‘Living Dead’ Sequels
The enduring popularity of Night of the Living Dead , and the positive reception for Dawn of the Dead, ensured several more sequels, namely, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Diary of the Dead. The series charts different aspects of humanity’s long-running battle with the forces of death, in the shape of the zombie apocalypse that threatens to drive the human race to extinction, and most of the films reference contemporary social and political issues from a critical standpoint.
Day of the Dead
In 1978, the co-writer of the script of Night of the Living Dead, John Russo, released a sequel entitled Return of the Dead, which continues the story set up in the original film. This provoked a bitter argument between Russo and Romero, since Romero saw Return of the Dead as a direct competitor to his own sequel, Dawn of the Dead, which was released in the same year. The conflict eventually was settled in court, and Russo was ordered to cease advertising his movie. As a result of this situation, Russo’s film Return of the Dead is not generally regarded as the true sequel to Night of the Living Dead. However, Return of the Dead has spawned four more movies in the series, including two that have been released on television.
Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Diary of the Dead, all by Romero, have in general received positive reviews, though there is some debate as to which is the strongest film. Day of the Dead was released in 1985, and was described by him as a ‘tragedy about how a lack of human communication causes chaos and collapse even in this small little pie slice of society’. This theme had been present in his earlier movies, but now Romero explored it further, with mixed results.
Romero initially had high ambitions for the film, having received a total of US$7 million to make it. However, during the production process, this sum was cut to approximately half this amount, forcing him once more to use his resourcefulness in making striking films on a low budget. This he managed to do, despite all sorts of financial disputes, mechanical failures and other problems that arose during filming. (For example, since some of the scenes were shot underground, Romero used a mine shaft location, but the high humidity in the atmosphere made filming very difficult).
Ravaged by Zombies
The plot of the movie concerns the zombie apocalypse portrayed in parts one and two of the Romero Living Dead movies, with a jump forward in time to a ravaged planet earth, where human survivors of the plague are few and far between. In an underground research station, a scientist, Doctor Logan, spends his time conducting gruesome experiments on zombies that he has captured, trying to find out more about them in an effort to understand how human beings and zombies can coexist in the future. The underground bunker is also inhabited by a guerilla leader, Rhodes, and his small band of followers. When a female scientist, Sarah, comes to the bunker to seek refuge, fighting breaks out between Logan and Rhodes, with catastrophic results.
The film contains extremely gory sequences, and so shocked the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting that it issued a statement saying, ‘Director-writer George Romero’s third low-budget zombie chilller provides a loathsome and unimaginative mix of violence, blood, gore and some sexual references demeaning to women’. Others, such as critic Janet Maslin, reviewing the film in the New York Times, complained that there was too much ‘windy argument’ in the movie. However, the female star of the film, Lori Cardille, took issue with the idea that the film was sexist, and pointed out that her character, Sarah, was intelligent, strong and resourceful, rather than simply being depicted as a gun-toting sex symbol.
The Zombie Myth: Digging Deeper
Initially, reaction to Day of the Dead was not very positive, with many commentators suggesting that it was the weakest film in the series. It was seen as the most ambitious, yet least convincing, movie that Romero had made. Today, however, it is considered to be one of the most intriguing, if controversial, of his films. Although some believe the film features too much talk and not enough action, others find it more intellectually satisfying than the first two films, in that it tries to dig deeper into the zombie myth, asking what really drives these creatures from the grave. In addition, enthusiasts point to the special effects in the film, which are much more complex and impressively executed than in the first two of the Living Dead trilogy.
Land of the Dead
The next film to feature in the Romero series was Land of the Dead, released in 2005. During the 1990s, Romero did not release a zombie film, but in the new millennium, there was a spate of original zombie or zombie-related films, including Resident Evil, 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead that encouraged him to make another movie. This movie, the fourth in the series, told the story of a zombie attack on the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which, in his ongoing story, has now become like a medieval city, protected and fortified from the onslaught of the marauding hordes of zombies. The ‘stenches’, or zombies, so-called because of their rotting bodies, have become the main population of the planet, and have, worryingly, begun to show signs of increased intelligence.
Stomach-Turning Special Effects
In a parody of modern urban society, the rich human survivors of the apocalypse live in a skyscraper, carefully guarded in their high-rise apartments, and separated off from the poor, who live miserable lives on the streets below. The rich community of the skyscraper hire a band of raiders to make occasional attacks on zombie strongholds to obtain food and other supplies. However, it seems that the zombies have now begun to remember skills from their past as living beings, and are not easily outwitted.
On its release, the film had positive reviews. A big budget extravaganza, it was generally considered to have delivered classy entertainment while still preserving Romero’s trademark wit, irony and scathing social commentary. Critic Michael Wilmington wrote: ‘It’s another hard-edged, funny, playfully perverse and violent exercise in movie fear and loathing, with an increasingly dark take on a world spinning out of control. By now, Romero has become a classicist who uses character and dialogue as much as stomach-turning special effects to achieve his shivers’.
Gore and Politics
In addition to the glossy production values, the film boasted a cast of stars, including Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, and Asia Argento. Overall, Land of the Dead was seen as a successful transition on the part of its director, George Romero, from the low-budget ‘cult’ horror film to the mainstream blockbuster. Some saw in it a critique of the US response to the horrific events of 9/11, in which Bush and others effectively argued for an isolationist, vigilante position, presenting America as fighting singly-handedly against an ‘axis of evil’ – an unspecified foreign network of terror – and ignoring or denying US political involvement and support of regimes, such as in Saudi Arabia, that might have contributed to the outbreak of violence. Others preferred to view Romero’s latest offering as pure entertainment, and were especially impressed by the special effects and make-up, seeing it as a horror film in the best comic-book tradition.
Diary of the Dead
Diary of the Dead, the next chapter in Romero’s series of zombie films, premiered in 2007. The movie tells the story of a group of filmmakers who record the outbreak of a zombie attack, and inevitably become bound up in the violence themselves. It begins as a reporter stands in front of an ambulance, reporting on the murder of a family, who is then bitten by a supposed dead body being loaded into the vehicle. The action escalates, throughout the film, into a full-scale battle between the humans and the zombies.
In homage to some of his favourite writers, actors and film directors, the voices of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Craven, Guillermo del Toro, Simon Pegg, and Stephen King were used as the newscasters on radio. Although reviews were mixed, the film was was, in general, positively received.
Survival of the Dead
Romero’s most recent film in the series is Survival of the Dead, which has been shown at film festivals but is currently still awaiting general release. Set only a few weeks after the initial outbreak of a zombie plague, the story follows some groups of survivors as they attempt to survive the latest episode in the apocalypse.
The film opens with a crisis scenario in which, worldwide, over fifty million people are dying each year, and then returning to feast on the living. The zombies, known as ‘deadheads’ take their sustenance from live human beings, who then become zombies themselves, ad infinitum.
Terrible Affliction
On a small island called Plum, off the coast of Delaware, two families of Irish extraction, the O’Flynns and the Muldoons, make matters more difficult for themselves by continuing their lifelong feud, this time disagreeing on how the zombies should be fought off. The leader of the O’Flynns wants to shoot them dead, even though many of them were previously members of their family. The leader of the Muldoons thinks that the zombies should be held captive and treated in a reasonably humane way until a cure for this terrible affliction can be found.
Matters reach crisis point when fighting breaks out between the two families. Meanwhile, a party of ruthless, rough and ready soldiers dedicated only to self-preservation arrive on the island, seeking a safe haven, and once there begin to rob, steal and fight in order to survive.
Extreme Carnage
As in his other films, Romero manages to tuck some witty social and political commentary in amongst the gore. One critic, Ray Bennett, called it ‘a polished, fast-moving entertaining picture whose mainstream success will depend on audiences’ tolerance of its tendency to become an abattoir of extreme carnage.’ For diehard zombie fans, there are ever more ingenious special effects, featuring exploding bodies and heads, with ghoulish make-up to match, and an array of revolting set pieces that will delight the most seasoned horror viewer.