Happy Birthday, Uncle George!

What must it be like to invent an entirely new sub-genre of film? In my life time, I only know of one man to do so - George A. Romero. Romero turns 72 today and while his most recent entries in the "Living Dead" series pale in comparison to the first three, no one can deny that his contribution to modern Horror films is without comparison. 

Romero's movies aren't just about scaring audiences (though most of them do so quite effectively), but making them think along the way. Night of the Living Dead comments on racism; Dawn of the Dead on rampant consumerism and Day of the Dead addresses military oppression. Even the lesser and latter films in the series have something to say. Land of the Dead is about class and money, while Diary of the Dead is about obsessive artists and Survival of the Dead speaks to familial relationships. 

Uncle George

Of course, Zombies aren't Romero's only topics. One of my favorite Romero films is 1981's Knightriders, about a traveling group of entertainers who reenact medieval joust tournaments on motorcycles. It features the leading man debut of Ed Harris, and is the one of the first films I can remember seeing as a young man that features a positive representation of a gay character. His first of two collaborations with author Stephen King is the highly effective anthology Creepshow, which features a hilarious performance from Adrienne Barbeau as an obnoxiously pushy wife of a wimpy professor; King himself as man overtaken by an alien life force; Leslie Nielson and Ted Danson in a tale of infidelity, murder & revenge and a very creepy sequence involving cockroaches (my college friend Rich W. nearly lost his mind during that one).

1988's Monkey Shines tells the tale of a quadriplegic (Jason Beghe) whose genetically altered helper-monkey Ella, develops inappropriate feelings (and eventually murderous rage) for her 'master.'

In 1993, Romero adapted King's novel The Dark Half, about an author whose fictional pseudonym (possibly the soul of his twin who died in vitro), comes to life to take revenge after the author "kills' and buries him publicly. The Dark Half was written in response to King's outing as 'Richard Bachman,' author of 'The Running Man,' among other novels. Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Julie Harris, Michael Rooker and my beloved Beth Grant star.

I haven't even covered Romero's early, 'smaller' indie films like Martin; The Crazies or Season of the Witch (AKA Hungry Wives); all of which are worth seeing, if only to track Romero's progression as both a writer and director.

Still, Romero's legacy will always be his "of the Dead" films, beginning with the 1968 classic that started it all, Night of the Living Dead.

I and hundreds of other film and Horror bloggers have written about this film ad nauseum, and none of us have anything truly new to say that hasn't already been said. Just know that had it never been made, AMC's amazing series "The Walking Dead" would never have existed. Nor would any number of other zombie movies (including the hilarious Shaun of the Dead and my own screenplay Army of the Dead), novels (Max Brooks' "World War Z") toys, calendars, blogs and even trading cards.

Happy Birthday, Uncle George. Your rabid fans will always love you for creating the sub-genre that continues to infiltrate and influence popular culture.

More, anon.
Prospero

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There's Got to Be a Morning After (or 2)

Krishna failed to pull this guy up to Heaven by his ponytail.

I won't bother you again with the story of when I first saw Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Instead, I want to share my thoughts on the film (and Zack Snyder's 2004 'remake').

The events of Romero's version take place in the days following those of Night of the Living Dead. The world has been overrun by the reanimated dead, and as scientists argue over the cause and what should be done about it, Philadelphia newscaster Fran (Gaylen Ross) and her helicopter pilot boyfriend Stephen (David Emge) are planning on stealing the station's chopper to make their escape. Meanwhile, SWAT cops Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reineger) are sent into a Philadelphia tenement where they find a basement full of zombies, hidden by their loved ones who don't want to see their family members slaughtered. After killing dozens of both zombies and the living, the two decide they've had enough and meet up with Fran and Stephen to flee the city. After a scare while refueling the chopper, they come upon a shopping mall which they realize could serve as a sanctuary and land on the roof. They kill the zombies inside and risk going outside to block the mall's entrances with tractor-trailer trucks. It is during this risky operation that Roger gets sloppy and ends up bitten. They create a hidden living space and use the guns and food in the stores to create a mini-utopia for themselves. That is, until Roger succumbs to his wounds and reanimates. When Peter is forced to shoot his friend i teh head, they soon realize that their utopia is actually a prison, and begin to discuss leaving. Before they can, the mall is invaded by a gang of bikers, which include Romero himself (in a the Santa suit) and make-up effects innovator, Tom Savini. The bikers let hundreds of zombies in and Peter is bitten. When he reanimates, he leads the zombies right to the hidden living space, forcing Fran and Peter to the roof. As Fran waits outside, Peter contemplates suicide, but at the last minute fights his way to the chopper where he and Fran fly off with an unknown amount of fuel to an uncertain future.

Romero's film is notable for many reasons. First, Savini's effects: exploding heads; flesh being ripped off; intestines being pulled from stomachs and most infamously, the zombie ho gets the top of his head cut off by the helicopter's rotor. Second, like most of Romero's films, it makes a telling statement about blind consumerism and how people need to feel like they belong. As Peter says, "They're us, that's all."

Oh, Mom! You're so funny!

In 2004, director Zack Snyder (Watchmen; 300) 'remade' Dawn of the Dead. I used quotations here because the only thing the two films have in common is a shopping mall.

Snyder's film, from a screenplay by Slither director James Gunn, is set in Wisconsin and ignores the events of  Night... altogether. Nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) has just come off a double shift at a hospital which has seen an unusual number of bite victims. She briefly talks with her young  neighbor Vivian (Hannah Lochner) before heading off to an in-house date night with her husband, Luis (Louis Ferrreira). The next morning, Luis is awakened to find Vivian in their house. Before he can figure out what's going on, Vivian savagely attacks him, ripping out his throat with her teeth. Ana tries to save Luis, but he dies and is quickly reanimated only to attack Ana, who barely manages to escape to find that chaos has erupted in her normally quiet suburban neighborhood. After crashing her car, she meets up with Kenneth (Ving Rhames); Michael (Jake Weber); Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant girlfriend, Luda (Inna Korobkina). The four make their way to a nearby mall, where they're basically taken hostage by a trio of mall security guards (Michael Kelly, Michael Barry and Kevin Zeigers). Soon, a panel truck filled with survivors shows up, including rich a-hole Steve (Ty Burrell); devoted dad Frank (Matt Frewer); his daughter Nicole (Lindy Booth), among others. They also discover Andy (Bruce Bohne), who is stuck in his gun shop, across the street from the mall. They communicate with Andy via whiteboard, playing chess and sending encouragement. It isn't long before folks start dying; Andy begins to starve and a reanimated Luda gives birth to a zombie baby. Deciding to escape on Steve's boat, they construct two zombie-proof vehicles and break out. After one of the trucks crashes and it's passengers die, the survivors make their way to an island in Lake Michigan, where things aren't much better. Foree makes a cameo appearance as a televangelist, reprising his line from the original: "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

Unlike the shuffling, shambling zombies in Romero's films, the zombies in Snyder's movie are fast and furious (like the 'zombies' in Danny Boyles' 28 Days Later), which made Romero furious. Romero would later make his disdain known in his "first-person" zombie film, Diary of the Dead, in which a young director yells at an actor playing a mummy: "You're dead! The dead can't run! They'd break their ankles!"

While an effective and exciting horror movie, Snyder and Gunn's version has none of the social commentary of Romero's film. Both films are terrifying, but they work on completely different levels. Uncle P, while no purist, actually prefers the Romero version, though that may have more to do with the circumstances under which I first saw it, more than anything. If nothing else, Snyder's movie proves that the rules of the genre (like many a horror story) are malleable and subject to the whims of the writer. In either case, the Zombie Apocalypse is not something I want to be around for. But if I am, I will be well-prepared.

More, anon.
Prospero

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Brains?

This post probably belongs on the Zombie Zone, but I thought a Zombie story on CNN was more than worth a passing mention.

The story (here) is actually about the spread of viruses and how zombie movies, stories and novels use the model of a spreading zombie virus in a way that mimics the spread of actual known viruses. It also talks about the morphology of the human brain and how such a virus might quite effectively overtake our lower 'lizard' brains to most effectively sustain its hosts, as well as mentioning prions (essentially mutated proteins) such as the one which causes so-called 'Mad Cow Disease.'

We all know that the modern version of the flesh-eating zombie, seen in films like Zombieland and AMC's smash hit series "The Walking Dead" was created by writer/director George A. Romero in his groundbreaking 1968 low-budget thriller Night of the Living Dead. However, the specific consumption of brains didn't come about until Romero's former partner John Russo teamed with the late writer/director Dan O'Bannon (Alien; Dead and Buried) for 1985's comedic take on the genre, The Return of the Living Dead. Of course, now that the Horror sub-genre has achieved a massive pop-culture following, it may well be on the verge of losing its counter-culture status. And while a legitimate article on CNN.com may well prove to be the demise of the zombie as a sub-culture icon, I can't help but hope that Uncle P stood on the precipice with Romero and embraced a phenomena that was well ahead of its time. 

Perhaps the horrors of modern living (unrest in the Middle East; disease and famine in Africa; homophobia, xenophobia and germophobia in the U.S.) have contributed to our collective fear of a blind, genocidal disease waiting to take over and destroy life as we know it. Perhaps the inter-connectivity of the World Wide Web has left us numb to our own individuality. Or maybe we've finally come to realize what Romero said in one of his own films in his 'Living Dead' series: "They're us, that's all." Empty; hungry; mindless beings intent on self-fulfillment regardless of the cost to our own humanity. Honestly, if the cast of MTV's "The Jersey Shore" aren't inhuman self-involved zombies, then who is (or isn't)?

Or maybe I'm just full of crap. I leave it to you to decide.

More, anon.
Prospero

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