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Romero's Dead Films

Gawd 'elp us (OK it might actually be quite fun but...):

November 1: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remade again—in 3-D!

With all the remake fervor in recent years, few announcements surprise us when it comes to Hollywood reduxes. But would you believe that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is not only being done again, but has already wrapped! And here’s the catch: This time the zombies will be comin’ at you in three dimensions! FANGORIA has learned that Midnight Movies Entertainment and Lux Digital Pictures GmbH are in the final stages of postproduction on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D, a new motion picture inspired by the 1968 George A. Romero classic. Exploiting the film’s reputed public-domain status and the recent explosion in zombie flicks, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D shot in and around locations in Los Angeles last summer under the direction of Jeff Broadstreet, helmer of the indie films SEXBOMB and DR. RAGE. Robert Valding penned the update, which reportedly uses the original film more as a jumping-off point than 1990’s faithful Tom Savini-directed version.

“We are re-imagining Romero’s film, but we are remaining faithful at the same time,” Broadstreet tells Fango. “Robert Valding wrote a very clever script, and we tried to comment on society now the way the 1968 film commented on its own time.”

Cast-wise, the most familiar name in the credits is Captain Spaulding himself, Sid (THE DEVIL’S REJECTS) Haig, who also faces ghouls in the upcoming HOUSE OF THE DEAD II: DEAD AIM. Haig toplines as new character Gerald Tovar Jr., a pyrophobic mortician who harbors a dark secret in the film. Brianna (ENTOURAGE) Brown plays the female lead (called “Barb” this time), newcomer Joshua DesRoches is Ben, Greg (TOOLBOX MURDERS) Travis is “Henry” Cooper and Ken (DR. RAGE) Ward essays Johnny. Another DR. RAGE vet, Robert (DRAGON FIRE) DiTillio, appears as a priest in the new movie’s early moments who winds up as zombie chow. Fresh from ghoul duties on Tobe Hooper’s MORTUARY, Dean and Starr Jones and their American Makeup & Effects company handled the undead legions.

Broadstreet lensed the new NIGHT in the Natural Vision 3D® process by Dimension 3 and used a lightweight HD3Cam camera system designed by Daniel Symmes, which allowed for extensive handheld and Steadicam filming, a first for 3-D features. Theatrical release plans are still being firmed for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D; however, Midnight Movies expects the film to debut in U.S. theaters in January 2006. For more on the remake and to view a trailer, visit the official website here or here. A 3-D gallery will be added to the site in coming weeks.

“We are very happy with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D,” Broadstreet says. “Right now we are working on the music, sound work and the CG visual effects shots. The 3-D turned out really well. There is some very cool 3-D in this movie, and it’s not very gimmicky. Dean and Starr Jones did a good job on the special makeup effects. We had a lot of zombie extras on this movie, and Sid Haig is very memorable in a role that we wrote just for him. I got my first choice!” Watch for an exclusive set visit to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D in the pages of FANGORIA early next year. —Tony Timpone

www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5013

Home page;
www.nightofthelivingdead3d.com

And yes it appears we now have text messaging zombies - makes sense I suppose if you cant speak in intelligent sentences ;)
 
Looks like Day of the Dead is getting a make-over too...

http://www.scriptsales.com/DDScriptSales.htm

Title: Day of the Dead
Log line: The world is overrun by zombies bent on extracting a group of scientists and military personnel who have holed up in an underground bunker.
Writer: Jeffrey Reddick
Agent: David Saunders of APA, mngr. Andrew Trapani of Integrated Films & Management, and law firm of Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren & Richman
Buyer: Millennium Films
Price: n/a
Genre: Horror
Logged: 11/1/05
More: Remake of George A. Romero's 1985 film. Millennium Films' Avi Lerner & Boaz Davidson, Taurus Entertainment's James Dudelson and Emmett/Furla Films' Randall Emmett & George Furla will produce. Paul Mason, Jordan Rush, Taurus' Robert Dudelson, Emmett/Furla's M. Dal Walton III and Millennium's Trevor Short & Danny Dimbort will executive produce. Steve Miner will direct.
 
Interesting interview:

Man of the Dead

By Scott Foundas, LA Weekly
Posted on July 2, 2005, Printed on November 22, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23232/

Produced piecemeal on a shoestring budget, George Romero's debut feature, Night of the Living Dead (1968), was a fever dream of EC Comics and old Universal horror, crossbred with the fleet realism of the television newsreels Romero had once bicycled from a Pittsburgh film lab to local affiliates.

The tightly framed black-and-white images of walking corpses consuming the flesh of live humans shocked many. But already it was obvious that, for Romero, the real horrors of society needed no special-effects amplification. His undead were merely a prism through which to examine human behavior at a state of heightened anxiety. And by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) as Night's selfless hero, the film became, among other things, a blistering portrait of homeland race relations in the year of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination -- its final image, of Jones being gunned down by a posse of zombie-hunting yahoos, as potent a symbol of the blown-out American dream as the ending of Easy Rider.

The film became a midnight-movie phenomenon, ensuring that Romero's primordial creatures would long continue to walk the earth. In contrast to Night's chiaroscuro terrors, its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978), was a Day-Glo assault on American consumerism at the outset of the shopping-mall era, with asides on classism and feminism. One of the great films of the 1980s, Day of the Dead (1985) is a poetic, Hawksian horror picture (with allusions to the Frankenstein story) that questions what it means to be human while anticipating the coming culture wars between scientific rationality and religious faith.

By then, Romero was fully enshrined as a cult movie deity, and the ensuing two decades would see more than its share of respectful homages (28 Days Later), comic send-ups (Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead) and blatant rip-offs (the Resident Evil video game franchise and its subsequent film versions) of his work, though, curiously, only four new features by the master himself. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," Romero deadpanned in a July 2000 welcome letter to visitors of his Web site. But, kidding aside, it was a low moment for the iconoclastic auteur, coming at the end of seven years spent on retainer to an assortment of major studios, during which time he watched several high-profile projects all come within a hairsbreadth of getting made. Eventually, with French financing, Romero managed to make Bruiser, a scabrous satire of the corporate workplace and the suburban American dream that couldn't help but seem influenced by its maker's own season in "development hell": In the film, the main character's figurative facelessness becomes a literal condition, allowing him to exact revenge on those who have sought to turn him into an emasculated drone. Like Romero's earlier Jack's Wife (1973) -- in which an underappreciated housewife liberates herself by becoming a witch -- the movie was so merciless and mordantly funny as to make American Beauty look like an I Love Lucy episode. Not surprisingly, no American distributor dared touch it.

In truth, Romero and Hollywood have never made for easy bedfellows. Only four of his 14 feature films have been released by studios, and one of those (his 1993 Stephen King adaptation, The Dark Half) became an unfortunate victim of the Orion Pictures bankruptcy. The rest of the time, he has worked from his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh to create a body of work as truly independent (both financially and ideologically) as any in American movies. And so it may be that no one is more surprised than Romero that his latest film, Land of the Dead, is being released today by Universal Pictures, on several thousand screens, at the zenith of the summer blockbuster season. "It was very frustrating in those years that I never got pictures made," says the tall, ponytailed, rail-thin Romero, who calls money "dough" and refers to his collaborators as "cats." "But at the same time," he continues, "I did work on some very big things, so I didn't feel like I was out of the game. It took me a long time to realize that, after a while, you really do drop off the radar."

Romero's return to movie and radar screens was consecrated last month by a standing-ovation tribute at the Cannes Film Festival, which included a sneak preview of Land's first 15 minutes -- an occasion that, for all its triumph, also pointed up the dismissive treatment genre fare like Romero's has long received from festivals and critics alike. "Even for a lot of the industry, George Romero is a name, nothing more," notes Cannes Film Festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux. "When I was 17 or 18, I used to stay up all night with friends watching videotapes of horror movies, which was where I discovered George Romero. And to me, having him onstage was as important as having Abbas Kiarostami or Woody Allen. I like the fact that Woody Allen loves Bergman's movies and Bergman loves Westerns. This is something very important -- that to love cinema is to love all of cinema."

Romero paints with his boldest brushstrokes yet in Land of the Dead, blurring the line that separates zombies from humans while sharpening the one that divides society's haves from its have-nots. Set again in Pittsburgh, the film unfolds in and around a luxury high-rise called Fiddler's Green that has become the last outpost of moneyed (and white) high society in a world where money ceases to have any meaning (other than that ascribed to it by its bearers). Overseen by a venomous gatekeeper called Kaufman (a tip of the capitalist hat to the wealthy Pittsburgh department store entrepreneur), the Green towers above a Hooverville-like slum inhabited by those deemed unworthy of admission to Kaufman's shining planned community. All is enclosed by an electrified fence that has, until now, kept the undead at bay, forcing them into outlying areas where they are shot for sport by the rogue bounty-hunter types who keep the Green supplied.

But as Land of the Dead begins, the oppressed flesh-eating masses show unprecedented cognitive signs, and stir with revolutionary fervor as they rally behind a zombified gas station attendant called Big Daddy. For Romero, these once-fearsome adversaries now seem to represent all of the world's displaced, disenfranchised people, from the streets of America to the contentious cities of the Middle East. "It's more a reflection of the times than it is criticism," Romero says. "I guess I was trying to say something about complacency, which has always been the case in America -- this idea that we're protected, that we don't have to worry about things. As for the imagery, I don't know if people will pick up on all of it, but some of it is obvious to me -- the financial center being a high-rise, and a tank riding through a little village and mowing people down while we wonder why [the zombies] are pissed off at us." Indeed, in the world of Land of the Dead, it's not just the zombies who must learn to be human again.

How often does a director on the wrong side of 60 get the budget and the resources he deserves for the dream project he's been longing to make? Not often, but Romero has done so and done it brilliantly. Land of the Dead is fast, mercilessly funny, gleefully gory and uncommonly thoughtful about the times in which we live -- a horror picture to shake audiences from the complacency engendered by so many Rings and Grudges. Promoted as Romero's "ultimate zombie masterpiece," Land is a rare case of truth in advertising, little dulled by its arrival in the midst of so many other comers to Romero's throne. "You know," Romero muses, "people ask Stephen King, 'How do you feel about these directors ruining your books?' And Steve says, 'They didn't ruin them. Here they are right now, on the shelf here.'" Last week, during his stop through L.A. en route to yet another career tribute (this time at Las Vegas' Cinevegas festival), I talked with the director about the latest chapter in his ongoing zombie epic.

The use of the original Universal Pictures logo at the start of the film is a nice touch.

It's a way of saying, "Guys, this is going to be a little old-fashioned here!"

This is your first Dead movie in 20 years. Was it challenging to find a new approach to the material?

I always wanted to do another one and then we got hung up, my partner and I, in that seven or eight years -- stuck on projects. I fled after all of that and made this little film called Bruiser which nobody's seen. Then I started working on this script mid-2000 and finally got a draft and sent it out days before 9/11 -- after which everyone wanted to make soft, friendly movies. So I took it back home and, sometime after the invasion, dug it out and twisted it around a little bit.

Though the film is set in Pittsburgh, budgetary matters dictated that you shoot most of it in Canada.

I wanted to shoot in Pittsburgh. If we would get smart here, productions wouldn't keep going to Canada, but they offer such incentives over there, and they also take care of their personnel. The regs that we all complain about when we go up there keep those people working. I think they do a fabulous job.

Often, particularly in a film like Martin (1977), your work has contemplated the Pittsburgh landscape as a kind of Norman Rockwell town that never was, or that was once and then vanished.

Which it is. When I got there -- I went there to go to college and I've lived there ever sinceˇ -- the mills were all still open. Of course, you had to have your headlights on at noon and change your shirt three times a day. Nowadays, there are still people living in little towns like Braddock saying, "The mills will reopen someday. Don't worry about it." It is about lost potential. It was a thriving immigrant community. It was sort of the industrial American dream, but what nobody realized at the time was that it was the Carnegies and those boys who were keeping the city going. It seemed for a while like Pittsburgh was built on the backs of the workers, but it never really was. Those people have always been second-class citizens and the town has always been, at its core, very wealthy. So there's a little bit of that in this movie too -- it just so happens that it's now a reflection of the entire country.

Though the zombies have always been human on the outside, this is the first movie where we really sense them being human on the inside as well.

Exactly. I tried to throw that big ace out there right away, because I've always had an African-American lead in the other three, which was a conceit. So this time I said, "Okay, I'm gonna switch sides with this guy." I do have this idea in my mind that if I go on, if I live to do another one, that the humans are getting nastier and the zombies are getting a little more human. I've tried to follow a pretty clean line with it, though. Even in Dawn, some of the principals that get turned into zombies are showing cognitive signs, and at the very end of the film there's a zombie who's been dragging a rifle around not knowing what it is, who grabs the hero's rifle and decides, "That looks better!" And then Bub in Day of the Dead -- he's an experiment, but he's basically imitating the scientist. "Push the button, Bub." And he pushes the button. So now, there're other zombies that are imitative, up to a point, but they have Big Daddy to imitate now. So I don't think this has taken a giant leap forward. It's just the idea that they're getting more dangerous.

Michael Moore notwithstanding, it still seems risky to make a movie this political in what is effectively a risk-averse Hollywood climate. I'm thinking particularly of those scenes where we see captive zombies turned by their human captors into Abu Ghraib-style sideshow freaks.

I'm not sure if you showed this movie at the White House that anybody would get it, except when the money burns at the end -- then they might feel a little pang of sadness.

You were making short films from a very early age.

But I never thought I could have a career in it. I went to Carnegie-Mellon to study painting and design. My dad was a commercial artist, and I realized I wasn't very good. They happened to have a theater school, so it was just on impulse that I decided to transfer there. But then I had to take, you know, movement and speech and all of that shit. Pass! So I walked. Back then, cities the size of Pittsburgh at that time had film labs. I had an uncle who supported me, got me an apartment for a year. So I just went and spent a year hanging out at this film lab, back when the news was on film -- journeymen guys with cigarettes hanging over the flammable glue pots gluing together the shots.

One of the most distinctive aspects of your films, the early ones in particular, is the way they achieve movement through the cutting of what are mostly static shots. How did you develop that technique?

It's a little bit of a throwback to Michael Powell's stuff, the war movies that he did, which were very much staged that way. It was also a little bit of ass-covering, in the early days, when I couldn't afford dolly track or a dolly. So I would just shoot a lot of coverage, and I developed more of an editing style than even a shooting style. It was really only with The Dark Half that I started to feel more confident, to shoot longer dialogue scenes and do things more efficiently. You know, you start learning some tricks. John Ford, after 150 films, probably had a bag full of tricks. I'm still learning them.

Land of the Dead is the first of your films to be shot in the 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio.

I've always loved the frame. I grew up on all of those movies too: Ben-Hur and all of that stuff. It's always been either a little too expensive or a little hard to achieve. But now with the digital intermediate process, we shot film and did all the finishing digitally. That enables you to change the frame, do whatever. It's really like a darkroom; you don't have to time the whole shot -- you can go in and touch things up. That was fun, and we had a wonderful d.p. who got it and I think did a beautiful job with it.

Even with the comeback they've made in recent years at the box office, horror films still tend to be looked down upon by many so-called serious film aficionados.

It's a shame, but I have to say that there aren't a lot of people out there who are doing stuff with real heart. John Carpenter did a few things that I thought were wonderful. I loved They Live and The Thing. But there's not a lot of people doing Caligari these days.

How do you personally view the zombies?

I think of them as a primitive society. It's the quest for fire, putting two and two together. I always tell the actors, "Just think of yourselves as infants discovering things for the first time," like when Big Daddy is looking at the real building and its reflection in the water. But they're almost an external force. It's this incredible sea change in the world.

© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/23232/
 
Mighty_Emperor said:

More details:

Land of the Dead (Director's Cut) (R2) in December

Universal Pictures have announced the UK Region 2 DVD release of Land of the Dead (Director's Cut) for 26th December 2005 priced at £19.99. George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead is the acclaimed director’s long awaited return to the genre he invented.

Available on DVD in its extended, gorier director's cut form (running 95mins) features include:
  • # 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
    # English DD5.1 Surround
    # English SDH
    # Feature Commentary – Director George A. Romero guides you through the newest monsterpiece.
    # Undead Again: The Making of Land of the Dead – Go behind-the-scenes and onto the set for an insider’s look at the blood, sweat and … more blood that went into the creation of George A. Romero’s most spectacular zombie film yet!
    # A Day with the Living Dead – From “first call” to “wrap,” star John Leguizamo takes you on a humorous personal tour through an entire working day.
    # Bringing the Dead to Life – The film’s makeup artist Greg Nicotero offers insights into the fine art of crafting a convincing creepy zombie.
    # When Shaun Met George - Stars from the cult hit Shaun of the Dead (Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright) have some ghoulish fun with the cast and crew during their cameos.
    # The Remaining Bits – These tasty deleted scenes are definitely not your average movie leftovers!
    # Bringing the Storyboards to Life – A step-by-step comparison of storyboard drawings and the final terrifying result captured on film.
    # Scream Tests: Zombie Casting Call – Real-life and computer-generated zombies strut their undead stuff!
    # Scenes of Carnage – A killer music video featuring the movie’s most outlandish scenes!
    # Zombie Effects: From Green Screen to Finished Scene – See how zombie-actors, an unfinished set and computer-generated imagery combine to create the chilling illusion of reality.

www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=59325

Seems virtually identical to:

Mighty_Emperor said:

# DVD Features:

  • * Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
    * Available Audio Tracks: English (DTS), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
    * Commentary by: Director George Romero, Producer Peter Grunwald and Editor Michael Doherty (Unknown Format)
    * Undead Again: The Making of Land of the Dead
    * A Day with the Living Dead
    * Bringing the Dead to Life
    * The Remaining Bits
    * When Shaun Met George
    * Scenes of Carnage
    * Zombie Effects: From Green Screen to Finished Scene
    * Bringing the Storyboards to Life
    * Scream Tests: Zombie Casting Call
 
To be honest most of the deleted scenes were cut for good reason. Maybe the effects would have looked better after a bit of work in post production. But on the whole they don't bring much more information to the story of the film.

I keep trying to convince myself that there's not going to be a Dawn of the Dead 2 or a Day of the Dead remake but apparently they're both going to be happening.
It makes you wonder if they'll opt to remake Land of the Dead afterwards. I'm sure somebody incredibly self-important and vaccuous thinks it'd be a good idea.

By the way the running time of my R1 Unrated version is 97 minutes. It's not a lot more than the R2 though so it could just be the different frame rate of NTSC and PAL.
 
I have just interviewed George A. Romero about the forthcoming Land Of The Dead DVD release, he's a very charming and engaging man (and ridiculously tall). We talked about Land Of The Dead relying on the post 9/11 atmosphere, what he's going to do in future films, why he chose zombies, and a lot more. If anyone is interested I'll post a link once it's up.
 
Heres one:

Romero says new Dead film on the way

Exclusive: George on his next projects

We spoke to our old pal, legendary horror film director George A. Romero, ooh, about an hour ago, ostensibly to talk about the upcoming DVD release of Land Of The Dead (out on Boxing Day, folks).

But what kind of movie news service would we be if we didn’t take the time to ask him about his upcoming movies – and, to our surprise, the ever-affable Romero told us that a fifth Dead movie is very much on the cards.

“Now that Land of the Dead did so well in European markets and Japan, and the DVD is flying off shelves, there’s talk of a sequel,” he confirmed.

We say ‘surprised’ because, last time we encountered Romero back in August, he was somewhat down after the movie hadn’t performed well at the US box office, where it had been thrown up against the likes of Batman Begins and War Of The Worlds. But since then, the movie has caught on around the world and Universal/Rogue Pictures and Atmosphere, the production company behind Land are sniffing around a follow-up.

If it happens, a new Dead movie will follow the surviving characters from Land on their journey north, and as such will mark the first time Romero has made a direct sequel to one of his zombie flicks. And this time, there won’t be a lengthy gap between films.

“Frankly, I was ok with that,” because I’d much rather wait for something to happen, laughed Romero, referring to the political subtext that underpins each of his zombie movies. “If they nuke Washington, then I’ve got something. It won’t be in April but it might now be August or something. I hope to God we don’t have to do the winter again, but there’s a real buzz happening now about a sequel.”

Land Part Deux puts Romero’s two planned Stephen King adaptations, From A Buick 8 and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, on the back burner for a while yet. From A Buick 8, a tender coming of age fantasy that just happens to revolve around a car from an alien dimension, had only recently been announced as Romero’s next project.

“There’s no deal,” he said. “There’s no ink on paper. I have no idea if that’s first, or if Tom Gordon’s first. It’s all about who writes the first cheque. I like ‘em, I wrote screenplays for both of ‘em and I’m very comfortable with where they sit right now. But it’s all about which one gets going first.”

Needless to say, we’ll keep you posted of any future developments for either the next Dead movie, or the King flicks.

www.empireonline.co.uk/news/story.asp?NID=17593

It interestingly contradicts what he said in the Q&A which suggested he'd do the Steven Kings first and then think about LotD2 - I suspect things are still up in the air on this one.
 
More info on Land 2 and quite a few other zombie projects:

November 29: LAND OF THE DEAD 2 going Down Under?

Moviehole scored a lengthy chat with zombie master George A. Romero, in which the writer/director reveals that (despite the mishandled release and resulting disappointing box office) LAND OF THE DEAD may be followed up with a sequel. He further says that a LAND 2 may be relocated to Australia. “Simon Baker [the Aussie star of LAND] says that’s where we should shoot it,” Romero tells the site. “But yeah, there’s some rumbling about doing a sequel. Most of my zombie movies have been 10 years apart, at least; in this case it was 20. I’ve never had to do one right behind the other. If that happens, I think I will probably just continue the same story—follow the truck, in which case, those characters [including Baker] would be back.”

Recent on-line rumors have claimed that a LAND follow-up would be made for the direct-to-video market, but Romero says that’s not so. “People have been asking me about that, I don’t know where that came from,” he says. “My partner and I are trying to promote a direct-to-video series of zombie films, but it has nothing to do with LAND OF THE DEAD. I don’t think Universal would want to go the direct-to-video route for LAND OF THE DEAD 2. It’d be theatrical.”

And what of DIAMOND DEAD, the highly touted rock-and-roll zombie movie that now seems to have stalled? “It’s my favorite, but nobody seems to get it,” Romero says. “I love the project. It’s one of those things that everybody says, ‘What’s this?’ It’s very hard to explain. It’s sort of like PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE; it’s a rock-and-roll spoof about a dead rock band. Everybody who reads it says, ‘I don’t quite get it.’ I would give my teeth…I would love to do it while I can still move my bones a little.” For more of Romero’s comments, click on the link above and see FANGORIA #250, on sale January 24, for an extensive chat with the legend. —Michael Gingold

www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5181
 
that's right emps, steal my thunder ;)

I'm transcribing it this afternoon so it will be up shortly afterwards
 
The Horror Channel has been showing Creepshow II lately.

I've yet to see Creepshow on there though.
 
The IMDB entry for NotLD has a lot of interesting trivia - you forget that it was probably a lot more disturbing back then:

The filmmakers were attacked for being Satanically inspired by Christian fundamentalist religious groups for their portrayal of the undead feeding on flesh and of Kyra Schon attacking Marilyn Eastman.

I also quite like these:

How zombies came to walk the way they do:

S. William Hinzman based his characteristic saunter (and, subsequently, that of each other zombie) on a film with Boris Karloff, the title of which he could not remember. In that film, Karloff played a man risen from the dead, and walks with a characteristic ungainly saunter.

and how they came to groan (sort of):

Some of the groans made by S. William Hinzman when he's wrestling with Russell Streiner in the cemetery are authentic. During the struggle, Streiner accidentally kneed Hinzman in the groin.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/trivia
 
Yeeeep, you can feel this is going to be a great movie.

gallery5.jpg
 
A Zombie Apocalypse Playlist

Zombies are totally scary

Day of the Dead was on the Sci-Fi Channel this weekend, pretty much the best available way of wasting a Saturday afternoon even if the movie was just about incomprehensible with all the extreme violence cut out and the cusswords ineptly replaced. So in this alternate-reality version, the best part of the movie wasn't the fucking disgusting ending; it was the title sequence, the shots of zombie armies lumbering through the streets of some unnamed city (somewhere in Florida, I think) while piles of money blew around in the wind and an alligator walked out of a bank (the zombies didn't eat the alligator).

So that got me thinking: zombies do not fuck around. When the inevitable zombie apocalypse jumps off, you are going to want to get out of the city right away, or else a zombie will bite you and you'll turn into a zombie. You're not going to want to waste time sitting around and putting together a zombie apocalypse playlist; you'll need that time to find guns and transportation and canned food. So, as a precautionary measure, I've saved you the trouble; just use mine, and you'll be ready when the day comes. Most recent zombie movies, even the really good ones, rely heavily nu-metal, and you aren't going to want to hear that shit; things will be bad enough already. The late-70s movies like Dawn of the Dead have utterly badass blaring electronic soundtracks from people like Goblin, but that stuff will probably creep you out way too hard during an actual zombie apocalypse, and you'll want to hear some actual songs instead. I didn't put any Zombies or White Zombie or songs specifically about zombies on the list because you probably won't want to hear zombie music after zombies have killed everyone you know. Instead, I've chosen a few songs that'll serve as mood music for when the dead walk.

1. M.O.P.: "Ante Up (Robbin Hoodz Theory)" Preview/Buy at iTunes

The initial stages of the zombie plague are the most important for your survival. People will be dying all around you, the basic structures of society will be falling apart, and pandemonium will reign, so you'll need to stay absolutely alert. You'll also need to be utterly ruthless about destroying the brains of any loved ones who have become zombies themselves. So you'll want an adrenaline-blast like this song playing while you scramble to escape. (Weirdly, this song is only available on iTunes in its metal-revamp and bleeped-out forms, the latter of which is bizarrely credited to B2K because it's on the soundtrack to You Got Served. If anything, though, the bleeps will only serve to make you even more angry, which will be useful for mowing down hordes of ghouls with makeshift weapons.)

2. Crime Mob: "Knuck If You Buck" Preview/Buy at iTunes

I said above that something like Goblin is probably going to be creepier than anything you want to hear during a zombie apocalypse. This is true, but you're still going to need to stay on edge, even after you get out of whatever densely populated urban area you need to get out of. "Knuck If You Buck" will offer some small comfort in the amped-up verses of tough-as-shit teenage female rappers Diamond and Princess, both of whom will certainly survive the apocalypse, but the song's production is totally evil, ghostly chimes and obliterating drums, Goblin by way of Three 6 Mafia. You will not walk into an abandoned gas station yelling "Helloooo" while this song is playing.

3. Lungfish: "Wailing Like Dragons" Preview/Buy at iTunes

Another song that won't let you relax too much. You aren't going to want to fuck around with Franz Ferdinand or whatever when it's the end of the world; you're going to want something that actually sounds like the end of the world, and Lungfish's hypnotic scorched-earth ragas fit the bill. You won't understand what Dan Higgs is howling about, but you also won't understand why God has allowed such a hellish fate to befall the human race, so you won't much mind. Also, it sounds pretty great right next to "Knuck If You Buck."

4. Mountain Goats: "Song for Dennis Brown" Preview/Buy at iTunes

Once you finally establish safe shelter in a shopping mall or secret underground military base or whatever, you'll finally have a minute to catch your breath and reflect on all the people you know who have been transformed into shuffling soldiers of hell. A tender, eloquent, wise meditation on death like this one will help you make peace with all the horrible things you've seen in the last few days.

5. Nigga Say What: "Horn Theme" Preview/Buy at iTunes

Now that all that misery is out of your system for the moment, it's time to take part in the one big silver lining of this whole zombie apocalypse thing: looting! Now that every policeman on the continent has fled or abandoned his post, you can totally break into stores and take all the cool expensive shit you want. If your shelter has a back-up generator, you can go nuts indulging yourself in movies and video games and whatever. If it doesn't, you can still roll around with five Rolexes on each wrist. An insanely supercharged Baltimore club anthem like this makes for a great soundtrack to your dizzy scavenging spree.

6. Sam & Dave: "I Take What I Want" Preview/Buy at iTunes

More joyous looting music, now with topically appropriate lyrics!

7. Portishead: "Sour Times" Preview/Buy at iTunes

Another nice thing about the last days: assuming any have survived, you can totally score with people who would've never given you the time of day when society was still intact. A song like "Sour Times" isn't a terribly original choice for a seduction jam, but considering how many people mention Portishead on their Nerve.com personal ads, it should work just fine.

8. Depeche Mode: "People Are People" Preview/Buy at iTunes

Living in close quarters with other survivors, you'll inevitably come into conflict with some petty psycho who refuses to share any of his living space or demands that the entire group follow some ridiculous and dangerous plan to move to another location. To get through to someone like this, you'll need a song that appeals to his basic humanity and convinces him to abandon all the infighting. Here you go. You can follow this song's case right along to its implied conclusion: "People Are People (And Not Zombies)."

9. Baby feat. Clipse: "What Happened to That Boy" Preview/Buy at iTunes

If negotiation fails, which it probably will, you'll need to find it within yourself to kill or abandon or at least imprison anyone who threatens your security. Malice's line about "the four-fifth, guaranteed to lean ya, man" and Pusha's "have ya body parts mix and matching" should bolster your confidence and help you access your inner killer.

10. Them Two: "Am I a Good Man" Preview/Buy at iTunes

This song isn't about remorse over killing someone; it's about wondering whether tolerance for a partner's infidelity is a sign of strength or weakness. Nevertheless, you'll recognize the song's internal torment now that you're a cold-blooded murderer. You'll have to get over it. There are still a lot of zombies out there, and you've got a lot of surviving left to do.

Source

Personally I'd just have The End by The Doors on repeat on my Ipod but that's just because I'm a glass half empty sort of a guy. :D
 
August 25: Romero raises more DEAD!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, George A. Romero will bring his zombies back once more in DIARY OF THE DEAD, an independent project he'll write and direct. This movie will hark back to the rough-edged style of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with echoes of another grassroots hit, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, following a group of college students making a horror movie who find themselves in the midst of a real undead plague, and begin filming the mayhem around them. Romero and his production partner Peter Grunwald will produce DIARY with Artfire Films. After the frustrations he experienced regarding the shooting and release of Universal's LAND OF THE DEAD, the director was adamant about doing this installment independently. "I was trying to convince Peter we could just run off and do it ourselves," and they will starting October 11 in Toronto. Romero is also attached to Hyde Park/Kadokawa's project SOLITARY ISLE, based on a story by RINGU author Koji Suzuki (see item here). —Michael Gingold

www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=2562
 
Actualy, this sounds like a good concept for a zombie movie. Go for it, Romero!
 
For Britishers, the surprisingly good (considering) Dawn of the Dead remake is on Channel Four this Sunday night, at ten o'clock.
 
Completely OT but I'm looking forward to Zack Snyder's next film, 300, by 'eck does that look pasty-tastic.
 
sherbetbizarre said:
It's from the same producer who gave us Day of the Dead 2: Contagium a film so bad it's "good" (at least it was in the festival I saw it at)

I NEED to see this film! It's not even straight to (video) DVD!

It sounds absolutely PERFECT!

Link me till I'm bad!
 
Diary of the Dead - Thumbs Up from Torornto...

http://www.frightfest.co.uk/postcardsfromtoe.html

POSTCARDS FROM TORONTO

9 TH SEPTEMBER - DAY FIVE

Last night was the world premiere of George Romero’s Diary of the Dead, which as Alan described in an earlier regular blog entry was always going to be a difficult one for us as we have an amazing on-going close relationship with the maestro. So following the swish mini-party, (me and Phil particularly loved the music they were playing Harvey Danger, The Strokes etc) we head for the sold-out screening with some trepidation.

Pleased and proud to announce it is brilliant! After a ten minute standing ovation Romero’s latest delivers all the unbridled low budget genius that the Land of the Dead detractors felt was missing from his last Dead entry. This is chock full of crowd pleasing gore, great acting and some beautifully achieved directorial flourishes that proves that George is still a unique and essential talent. The socio political under (and over) tones sets this film apart from other contemporary horror films, with the film echoing in every way the original masterpiece even including some black and white shots that had me smiling from ear to ear.

The perfect end to a long day..
 
I went and saw Diary of the Dead today, meh. It's ok I suppose, but the whole blair witch/cloverfield business of shooting it from the view of the people affected isn't carried off nearly as well as those two films. That's the fault of have someone doing a voiceover, the way Romero uses it to make a comment about the internet generation (youtube & myspace get a look in) by fitting in other peoples experiences just made it feel like he was trying too hard to do so, having them spell it out rather than letting the footage speak for itself was a bit irritating. Perhaps, like in some of the scenes, they could've just shown all the internet footage from the view of the camera looking at the computer screen and left the viewer to decide who had edited the footage that makes up the film.

Still, there's the zombie horror aspect of it, and it's fairly average apart from a slow motion kill. There's the usual zombies suddenly popping up for a quick shock & the group goes through the usual motions of locking themselves somewhere secure, arguing and then getting picked off during the inevitable zombie break-in, but it does at least keep the pace up for the length of the film.

It was also miles better than I Am Legend, and it had a zombie clown in it! (only for a few seconds though)


here's a link to George on about his film
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7280793.stm
 
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