That's right, on June 24th, George A. Romero releases the fourth installment of his Living Dead series. Now, I've been a zombie movie fan since I was a kid, and let me tell you, I am super psyched about this. Romero for years has teased fans with wanting to produce a follow-up to his previous threezombie films, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. I am looking forward to this more than I did the long anticipated return of the Star Wars genre with its Epsodes 1, 2, & 3.
I think zombie movies speak more to the dark side of the post-modern social climate and human nature itself--especially in Romero's films--than do Star Wars and its ilk. I find these movies infinitely more fascinating in that respect. The only exception being Roddenberry's work, as he took a more balanced look at humanity's optimistic potential and abysmal failures. Star Wars tries too hard to be mythical in how it presents its story.
The Star Trek genre is more relatable I think in that it has shown through various incarnations a more probable and relatable future for humanity, one that seems more achievable. Star Wars can really claim nothing to that effect--hell, it even starts off with "A long time ago, in a galaxy faraway . . . ". Zombie films, however, are more immediate than either and present humanity through the lens of horror, which is more effective because, when done well, it speaks to our most primitive and visceral selves through fear and blood lust. Something at which most sci-fi flicks fail. George Lucas, eat your heart out . . . literally.
So, if you're not familiar with Romero's work, let me brief you before you see Land of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead started the whole thing off. Some people wind up trapped together in an old farmhouse in the middle of some midwestern countryside, surrounded by the cannabalistic undead. Romeros carefully crafted each character to be a random sampling of society--the middle-class family, a young single blonde woman, a young African-American man, and a young engaged country couple (the youngest of the bunch, barely out of their teens). Romero takes 1960's social stereotypes and turns them on their ear by having the the father of the family turn out to be more useless than anyone else, the young blonde woman, Barbara, also being useless, and the young couple and Ben, the African-American, being the most intelligent, resourceful, and courageous ones of the lot. It was a microcosm of 1960's society, and an examination of the breakdown during a crisis of the seemingly most solid and responsible aspects of it (the family) and the rising to power and responsibility of the least likely segments (teens and African-Americans). Sadly though, no one makes it out alive in the original version (Romero remade it in 1990, and let Barbara live, making her a strong feminine character representative of the post-feminist movement).
In Dawn of the Dead, Romero expanded his examination of social structures and their breakdowns from the psychological to the sociological. What better representation of 1970's/80's American capital-/consumerist culture than a mall, in which the movie occurs. However, rather than representing breakdowns, Romero's characters here represented the strength of the human survival instinct through cooperation. Yet, you can't have balance if you don't show the bad as well as the good. The ugliest, anarchical side of human nature shows up towards the end as a rogue motorcycle gang who breaks into the mall, lets in the zombies, and brings the group's progress and cooperation to a screeching halt, causing them to have to abandon their mall fortress. The movie ends with the escapees' helicopter flying the ruined mall into the sunrise for points unknown.
Romero attacked the flaccid uselessness borne from the corruption of the American government in times of major global crisis and the inherent dangers of misusing science with Day of the Dead. Set in a hidden, underground Florida military base, a small stronghold of military men and their scientists hole up to await orders from Washington that will ultimately never come. The unit's cohesiveness breaks down when they realize D.C. has abandoned them and that the head scientist is actually wanting to learn how to control the zombies rather than stop them. Hell breaks loose, the zombies get in, and again, the sane ones of the bunch (who happen to be civilians) escape by helicopter to a remote, uninhabited island. The ending here, is more decidedly happy in a manner more befitting mainstream Hollywood. Yet the non-Romero remake of Dawn of the Dead, which stayed very close to the original with a few large exceptions, did not end so happily with fuzzy camcorder images giving a really good idea of the "survivors'" fate.
So Romero's lesson thus far has been this:
Hell, I want to see it just cuz Dennis Hopper is one of the stars and to see him say the line, "Zombies, man . . . They creep me out." He plays the fat-cat rich guy who lives in the last skyscraper in the last safe bit of a walled city surrounded by the legions of the undead. This is rather ironic when you consider Hopper's breakout role was Easy Rider, in which he played an anti-capitalist hippie . . . man.
Anyway, see you at the movies.
I think zombie movies speak more to the dark side of the post-modern social climate and human nature itself--especially in Romero's films--than do Star Wars and its ilk. I find these movies infinitely more fascinating in that respect. The only exception being Roddenberry's work, as he took a more balanced look at humanity's optimistic potential and abysmal failures. Star Wars tries too hard to be mythical in how it presents its story.
The Star Trek genre is more relatable I think in that it has shown through various incarnations a more probable and relatable future for humanity, one that seems more achievable. Star Wars can really claim nothing to that effect--hell, it even starts off with "A long time ago, in a galaxy faraway . . . ". Zombie films, however, are more immediate than either and present humanity through the lens of horror, which is more effective because, when done well, it speaks to our most primitive and visceral selves through fear and blood lust. Something at which most sci-fi flicks fail. George Lucas, eat your heart out . . . literally.
So, if you're not familiar with Romero's work, let me brief you before you see Land of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead started the whole thing off. Some people wind up trapped together in an old farmhouse in the middle of some midwestern countryside, surrounded by the cannabalistic undead. Romeros carefully crafted each character to be a random sampling of society--the middle-class family, a young single blonde woman, a young African-American man, and a young engaged country couple (the youngest of the bunch, barely out of their teens). Romero takes 1960's social stereotypes and turns them on their ear by having the the father of the family turn out to be more useless than anyone else, the young blonde woman, Barbara, also being useless, and the young couple and Ben, the African-American, being the most intelligent, resourceful, and courageous ones of the lot. It was a microcosm of 1960's society, and an examination of the breakdown during a crisis of the seemingly most solid and responsible aspects of it (the family) and the rising to power and responsibility of the least likely segments (teens and African-Americans). Sadly though, no one makes it out alive in the original version (Romero remade it in 1990, and let Barbara live, making her a strong feminine character representative of the post-feminist movement).
In Dawn of the Dead, Romero expanded his examination of social structures and their breakdowns from the psychological to the sociological. What better representation of 1970's/80's American capital-/consumerist culture than a mall, in which the movie occurs. However, rather than representing breakdowns, Romero's characters here represented the strength of the human survival instinct through cooperation. Yet, you can't have balance if you don't show the bad as well as the good. The ugliest, anarchical side of human nature shows up towards the end as a rogue motorcycle gang who breaks into the mall, lets in the zombies, and brings the group's progress and cooperation to a screeching halt, causing them to have to abandon their mall fortress. The movie ends with the escapees' helicopter flying the ruined mall into the sunrise for points unknown.
Romero attacked the flaccid uselessness borne from the corruption of the American government in times of major global crisis and the inherent dangers of misusing science with Day of the Dead. Set in a hidden, underground Florida military base, a small stronghold of military men and their scientists hole up to await orders from Washington that will ultimately never come. The unit's cohesiveness breaks down when they realize D.C. has abandoned them and that the head scientist is actually wanting to learn how to control the zombies rather than stop them. Hell breaks loose, the zombies get in, and again, the sane ones of the bunch (who happen to be civilians) escape by helicopter to a remote, uninhabited island. The ending here, is more decidedly happy in a manner more befitting mainstream Hollywood. Yet the non-Romero remake of Dawn of the Dead, which stayed very close to the original with a few large exceptions, did not end so happily with fuzzy camcorder images giving a really good idea of the "survivors'" fate.
So Romero's lesson thus far has been this:
lack of cooperation and corruption = downfall of society
courage, independent thinking with cooperative efforts = a snowball's chance humanity can survive the most horrific of circumstances.Although, Land of the Dead, as I understand it, throws an X-factor into the equation by showing what we already know from modern society: that the most ruthless and powerfull will survive the longest, only to bring about their own imminent destruction at the expense of everyone else. We'll see how it plays out.
Hell, I want to see it just cuz Dennis Hopper is one of the stars and to see him say the line, "Zombies, man . . . They creep me out." He plays the fat-cat rich guy who lives in the last skyscraper in the last safe bit of a walled city surrounded by the legions of the undead. This is rather ironic when you consider Hopper's breakout role was Easy Rider, in which he played an anti-capitalist hippie . . . man.
Anyway, see you at the movies.
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