Posted By John Sears on August 19, 2009
Anti-zombie prejudice has many ugly forms, and comes from many sources. Television, comic books, literature. Can there be any doubt, however, as to the source of the worst and ugliest stereotypes about the differently animated?
I refer of course, to the ‘Zombie Movie’.
Even amongst zombie movies, with their gore and violence and lifeism, one man stands out, the D.W. Griffith for Undead-Americans. I refer of course to George Romero, maker of the ‘Living Dead’ films.
Apparently four anti-zombie films wasn’t enough for good old George, because he has a new zombie film on the way.
George Romero, who invented the zombie genre as we know it back in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, finally has a title for his newest zombie feature, Survival of the Dead. The movie is set to premiere this September at the Toronto International Film Festival, according to a press release on the festival’s official website.
From Sci-Fi Wire
Invented the zombie genre as we know it… as if that’s something to be proud of!
He’s apparently up to his old tricks again with this one:
Survival of the Dead, which has up till now been officially listed on the Internet Movie Database, the film’s poster and elsewhere simply as … of the Dead is Romero’s sixth zombie feature, following the aforementioned Night of the Living Dead, the huge cult favorite Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, the post-9/11 critique Land of the Dead and the attack on new media that was Diary of the Dead. It looks like Survival of the Dead will be as freighted with social commentary as the other entries in Romero’s zombie series, which over its 41-year history has savaged everything from the crass consumerism of shopping malls to YouTube. The premise of Survival of the Dead deals with a group of people who insist on chaining up their recently deceased loved ones in their homes so they can lead “normal” lives until a cure for their zombie condition is found.
Zombies aren’t in need of a ‘cure’, they’re in need of understanding. Compassion. Civil liberties!
Maybe if people in your movies weren’t so gung-ho about shooting zombies, there wouldn’t be so much conflict between the living and undead communities. Perhaps you could make a Zombie movie where the undead aren’t just foils to make social commentary on the living? Zombies aren’t furniture, after all. They’re people, not props.
Somehow I doubt this new episode in the franchise will be any better; no, based on past experience it will be slathered with gore and ugly prejudice, the ultimate lesson of which is: You Can’t Coexist with the Undead.
For shame, Mr. Romero. For shame.
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