Zombie movie weekend

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yes Spaced was excellent. I also really enjoyed Land of The Dead and not just for Simon Pegg`s cameo. I know people dislike Land of The Dead but i think it is really good.

I didn't like it - the social commentary was sort of there but muddled. I liked the premise - and it had what looked like some very good ideas. From a writer's perspective however, it seemed as though they had dumped a lot of material - essentially turning what should have been a sub-plot (Dead Reckoning) into the whole movie.

Not only that but it's far less gory than the original movies - Day of the Dead set the bar very high there.

the original script was called Dead Reckoning. The point of Zombie movies for me was never the gore anyway.

True - but these days its expected that a horror movie involve a bunch of violence and gore. The mistake a lot of the new movies make is assuming that violence and gore = fear (which long ago was the point of seeing a horror movie). Romero's movies (and those of Dario Argento) were on always dancing on the fringe of what was considered acceptable viewing. Romero specifically didn't care for convention or censorship and resisted all and any calls to cut his movies - which is the reason why Dawn of the Dead got slapped with an X-Rating back in the day.

The difference is Romero's zombie movies are not "horror" in the true sense - certainly when compared to the 2004 remake or the likes of 28 Days Later. What he does is use the genre as a way of introducing various sub-texts. The silly goriness is expected in this sort of movie - its graphic, but extremely tongue in cheek (as opposed to being sadistic or nasty), and dare I say it, cartoonish.

The problem is with Land of the Dead is that the subtexts were poorly defined - and the gore and humor simply wasn't on a par with what fans were expecting. A bit of a sell-out IMO. For the first Romero-directed movie in a really long time it was perfectly serviceable, just far below the standard set below the previous movies.

Granted, Romero was trying to get a studio to pick up on this for over 10 years, but I think he missed the boat here - releasing his genre picture in a market that was already saturated by it.

Really a shame he got kicked off the Resident Evil project - that movie could have been far better than it turned out.

Edited August 7, 2006 by erekose

[incanada1234 0]

I love 28 Days Later. (and it's not because Cillian Murphy is extremely HHHHHHHot or anything )