Kevin's Watch

Being a rather big fan of Romero (especially the first three of his Dead series), I can't believe I only just found out about this. Looks rather promising:

Diary of the Dead

oh that DOES look like fun!! i love Romero too!!

ps. check out this documentary!! it's great!!

The American Nightmare

Thanks for the heads up - looks good. I enjoy his films.

Lucimay wrote:
The American Nightmare

Cool.

Many years ago, I had a documentary on Romero himself. It was made in the late '80s, so it had everything up to Monkey Shines, but before The Dark Half, I think. It was a GREAT doco. Went MIA, though. Lore knows about that. A very sad loss . . .

What is interesting about Diary of the Dead, is people are saying it's like Romero made a zombie movie which supposed Romero never existed. He's apparently re-inventing his own genre. I'm excited.

thank you Montressor. the movie looks great.

Hopefully it's better than Land of the Dead.

I have yet to see that . . . but I had a "sixth sense" it was no Night, Dawn, or Day. From what little I heard, it sounded like it was one of those "yeeeaah...it was ok" kind of films.

After Carpenter's efforts post In the Mouth of Madness, I was suspicious that Romero had run out of steam too, but Diary looks very promising.

Cail wrote:Hopefully it's better than Land of the Dead.

Hey! Land was jolly good fun!

Dawn of the dead ranks as one of my absolute favorite movies. Can't wait to see his next offering in the increasingly inaccurately named zombie trilogy.

BTW, I heard he had some involvement in a remake of Day of the Dead? (Which I happen think is extremely underrated)

The Dreaming wrote: BTW, I heard he had some involvement in a remake of Day of the Dead? (Which I happen think is extremely underrated)

I agree. I was ready to hate the remake, and I found that I actually really liked it. Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead is also quite good.

I'm guessing his involvement in the remake was more or less: "Yes, looks good"

Never understand why they didn't call Land of the Dead, Twilight of the Dead.

Of the films thus far, Night is my favourite, but Day is a very strong contender (amongst other things, it has one of the best climaxes I've ever seen in a movie).

Damn that looks primo.

I'm looking forward to it, but in all honesty, George Romero needs to diversify his interests.

Loremaster wrote:I'm looking forward to it, but in all honesty, George Romero needs to diversify his interests.

he seems happy doing what he loves.

Loremaster wrote:I'm looking forward to it, but in all honesty, George Romero needs to diversify his interests.

Well, he's actually made a lot of horror movies outside of the zombie genre. He's also done a lot of TV horror stuff, and some of those Stephen King 3 story compilation films which range the whole gamut. It's just that people remember him for his zombie stuff and, thus, ignore his other films.

at his age maybe he just wants to play to his strengths?

Yeah. And, if people keep throwing you money to make zombie-inspired stuff from films to computer games - why turn 'em down?

sgt.null wrote:at his age maybe he just wants to play to his strengths?

He's been playing at the horror game his whole career, null.

Loremaster wrote:

sgt.null wrote:at his age maybe he just wants to play to his strengths?

He's been playing at the horror game his whole career, null.

but he has decided to build on what he is best known for - the zombie stuff. his remake with dennis hopper wasn't that great, maybe he wants to have his legacy movie?

I'm seeing this at the Brisbane International Film Festival this Friday night. Rather looking forward to it, even though I suspect it's about ten years too late.

It's a tragedy, but Diary of the Dead was terribly average. Hard to believe it came from Romero, but this was a big let down. The script was just plain bad. Dramatically it was hard to believe. The human tension was non-existent. The theme was over-stated in the dialogue over and over, as if the film makers thought we were all 12 year olds who wouldn't get it (and Romero never stated the themes so explicitly in Night, Dawn, and Day).

Saved from sheer banality by a few scenes, and some really excellent and inventive gore, though this is easily the weakest of his Dead films (I haven't seen Land yet, though). A shame, but after the creative nose-dive Carpenter took following Mouth of Madness, I can't say I'm all that surprised that another horror great has drastically mis-stepped.

I don't regret seeing it - it probably was worth it just for the gore - but I was looking at my watch towards the absurdly anti-climactic finish. Totally by the numbers zombie film.

Land and Diary were both dire, pathetic characters that I didn't care about and generally poor all around films - I am a massive fan of GAR's zombie films, I own the best DVD editions available of all of his zombie flicks (even Land and Diary).

But there is no getting away from the fact that he just wants to bash you in the face with his "social commentary" now and just seems to use the films as a platform for this.

Somebody also mentioned Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead, I actually watch that more than the original 68 version....Tony Todd's portrayal of 'Ben' is unbelievably good, better than the original IMO, and Patricia Tallman gets to play a 'Barbara' that we can actually care about (although Carl Hardman's 'mr Cooper' in the original is still untouchable).