George A. Romero’s bringing Zombie back

The father, creator and all-around badass of the modern Zombie genre is going back to the Living Dead well at least one more time, according to Dread Central. The man who has notched such zombie-fueled classics as “Night of the Living Dead,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead,” “Land of the Dead” and the latest “Diary of the Dead,” has begun the production stages of his first official zombie sequel, “Diary of the Dead 2.”

The guys at Dread Central really did their work in order to uncover this film, too. According to their post, they were curious why Romero had to cancel on his scheduled trip to Novi, MI for a film festival called Motor City Naightmares (they didn’t take, “Because it’s in Novi, MI” as a good enough excuse), and a few quick phone calles revealed that Romero was too busy with “work related issues.” After even more digging, they found out that Romero is supposedly going into overdrive on the project, hoping to start filming as soon as September.

Although the film is already underway, I’m hoping that the final and finished product will have a different “(Insert something here) of the Dead” title. If the flick really is “Diary of the Dead 2,” I think that would imply that Romero and Co. are planning on utilizing the same first-person camera view that they used in the first one. First of all, let me just say that I didn’t agree with the general consensus that “Diary” sucked balls — it was an interesting and all-together different take on the Zombie Movie, and I applaud Romero’s willingness to take risks at this stage in his career. He made a name for himself for thinking outside the box and having a unique vision, so it’s good to see him continue to develop that and not just mail in some of the same ol’ same ol’.

But another first-person movie is not a good idea. You made your point the first time around, and another movie shot with a hand-held camera isn’t going to stray too far away from the original in tone and theme. I really do think the first one was poignant. It was a great take on how the YouTube-Generation would handle a zombie attack — the style wasn’t really accepted well because “Cloverfield” siphoned all the interest in a first-person movie away from it — but another one shot in that style can’t do anything to make that point even stronger. The only feasible reason I can think of that Romero would feel the need to shoot another in this style would be that he’s just not getting the kind of funding he’d need to make the film otherwise, which is a sad state of affairs.

Over at Bloody Disgusting, they have a tentative plot synopsis that seems to confirm that it is indeed a sequel to “Diary”:

The “diary” saga continues. Our heroes, trapped in the mansion where we left them, battle waves of ravenous zombies, barely escaping alive. In search of a safe place to settle, they commandeer an abandoned ferry and sail to a deserted island, only to find that it is already populated by a civilization of the dead. Told in the same first-person style that distinguished “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead”, the next episode of the saga is a violent siege set in the middle of nowhere, a desperate struggle for survival, and peace, between two tribes: the living and the living dead.

I don’t think anyone would raise a stink if Romero used that plot and ditched the first-person narrative. I mean, if the kids are really going to an island, how are the expected to charge their camera’s battery and stuff?