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George Romero has firm ideas about what the undead should, and shouldn’t, do. |
George Romero, the filmmaker who re-created the modern horror film with his 1968 renegade black-and-white classic “Night of the Living Dead,” has his fifth sequel, “Survival of the Dead,” opening tonight at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.
Illness prevented Romero, 70, from flying into Chicago. So, we played a round of Seven Questions on the phone:
Q. What’s the best zombie movie you didn’t make?
A. Wow! This is out of the blue. I’ve never had the question before. Uh, the old, old ones. They’re the only ones I really love. “I Walked With a Zombie.” “White Zombie.” Those were the funnest things. I don’t know that anyone could do those movies again. They’ve become demystified.
Q. Should zombies be able to move like Michael Jordan in his prime, as they do in Zack Snyder’s remake of your sequel “Dawn of the Dead”?
A. Absolutely not. They’re dead! It’s as simple as that! In the remake of “Dawn,” I think he’s a good director and he did a good job with the action parts of the film. It’s not the kind of film I would have made. I thought it was more of a video game. No politics. No sort of social criticism or whatever. But, I mean what did they (zombies) do? Wake up and join a health club?
Even in “28 Days Later” or in “Zombieland,” they’re not really dead. They’ve got some kind of virus or something. I can sort of forgive them there, but if they’re dead, how can they run? I don’t get it.
Q. Why haven’t you ever put sex into your undead films? Even the 2006 second remake of “Night of the Living Dead” has sex and a naked woman in it. Why not your films?
A. I don’t know. It just doesn’t belong. People are too preoccupied with other things. People have told me that in a doomsday scenario, the first thing people will do is crawl into bed with each other. I don’t know. In these films, it just doesn’t seem to fit. (Read more…)