george a romero Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Fear not, Romero junkies. The old guy still has it. Apparently more than energetic enough at an impressive 67 years of age, the creator of the zombie genre has popped back up with a new indie flick that's sure to entertain anyone who's followed the guy's career for the past 30-some years ... like me. After teaming up with a big studio to deliver the adequate-if-unspectacular Land of the Dead, George A. Romero returns to his grass-roots indie-style origins and comes up with Diary of the Dead -- which is easily his most entertaining horror film since 1985's Day of the Dead.

Just to be clear: Diary is not another chapter in the series that began with Night of the Living Dead and continued on with Dawn, Day and Land of the Dead. Instead it's a stand-alone and entirely fresh take on the inevitably impending zombie apocalypse, as seen through the eyes (and the camera lenses) of a bunch of film students who head off into the woods to make a horror flick ... and end up making the nastiest horror documentary ever imagined. So yeah, it's a zombie flick crossed with the visual approach of The Blair Witch Project. But it's also quite a bit more than that.

George A. Romero directed the original Night of the Living Dead in 1968, which was followed by Dawn of the Dead in 1978, Day of the Dead in 1985, and Land of the Dead in 2006. Tom Savini remade Night of the Living Dead in 1990 and Zack Snyder remade Dawn of the Dead in 2004. Steve Miner is presently at work on a Day of the Dead remake -- and it's probably a few years too soon to expect someone to remake Land of the Dead ... maybe.

Which means that Romero's got to bang out another sequel if he wants to stay two steps ahead of the re-makers. And that means good news, zombie fans! The master himself has just signed a deal to write and direct Diary of the Dead, which is a title that makes me giggle because it conjures visions of a rotting zombie trying to write something angsty and poignant in his frilly little diary. ...

The fifth Dead entry will borrow a page from The Blair Witch Project, in that Diary of the Dead tells the story of a bunch of film school students who trek into the wilderness to make a horror movie -- only to discover that the shuffling undead are more than happy to turn their horror movie into a reality show.

And it looks like Romero will be going indie-style once again. Universal bankrolled and released George's most recent zombiethon, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Romero convinced his producer-pal Peter Grunwald that this time around they could just raise the cash and do it themselves. Cool.