George Romero talks "Diary of the Dead"

[Ripper 0]

To me, Romeros movies go in the order of their release in terms of quality.

 

Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary for me.

 

 

[Jingus 0]

Mostly agree, except I'd switch Land and Day. I've never quite understood why Land gets so much hatred, I thought it was great. Never understood why Day gets so much love, I thought it was meh.

[Ripper 0]

Mostly agree, except I'd switch Land and Day. I've never quite understood why Land gets so much hatred, I thought it was great. Never understood why Day gets so much love, I thought it was meh.

 

The gore effects in Day gets so much love.

 

There was too many groaningly bad dialouge moments in Land for me. Although John Leguizamo(probably the most underrated actor out there) almost moved it ahead of Day.

 

Land wasn't great, but it does get way too much hate.

[Sideburnious 0]

Dawn's my personal favourite and I also don't see why Land gets so much hate, but I guess its under the guise of "bad for a Romero zombie movie". It's this reason that I see people actually have a problem with 'Diary'. I actually really enjoyed it. He made a good "mocumentary" style movie, and I think he did a better job at some parts in making it seem realistic (in terms of being handheld etc) than Cloverfield. The editing was pretty slick and while keeping it in the realm of "a real world, and actual documented footage" he was able to supply gore and over the top/ different deaths. He balanced his hardcore/ gore fans while also taking an aesthetic and new approach to the genre.

 

Also, on people bringing up why big studios don't just give Romero money: Romero has been doing his own shit for so long he probably doesn't want to/ feel the need to take shit from studios. He's probably happy in a low-budget environment. His name alone will sell tickets to cover his costs.

[Gary Floyd 0]

If you talk his zombie movies, I'd go

 

5.) Diary

4.) Land

3.) Day

2.) Night

1.) Dawn

 

If you are talking his movies overall, I'd say

 

5.) Creepshow

4.) Day of the Dead

3.) Night of the Living Dead

2.) Martin

1.) Dawn

 

"Martin" is the best horror movie from the 70's nobody talks about.

 

I have no interest in "Zombie Strippers", as it strikes me as too much as a sub-par Troma wannabe (no offense to Troma) with a better budget.

[Ripper 0]

thats pretty accurate though (Zombie Strippers) only a on-par Troma wanna be.

 

 

Just curious (not questioning your opinion because alot of people agree) but why do you place Dawn over Night?

 

Actually, most people I know do that, but I never quite understand why.

[Gary Floyd 0]

thats pretty accurate though (Zombie Strippers) only a on-par Troma wanna be.

 

 

Just curious (not questioning your opinion because alot of people agree) but why do you place Dawn over Night?

 

Actually, most people I know do that, but I never quite understand why.

To me, "Dawn" is the ultimate zombie movie. I love "Night", which created the flesh eating zombie movie, but "Dawn" really got the ball rolling. It essentially established the zombie in modern pop culture IMO. It's also one of my all time favorite movies.

[NoCalMike 0]

I haven't seen Diary yet, (I have it in my que), but thus far my rankings are.....

 

1)Dawn

2)Night

3)Day

4)Land

 

I think Day and Land are pretty darn close though and probably interchangable at spots 3/4 for right now. I think Day gets a lot of hate because hell, it came right after Dawn which is universally loved and considered the best of the entire series by most and Land gets undue hate simply because some elitists view it as too "hollywood"

 

EDIT: Personally, I rank Dawn above Night because I think everything is stepped up about ten notches from Night, and it doesn't cause any other elements like the story or characters or atmosphere to suffer. It is probably a perfect sequal in my eyes. It does everything a sequel should without comprimising a thing.

[2GOLD 0]

 

Seeing Land a second time through, I realized it's actually much better. Seeing the little things it made it work so much more. The final line about just looking for somewhere to go though...oh man, that was brutal.

 

I literally quoted Major League 2:

"Obviously George is thinking....I don't know what the hell he's thinking"

[Coffin Surfer 0]

Mostly agree, except I'd switch Land and Day. I've never quite understood why Land gets so much hatred, I thought it was great. Never understood why Day gets so much love, I thought it was meh.

 

Land was a quality action movie and people just expect more from a Romero zombie movie. It wasn't as overall rich in substance and quality as Night or Dawn; it was just really cool set pieces and enjoyable characters in a fun fast paced movie. I personally have no problem with that though. Love the movie.

 

Day has its place. Great looking zombies and carnage, probably the most nightmarish of the three no pun intended. Great opening as well. Too bad the dialouge was mind numbing and the characters were cardboard.

 

"Martin" is the best horror movie from the 70's nobody talks about."

 

It's more than that. It was a very interesting character study with a criminally underrated lead male performance. Whatever happened to that kid? I also enjoy the Romero's destruction of the "monster" myth or possibly the reasons why they were created.

[Gary Floyd 0]

While I love Day, you have to remember that Romero originally intended it to be the most expensive and epic of the series. However, no studio was interested in doing a $7 Million Unrated Zombie movie. So, George had to do the best he could.

 

Still, Day is a great movie, and does a good job at critiquing U.S. Millitary endevors of the time, as well as Regan era politics without being too preachy.

[Jingus 0]

I never understood what was good about the political commentary in Day. The soldiers are all screaming macho assholes with hot tempers and low IQs. The civilians are all fairly calm rational people who just want to do what's best and act in an intelligent manner. So in response the soldiers scream at them for hours and then finally try to kill them. Where's the satire in that? It's the same kind of shrill one-note shit that ruined 28 Days Later for me towards the end; what kind of a message is "all soldiers are raping murderers"?

 

Also, Romero could've had the $7 million if he'd just agreed to turn in an R-rated picture. Yeah, he would've had to cut down on the gore, but I've always found it odd that he insisted that heavy gore was more important than four millions dollars.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I think it's more that he may have bitten into his own shit due to how successful Night and Dawn were, especially Night in ushering in more graphic horror.

 

Re: Day social critique (fuck spoiler tags, the movie's almost 25 years old)

The soldiers are all macho, egotistical pricks, but they honestly believe that the only way to deal with the zombie threat is violence and force, resorting to military order in all remaining civilization, threatening violence and rape as punishment for not following orders. The scientists, however, are all logical and calm...but wrong. Just look at Logan: everything he does makes sense, technically, but he's lost all remnants of humanity just by trying to be entirely logical about the situation. The only people who are remotely wholesome are the Irish pilot and the Caribbean tech guy: both are simple-minded, and are only looking to survive, not to cure the world. It's only after Sarah escapes from both the military and science that she ever finds any semblance of peace. Jingus, I'd say pick up Gospel of the Living Dead (Kim Paffenroth), because it shines some light on Romero outside of the generally accepted "he's against the military and the government, man" beliefs regarding the Dead films. It's a little more religious-based, but there's still solid analysis in it.

 

EDIT:

My order of preference for Romero's zombie flicks:

4. Day of the Dead

3. Land of the Dead

2. Night of the Living Dead

1. Dawn of the Dead

 

Land and Day are neck and neck, but Land pulls through for me due to Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento, and Robert Joy. At least decent turns from all four, which is more than can be said from anybody but the guy who played Bub in Day.

[2GOLD 0]

 

After seeing Diary, I'm not seeing the problem with the film. It plays like a nice documentary, it has a two memorable characters in the Amish guy and the Professor and it does a sweet job of just making the deaths interesting. I'm not liking CGI blood at ALL, it always looks so horrible and the more I see of any CGI the more I realize I'm beginning to hate it when it's used for something important like a character or death scene.

 

I got Diary in fourth ahead of Land, mainly because the ending of Land still leaves that sour taste.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I've had Diary sitting around for a week and haven't watched it yet.

 

As it stands I rank them

 

1. Dawn

2. Night (A VERY close second)

3. Land

4. Day

 

Day holds up the worst today out of his movies. It's just not good. The acting is by far the worst, it's very slow, and the bad guys are just too over the top.

[dubq 0]

1. Dawn

2. Day

3. Night

4. Land

5. Diary

 

I don't understand all of the hate that Day receives.

[Jingus 0]

The main reason for me was that it had by far the worst acting and the least likable characters. The majority of the movie was spent watching these pricks be angry and depressed, endlessly screaming obscenities at each other while never seeming to actually do anything constructive or helpful. And they really got into that screaming, with vein-popping, eye-bugging, shoulder-shaking yelling at maximum volume about every five seconds. Way, way too much angry yelling between dumbasses I didn't nothing like.

 

Plus, there was just not enough zombie stuff, less than in all the other movies (although they did admittedly go all-out with the gore effects in an unprecedented manner in the limited amount of violence we did get). And the ending was almost identical to Dawn: humans fight with each other, as a consequence the zombies invade the sanctuary and kill almost everyone, few remaining survivors get away in a helicopter. It didn't do much that hadn't already been done in the previous movies.