Diary of the Dead Casting News
Filed under: Horror, Remakes and Sequels
Remember the other day when I reported that Diary of the Dead was moving forward despite previous reports that the production would be delayed because of director George Romero's health? Sure you do; if not click here. Anyway, there's finally some casting news. Apparently Romero likes the idea of having a familiar face around; Shawn Roberts, who played Mike in Romero's long awaited and crushingly disappointing 2005 film Land of the Dead. Roberts also had the life nearly sucked out of him by Anna Paquin when he played Rogue's boyfriend in X-Men, and he's also got several other horror flicks on the verge of release including Stir of Echoes: The Dead Speak, a werewolf movie called Skinwalkers, and Left For Dead, which apparently involves frat boys and a machete wielding maniac. Fun!But it doesn't stop there. Hot on the heels of Variety reporting Roberts' involvement comes news from Dread Central that he will be joined by Joshua Close (from The Exorcism of Emily Rose and a pretty neat Dawn of the Dead knockoff called The Plague), Michelle Morgan (Alien Fire), Jon Dinicol (from Weirdsville and The Virgin Suicides), Phillip Riccio (Rent-A-Goallie), and Scott Wentworth (Elizabeth Rex). No big names here, but certainly a better known cast than The Blair Witch Project, to which this film has often been compared. Romero is, of course, the creator of the modern zombie movie, with his zombie tetralogy sporting a 50% success rate in my book. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are bona fide horror classics, and while Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead have their admirers, I am not one of them. Although I've seen conflicting reports, the Dread Central story indicates that this film will not take place in the universe established in the previous films, making Diary of the Dead a sort of zombie reboot. Diary of the Dead, which started shooting this week in Toronto, marks a return to independent film making for Romero, and I'm very interested to see where it takes him.
[Via Coming Soon]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-20-2006 @ 4:12PM
josh said...
Crushingly disappointing is a bit strong. For an R rated horror film by a senior citizen (who has a pretty spotty track record, let's be honest) Land of the Dead was an decent movie. Anyone who was expecting a lot out of it was setting themselves up for disappointment.
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10-20-2006 @ 6:27PM
Luke G. said...
The beauty of zombie movies, to me, is the fact that there is absolute crystal clarity about the morality of the situation. Brain-eating zombies: bad. Surviving humans: good. The Alamo plot—-a few heroes surrounded by hordes of bad guys—-pretty much only exists in zombie films any more. This Thermopylae plot point of the few holding out valiantly against the many, despite pressures and conflicts within, has vastly appealing to audiences throughout history. (Another reason to look forward to the upcoming 300, by the way.)
But the PC climate has made Alamo plots much more difficult. Heck, you can’t have Alamo plots even in Alamo movies. The weakness of the most recent Alamo film was that it was hobbled by the need to say "Well, their opponents were people too, with their own complex motivations and wives and children back home." Which, of course, they were, but the weakness as a plot point was that they could no longer be made into unequivocal villains.
Could any movie about Group A surviving against a Group B onslaught make it in today's market? I don't think so. Not without a bunch of Group B protestors up in arms. Thus the appeal of zombie films: zombies are perfect villains for a politically correct world. They are not animals, so PETA won’t get upset. They aren’t a people group, so advocacy groups won’t get upset. They aren’t living, so pro-lifers and moralists won’t get upset. They are gory, so your mom might get upset, but moms aren’t much for picketing theaters about gross stuff.
I think this is why Romero’s last zombie movie failed at the box office (and, for me personally, was a disappointment), where other zombie films of late have thrived: he had the HORRIBLE notion to make zombies into sentient, sympathetic creatures, utterly destroying the whole POINT and appeal of zombie films.
My 2 cents.
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10-21-2006 @ 3:10AM
MosquitoControl said...
Crushingly disappointing isn't strong enough.
I've done the rant on here before (SPOILERS):
- Political undertones became overtones. Entirely too blunt, constantly taking you out of the movie. Jihad? Hopper dying via gasoline? The dead only eating the rich?
- John Leguizamo was unwatchable. And honestly, did he have a stroke? Is one side of his face paralyzed, and that's why he only talks out of half of his mouth?
- Why was Big Daddy, dead for decades, less decomposed than Leguizamo, dead for seconds or minutes?
- The ending, good lord the ending...
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