try half.com or the amazon marketplace and you should be able to find it for a decent price. The cool thing about old videogames is that unless there's some weird circumstance in their popularity (or if they're an rpg), they don't ever increase in value, so your chances of finding that at a low price is really good.
One of my all-time favorite movies.
Agreed.
For anybody that wants a good laugh, or needs a Christmas present for someone into this stuff, this is a great book:
http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Compl...
Romero's films constantly emphasize the similarities between zombies and ordinary (living) people.
They also have lots of scenes of the protagonists hacking, shooting, and otherwise massacring zombies.
Conclusion? Mr. Romero's films are fantasies of genocide.
Why do you hate the church?
Why do you make fun of Christians?
Are you Asian?
thank you Karnick for making it clear to us Breitbart readers that you don't approve of this movie's message. That's about all I can see you doing in this article.
What's annoying is that you grant that Romero had one good movie – the first. And then you bag on his latest because it had a political message. But you fail to acknowledge that much of his reputation as an intellectual horror guy is because his first movie was strongly laced with political commentary – about Veit Nam.
somehow I think the underlying views about war expressed by the first one are not so very different from the latest. But maybe you didn't notice.
I've had it for a while now, but I had to order it from Australia. Like you, I ignored the critics and tried the demo. I thought it was fun, so I procrastinated and missed out on it in the stores, but finally ordered it. I enjoyed it from start to finish.
what do you have against Asians?
What are you talking about? I love the Church, and I love Jesus.
"you could say that 'I Am Legend' ripped off Erasmus ('in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king')."
You're being facetious, of course, but for the sake of argument, I couldn't say that was the point of "I Am Legend". Especially given the end, wherein the main character was subsumed by those inferior to himself. But nevermind the end, throughout the entire book, he's not king. He has to hide in the daytime, cower in the nightime. He wasn't any more of a king to the vampires or infected humans than serial killers are kings to us.
Facetious and Erasmus. Sounds like a Bible story.
I was pointing up the whole "one person different in a sea of the same" concept, which you could reduce both to. So I was being facetious, but only because I think likening "I Am Legend" to "Night of the Living Dead" is a biiiiig stretch.
That said, I'm not a tremendous fan of either – I saw Dawn of the Dead first, and only watched Night many years later. And while I read Matheson's story I found it dull and pointless with tons of plotholes and a tiresome, anti-hero, anticlimactic ending.
The problem with the movies is that they don't really understand the book or knowingly change the story in rejection of the book's intent.
But there weren't any zombies in there. The closest parallel to Matheson's mutated plague survivors is vampires.
It was a bit silly though. Given a world in which getting eaten is a genuine threat, just about everybody's list of their primary desires would have 'Not be eaten' very near or at the top. Getting 'Not be eaten' off their lists was one of the first great achievements of our ancestors on the way to civilization. That anybody would fail to recognize the importance of that and be taken seriously by other is the harbinger of collapse.
Your name is making fun of the Korean Christain TV show.
Most likely you had a religious background.
Maybe your ashamed of your parents and the name makes you feel like you have power over the church. You don't believe. You want to believe in the power of science or technology.
In the end we are all afraid.
interesting. I did not know of this Korean TV show. At least that explains your odd accusation.
I'm proud to say that my religious views are very in keeping with my parents and how they raised me.
And I'm not sure what you mean about science and technology, and what they have to do with religion.
The statistical odds of pickings such a name without knowing what it means are very small. Almost zero. Plus using the term dssdnt at the end of your profile is short for dissident. You name implies Cgntv Dissident.
So your reply is mostly a lie.
Science and technology are more related to the term theology. Techology is the worlds fastest growing religion. A lot of Atheists to go on and on about the subject.
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