THE DEAD TRILOGY By Kenaz

...When there is no more room in hell...the dead will walk the earth

First i want to say that this is the greatest Movie Trilogy of all time. Everything about these movie is amazing. From the hidden social metaphors and commentary to the splatter gore and B-Movie effects. These are true independent masterpiece's and the finest Horror movies ever made. I love the way they’re like Non-sequals. They’re not sequels in the conventual manner ( reoccurring characters etc..) and they all have a completely different tone. There just loosely linked by the uprising of the Zombies and Social Issues, and of course the obligatory flesh eating scene. The Zombies are the star of the show. There the coolest monsters ever. As Romero once said there like ''the working class of movie monsters''.  The day i saw Dawn Of The Dead i swear it changed my life forever and turned me into a complete Zombie addict. It introduced me to a world of horror beyond Nightmare On Elm Street, Beverly Hills 90210 with a little blood in otherwords. After seeing Dawn i saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then the rest of the Dead trilogy etc.. It basically got me into horror. One thing i love about them is there are true independent movies made by just a bunch of friends from Pittsburgh really. These must have been the most fun movies to make ever.

1968 BaW Cast: Duane Jones (Ben), Judith O' Dea (Barbra), Russel Streiner (Johnny), Karl Hardmen (Harry), Marilyn Eastman (Helen), Keith Wayne (Tom), Judith Ridley (Judy)

The 1st installment 1968's 'Night Of The Living Dead' broke down so many barriers. It was one of the 1st independent movies and the 1st independent Horror Movie. Movies like  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House On The left would not exist if it wasn't for this movie. In fact all great horror movies of the last 30 years probably wouldn't exist.

The storyline see' s a group of people seek refuge in a old farmhouse from the attacking Zombies. It appears the Dead are coming back to life and attacking the living. The only way to stop them is a bullet through the head. With Ben taking lead fights break out between him and Cooper as the group decide what to do. This is the original B-Movie but it remains a very well made B-Movie. Still today the film stands up. The darkness and anti-climatic ending, the flesh eating scene. All scenes which are guaranteed to play with your senses. This took horror away from the fantasy, historical setting of the old Hammers and Universals and placed it in the modern day world, with real characters.

Take the flesh eating scene for example, back then horror meant bad Dracula sequels. This scene was like no one had ever seen. A little girl Karen turns into a Zombie then kills Helen, her mother, its all pretty edgy and was way ahead of it's time. Most of the scenes are instantly familar and classic. The ''they’re coming to get you Barbara'' bit is unforgettable. The music on this is very eerie, the way it begins with the car driving down that road on the way to the cemertary, and the music. The 1st Zombie is 'the' Zombie that you remember. And he's a determined one.

a.k.a. Zombie, Zombies Dawn Of The Dead 1979 Cast: Gaylen Ross (Francine), David Emge (Stephen), Scott Reiniger (Roger ), Ken Foree (Peter)

George A. Romero's 2nd installment of his 'Dead' trilogy sees the world on the brink of chaos due to the Zombie crisis. The TV Stations are threatening to go off air, people are leaving the cities and nobody is exactly sure how these Dead are being reanimated. There's plenty of theory's but no real answers. Basically in 'Night' the Zombie's were confined and seemingly under control. Here we see Humanity starting to lose the battle against the Zombies. The story sees a small group escape this chaotic city in a helicopter were they stumble upon a  abandoned Mall. Lots of clever planning later they manage to blockade themselves away from the Zombies and the rest of the world in a endless world of capitalism.

The crew got a free reign in the Mall at night, which gives the film a freedom which will probably never again be repeated. You would never see Hollywood allow a whole Mall like this to be used. This film was a lot more comic booky, with loads of great disgusting splatter gore which looks great when splattered across the white walls of the Mall (though not against blue police overalls) The mall in Dawn is it's self is a metaphor for the capitalism of the 70's. In Night the film reflects the period it was made. The 60's...Social unrest, Assassinations, Race Riots, the cold war. The film represented the age it was made in. The 70's however was were capitalism was flying again and was a fairly more stable period.

Charlies Angles, Kiss, The Carpenters, arcade games. The period was a far more frivolous and superficial time, lacking the social upheavals of the 60's. He would repeat this again with the far more bleaker 'Day Of The Dead' in the 80's which reflects the Regan-ised period..aids, poverty, corruption and diversion of the classes. The scene in Dawn were they’re in the bank and throwing money around like its paper is truly metaphoric even though its a humorous scene. There's actually a great humor about this movie. Like were  two rednecks are using Zombies for target practice ''Damn i missed'', its hilarious yet also tragic at the same time. This is my favorite Dead trilogy, and one of my favorite movies of all time.

Day Of The Dead 1985 Cast: Lori Cardille (Sarah ), Josef Pilato (Rhodes), Terry Alexander (John), Richard Liberty (Dr.Logan)

Day Of The Dead sees the humans pretty much completely defeated. The citys are nothing but Zombie apocalyptic wastelands. What's left is a military unit alongside some civilians, looking for other possible humans while at the same time struggling with supplies. One thing with the Dead trilogy it's always human stupidity which ruins things in the end, not the Zombies. In the 1st film its the continuing rivalry over leadership between 2 men. In Dawn its the the Hells Angels who destroy and loot the mall though at the heart of it its the groups continuing obsession with Capitalism. Should they just settle down and leave a life with all that misery on the outside. Which in it's self is also a great metaphor for what we all  do really. We all subconsciously turn our heads away from the homeless etc..

And with Day the human conflicts are put to the best use. With the friction between the military (lead by a power crazed Captain) and the civilians/sciantists etc..  George had to completely change his script for Day. It would have been a lot more epic and set a lot more in the jungle. But he had to convert it in the confines of one military bunker, and also merged characters together. It was amazing what he did really because the film ended up another masterpiece. The opening scene, my favorite were you see a abandoned city is truly epic, with the crocodile and the old newspaper being wonderful touch's

Then gradually the citys inhabitants come out. This i think was the direction his original script would have been more like. Day also has a trained good guy Zombie called Bubba. He's the hero of the piece and has a far greater moral code then the captain for example. Also the gore is really realistic. The 'Dawn' gore looked very bright red, 70's blood so though it was sick it didnt make you puke too much. But with Day it's a different story. There's a scene were a Zombie gets up and all his intestines fall out.

We have missed our chance for a 90's Dead movie. I mean what was the 90's about anyways? George said in the late 90's he is still trying to think of what it was so he could make another Dead picture, the 90's are now over. Of course it's very hard to get these films made. Dawn for example needed foreign backing, from Dario Argento. Who then edited his own version for the European non-English speaking country's. He also introduced George to The Goblins, who scored some of the soundtrack. (all of the soundtrack in the Argento version). George did say for the 4th one, the Zombies have decomposed so much to the point were there easily disposed of. Humanity has cut itself off from the Zombies and the Zombies are no longer a threat. They  just carry on on the outside slowly decomposing. Of course knowing it's part of the Dead trilogy the humans will probably underestimate the Zombies.

Also worth mentioning is Savini's (fx genius, done the gore for dawn and day) 'Night' 1990 Remake. I still prefer the darker original but this remake came real close to beating it. If it wasn't Romero only Tom Savini should have been allowed to do this picture, and he did and done a very good job. Almost the same enough to consider it a updated Night but with little plot changes in the familiar spots to make it different enough. Also this film has the coolest looking Zombies ever this side of Fulci, they look like full-on reanimated corpse's, and that was the intention. Tom looked at holocaust footage, and visited the morgue etc..to get his Dead just right. Unfortunately some of the gore was cut out a little.

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