The Living Dead...

anybody else love george romero flicks as much as i do? the first night of the living dead was, in my opinion, the greatest horror movie of all time. the first one was pretty kickass, and i actually thought the 1990 remake was almost up to par with the 1968 one.

so anyway, i hear george romero's set to work on a fourth installment in the series, set in modern times(basically, after day of the dead, which took place in the eighties, the zombies eventually started to rot and just die off naturally, leaving the humans to begin to thrive once more. so they're locked up inside this giant walled city and they've gotten used to the zombies by now, since they've been around for about forty years). i thought this to be good news at first, as no one has done a zombie movie like romero, although i'm not sure if placing zombies against a sort of sci-fi alternate future type background will have the same effect as it did having them storming a farmhouse or a shopping mall. i think this is one of the reasons why day of the dead, which took place in an underground lab deal on an island somewhere, didn't work so well. still, i could be wrong.

also, what do you think about all this new sort of revived zombie-craze? you have 28 days later, the new dawn of the dead, the resident evil movies, and now the new romero movie coming out soon. i may be going over the top a little bit, but i personally think it says something about the state of society in general. the first zombie movie trend took place during the late sixties and early seventies, at a time of intense political unrest and the equal rights movement was going on. the country was basically split right down the middle between generations and there was the ever-present paranoia of communism. the original night, whether intended or not, was almost a social commentary on where we stood as a country. you have a black guy, some rednecks, a bunch of women and a upper-middle class old white man held up in a farmhouse against an army of the undead. and the funny thing is that they would rather fight amongst themselves than team up to try to survive, which is what ultimately leads to their demise. plus the whole concept of the zombie, which sort of illustrates the secret fear that we have of each other(after all, the zombies are our own friends, neighbors and loved ones) and this seemingly "outside" force, whatever it may be--communism, terrorism, religion--when in reality it is ourselves that we have to fear.

anyway, that's just my opinion. i personally don't like the new "running" zombies in 28 days later and the new dawn of the dead. they just didn't "feel" right. i don't know. still, i thought the remake of dawn was pretty damn good.

The Living Dead are the only movies to ever give me bad nightmares. I usually enjoy nightmares, except when there are lumps of dead flesh wandering about munching on people.

I think it is more the fact that they just keep on coming, no matter what you do. Luckily, I have finally figured out a way to get out of those kinds of dreams.