Living Dead is a blanket term for the loosely connected horror
franchise that originated from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.
The film, written by George A. Romero and John A. Russo, primarily
focuses on a group of people gathering at a farmhouse to survive from
an onslaught of zombies in rural Pennsylvania. It is known to have
inspired the modern interpretation of zombies as reanimated human
corpses that feast on the flesh and/or brains of the living.Due to a
copyright error during its release, Night of the Living Dead's status
in the public domain has resulted in numerous works claiming to expand
upon or spin off from the plot points and characters of the film,
sometimes without the involvement of the original cast and crew
members. They consist of various films, literature, and other forms of
media that explore the outbreak and evolution of a zombie apocalypse
and society's reaction to it. The two most notable are Romero's Dead
series, consisting of five additional films, and the Return of the
Living Dead series, which was loosely based on Russo's novel of the
same name.As of its latest installment, Survival of the Dead, Romero's
Dead series includes six films all written and directed by Romero
himself. Labeled Trilogy of the Dead until Land of the Dead, each film
is laden with social commentary on topics ranging from racism to
consumerism. The films are not produced as direct follow-ups from one
another, and the only continuation is the epidemic of the living dead.
This situation advances with each film, but with different characters,
and the time moves ahead to the time when they were filmed, making the
world's progression the only interlocking aspect of the series. The
fifth film does not continue the depiction of the progress of the
world; instead it goes back to the beginning of events from the first
film, but is nonetheless contemporary as the sequels are. The films
deal with how different people react to the same phenomenon ranging
from citizens to police to army officials and back again. There are no
real happy endings to the films, as each takes place in a world that
has gotten worse since the last time we saw it, the number of zombies
ever increasing and the fate of the living remnant always in the
balance.Romero tried to make each movie unique from the previous, but
this led to some of his more serious works, like Day of the Dead,
receiving a worse reception compared to his spoof-like film Dawn of
the Dead. He explained this in an interview with Telegraph film
reviewer Tim Robey saying, "You know, I’ve made six zombie films,
I’ve tried consciously to make each one different from the next. But
that’s not what people want these days. They want the same thing! I
don’t know if that’s part of this television mentality, where
people tune in every week to see the same thing.". Romero does not
consider any of his Dead films sequels since none of the major
characters or story continue from one film to the next. The one
exception is that the military officer from Diary of the Dead (Alan
van Sprang), who robs the main characters, is a main character in
Survival of the Dead as well.
franchise that originated from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.
The film, written by George A. Romero and John A. Russo, primarily
focuses on a group of people gathering at a farmhouse to survive from
an onslaught of zombies in rural Pennsylvania. It is known to have
inspired the modern interpretation of zombies as reanimated human
corpses that feast on the flesh and/or brains of the living.Due to a
copyright error during its release, Night of the Living Dead's status
in the public domain has resulted in numerous works claiming to expand
upon or spin off from the plot points and characters of the film,
sometimes without the involvement of the original cast and crew
members. They consist of various films, literature, and other forms of
media that explore the outbreak and evolution of a zombie apocalypse
and society's reaction to it. The two most notable are Romero's Dead
series, consisting of five additional films, and the Return of the
Living Dead series, which was loosely based on Russo's novel of the
same name.As of its latest installment, Survival of the Dead, Romero's
Dead series includes six films all written and directed by Romero
himself. Labeled Trilogy of the Dead until Land of the Dead, each film
is laden with social commentary on topics ranging from racism to
consumerism. The films are not produced as direct follow-ups from one
another, and the only continuation is the epidemic of the living dead.
This situation advances with each film, but with different characters,
and the time moves ahead to the time when they were filmed, making the
world's progression the only interlocking aspect of the series. The
fifth film does not continue the depiction of the progress of the
world; instead it goes back to the beginning of events from the first
film, but is nonetheless contemporary as the sequels are. The films
deal with how different people react to the same phenomenon ranging
from citizens to police to army officials and back again. There are no
real happy endings to the films, as each takes place in a world that
has gotten worse since the last time we saw it, the number of zombies
ever increasing and the fate of the living remnant always in the
balance.Romero tried to make each movie unique from the previous, but
this led to some of his more serious works, like Day of the Dead,
receiving a worse reception compared to his spoof-like film Dawn of
the Dead. He explained this in an interview with Telegraph film
reviewer Tim Robey saying, "You know, I’ve made six zombie films,
I’ve tried consciously to make each one different from the next. But
that’s not what people want these days. They want the same thing! I
don’t know if that’s part of this television mentality, where
people tune in every week to see the same thing.". Romero does not
consider any of his Dead films sequels since none of the major
characters or story continue from one film to the next. The one
exception is that the military officer from Diary of the Dead (Alan
van Sprang), who robs the main characters, is a main character in
Survival of the Dead as well.
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