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I have to vent. About zombies. Again.

I have plenty of reasons to watch George Romero's recent flicks. I enjoyed Land of the Dead, but ever since then, I've found his flicks to be on par with Day of the Dead. This is not like Romero's worst films are better than an average director's best films. Films like Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead rubbed me the absolutely wrong way.

Diary of the Dead has an interesting premise: a reboot of the zombie apocalypse in the day and age of YouTube. The premise doesn't really come to fruition because of stock, one-note characters. Given that Romero used unknown actors for Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, the same technique doesn't work for Diary or even Survival of the Dead. Survival is more or less a hokey western, complete with rival families, and oh yeah, there are zombies hanging out.

I know not every director can hit it out of the park with every movie. All I'll say is that if you want to see a couple of zombie movies done right, start with Dawn of the Dead.

What I've found interesting is, despite how much the zombie genre has been mined over the years, is amazing Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead is.

I recently plowed through the first 48 issues of the comic in preparation for the upcoming TV show. The pace is quick and the dialogue is sparse in many spots, but that's fine by me. New characters come along, some die quickly, some die later, and some stay alive. How the tension is built around the characters along with the zombies is quite engaging. The characters are important, and oh yeah, there are zombies.

Here I am enjoying generations of zombies, but intrigued by the younger generations these days. This genre won't end . . . thankfully.

Comments

Richard of DM said…
You've seen Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, right? That one is pretty great. I haven't seen anything of Romero's since Land of the Dead. I thought that was a fitting end to his zombie films. One day, I might check out his current stuff.

I liked the Walking Dead comics for a little while. My friend had the big omnibus. It definitely captures the bleakness and the horror of what a good old zombie invasion would bring about. But I got so sick of the characters!

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