Romero and Schlozman's "Zombie Autopsies" Script Completed

[krakenslayer]

http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/69497/george-romero-completes-script-his-adaptation-zombie-autopsies

It's out circulating with studios now. We'll see what comes of it.

And f*ck the naysayers. I'd still watch the $hit out of this. I desperately need something different, original and gruesome from my zombie fix; with the stilted, formulaic drama of TWD and that ID4-wannabe with Brad Pitt seemingly capturing everyone's attention but mine, I am getting precariously close to complete burnout on the entire genre.


Dr. Stanley Blum is already infected (as is two thirds of humankind) with ataxic neurodegenerative satiety deficiency syndrome (ANSD)—the virus that makes flesh-eating zombies lurch and lunch—when he decamps to Bassas da India, an island overseen by the U.N., to vivisect captive zombies in the hope of isolating the pathogen before he succumbs to it.

http://i2.blogs.indiewire.com/images/blogs/theplaylist/archives/georgearomero-thezombieautopsies.jpg

[Neil]

I'm seeing Frankenstein's lab again in Day :)

[krakenslayer]

I'm seeing Frankenstein's lab again in Day :)

Something like that would be pretty cool. I think I'll get a copy of the book. I am liking all the art I've seen from it. Very gruesome but also very clinical which somehow makes it more chilling.

I just hope it focuses on the horror of the situation more than Romero's recent stuff, and also doesn't get bogged down in the usual lazy modern zombie movie plot about yet another square-jawed authority figure searching halfheartedly for his son/daughter/wife.

Make it about the zombies as much as the characters. Dawn and Night worked because the threat was ever present, Day worked in part because the zombies were characters in their own right. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of drama and all the subtexts and stuff, but they work best when they are just that sub-texts that you actually get a kick out of unravelling, as opposed to being beaten over the head with it, and when the drama is gritty and realistic. None of this "heartfelt" "meaningful" Oprah shit the characters in TWD are always spouting.

[krisvds]

I'm with Kraken' on this one.
I'm sick and tired of people claiming TWD is the best the genre has to offer and there's little else left to do.
Series is fun but heavily flawed and almost devoid of any dread.

One can only hope George redeems himself and shows the kids how it's done just one last time.
If not, I'll just watch 'The Dead' again.

[Neil]

Something like that would be pretty cool. I think I'll get a copy of the book. I am liking all the art I've seen from it. Very gruesome but also very clinical which somehow makes it more chilling
Got Greg Nicotero written all over it :)

[EvilNed]

Sign me up on the "TWD ain't that great crowd". Season 1 was awesome, but since then it's succumbed to stupid writing. I more or less hate all the characters, because they're all dumb idiots that make idiotic decisions all the time.

I stopped watching after halfway through season 3.

That saying, I'm not sure GAR has it in him anymore to do anything with this genre that's worth watching.

[MinionZombie]

And f*ck the naysayers. I'd still watch the $hit out of this. I desperately need something different, original and gruesome from my zombie fix; with the stilted, formulaic drama of TWD and that ID4-wannabe with Brad Pitt seemingly capturing everyone's attention but mine, I am getting precariously close to complete burnout on the entire genre.

I'll certainly watch this if it gets made, so I'm with you on that.

Not with you on TWD being 'stilted, formulaic' though.


None of this "heartfelt" "meaningful" Oprah shit the characters in TWD are always spouting.

Hmmm... :rockbrow:


I'm sick and tired of people claiming TWD is the best the genre has to offer and there's little else left to do.
Series is fun but heavily flawed and almost devoid of any dread.

TWD certainly has some flaws, but the flaws also shift - one season might have a problem in one area, they fix it for the next season, but then they go a bit too far with some other element that gets fixed for the season that follows - so it's an evolving work-in-progress, like all television shows.

Clearly we're watching different shows if you don't find any dread in TWD. Personally, I find plenty of dread - and shedloads of tension too. I've been consistently impressed by their skill at tension building within key scenes - something that the Hollywood movie boys would do well to learn from.

Are people saying that TWD is the be-all-and-end-all of the zombie genre at large though? I've never heard or read that, nor have I said it - it's top tier zombie content, but there's always room for other directions and looks at the genre ... some are good ("The Dead" consistently gets a lot of love here on HPOTD), and others are shit, or utterly divisive (WWZ).


I more or less hate all the characters, because they're all dumb idiots that make idiotic decisions all the time.

I stopped watching after halfway through season 3.

That saying, I'm not sure GAR has it in him anymore to do anything with this genre that's worth watching.

Opinions, naturally ... but we must be watching different shows. I just don't see it the way you seem to and I'm baffled by your response to it. :confused:

As for GAR - his recent output hasn't been up to the Night/Dawn/Day height, certainly not. I enjoyed Land, and still do, although certain things about it annoy me more as the years have gone on - various little things "why didn't they just tweak it this way/say it like this/do that and not this" etc ... but over-the-piece I dig the flick. Diary of the Dead, on the other hand, I've had a very tumultuous time with - it has some cool moments, but the commentary is as blunt as a sledgehammer hitting granite, and some of the performances leave a lot to be desired at times, and certain moments are dreadfully contrived ... fun parts, and it was interesting to see GAR try a different approach, but yeah ... ... it's a very mixed bag of a flick.

Survival of the Dead - now apparently GAR's second favourite of his dead flicks after Day of the Dead (!!!) - I enjoyed it far more than Diary, and quite like it, but with the caveat that it's GAR cutting loose and just having fun with the zombie genre. The fire in his belly is a different beast post-2000 than it was in the 60s through 80s - but everybody ages, and as they do, the fire in their respective bellies usually calms for different reasons ... you just get tired, disappointment in that whatever movement that was important to you at the time didn't really change things as much as you believed they would at the time etc etc ... ... there's some very silly moments with some ropey CGI (the fire extinguisher kill, for instance) ... I can't put Survival next to Night/Dawn/Day, but on it's own terms I quite enjoy it.

Perhaps some input from a fresh source and perspective might give GAR a bit of a jolt ... although I would love to see him tackle something outside of the zombie genre, particularly as he's saying that there's so many people in the zombie playground with him these days - surely now would be the time for him to make a different kind of flick, along the lines of Martin, for example. That'd be nice to see.

Either way, if it gets made, I'll watch it - and I hope it turns out nice.


Got Greg Nicotero written all over it :)

Indeed, although might KNB be too busy to help out? Perhaps at most they might only be able to help as consultants ... or send some of their younger guys over with the big guys popping their heads in on a flying visit to oversee the general things?

[EvilNed]

Opinions, naturally ... but we must be watching different shows. I just don't see it the way you seem to and I'm baffled by your response to it. :confused:


I got really turned off by it in Season 2 when Andrea and Lori had an argument over what "women should do". That was f*cking unbelievable. Lori, being a person we're supposed to sympathize with, felt that women should do the laundry and cooking and cleaning so the men could protect them. That kind of stuff is kinda typical of TWD in these later seasons. The character infighting is just so damn stupid and unsympathetic. There's really no characters that I feel are realistically portrayed. Maybe Carol. She's been through alot. But on the other end of the spectrum you've got bad ass crossbow/katana ninjas like Daryl and Michonne. Meh. They've all got one thing in common... Stupid writing.

I'm not saying GAR is any better these days. I thought the characters in Diary were proper crap. Can't speak for Survival, haven't seen that enough to remember/recollect it. But in Diary, those characters are as much idiots as the biggest you'd find. There's too many flaws in his character writing to enjoy those films (to the fullest). I cannot fathom how this happened either, as Day of the Dead is, in my mind, a flawless film.

[AcesandEights]

Well, the core of the idea sounds fun, and not some out-of-the-ass idea destined to be overwrought, and I'll give it a shot, but as someone mentioned above, I'm just not sure GAR has it in him at this point. I'd love for him to pull it off, though.

Who knows, at this point he could luck into another really good zombie film, if he keeps pumping out zed movies.

[MinionZombie]

I got really turned off by it in Season 2 when Andrea and Lori had an argument over what "women should do". That was f*cking unbelievable. Lori, being a person we're supposed to sympathize with, felt that women should do the laundry and cooking and cleaning so the men could protect them. That kind of stuff is kinda typical of TWD in these later seasons.

I think you're reducting that scene a bit, it was two opposing viewpoints, Lori being angry that Andrea wasn't chipping in with the jobs that Lori and Carol were up to, but Andrea wasn't up for that stuff - she wanted to be on guard duty - I wouldn't go so far as to say that Lori was wanting to just be looked after. I think they both made valid points, and they both showed themselves up at the same time in that scene.

I see the scene differently from you evidently ... you're a baffling dude, Ned. :D

[EvilNed]

The message was pretty heavy handed in that scene, IMO. And it was a pretty disturbing message.

[kidgloves]

But guys its cool to hate on TWD. Its successful/mainstream after all therefore it must be rubbish.

Anyway, I think this has lots of promise. The Dr guy who wrote this appeared on Coast to Coast in character as if the outbreak was real. Was very interesting. Max Brooks did the same thing. You should track the shows down in the coast to Coast thread if you haven't already

[krisvds]

But guys its cool to hate on TWD. Its successful/mainstream after all therefore it must be rubbish.


Although sarcastic, there is truth in the above statement. The more this genre shambles for the mainstream the more rubbish it becomes. PG13 zombies, sprinters, ...

By going for the largest common denominator the genre lost a lot of soul.

[EvilNed]

Although sarcastic, there is truth in the above statement. The more this genre shambles for the mainstream the more rubbish it becomes. PG13 zombies, sprinters, ...


I'm not sure that's the problem. You could certainly accuse WWZ of this, but TWD?

TWD has become something more than a zombie thing. It's a modern day TV-drama, which is in vogue (what with Breaking Bad, The Wire and everything inbetween being talked about constantly). That means that we, or at least I, am gonna judge it as such. Had I judged it as a pure zombie outing - a one off, then it's certainly better than a lot out there. But as a TV-drama it needs to keep it's characters interesting for us to keep watching. It just doesn't do that.

[MinionZombie]

TWD has become something more than a zombie thing. It's a modern day TV-drama, which is in vogue (what with Breaking Bad, The Wire and everything inbetween being talked about constantly). That means that we, or at least I, am gonna judge it as such.

So when it comes to zombie movies, do you judge them against the zombie genre, or movies as an art form in general?

[krakenslayer]

My main problem with The Walking Dead is that it's set in a vanilla zombie holocaust, with no original twists or new angle, with mostly-uninteresting vanilla TV characters delivering vanilla TV dialogue (i.e. speaking in ways no one actually does) in vanilla zombie movie situations. There is nothing original or exciting about The Walking Dead, nothing that hasn't been covered a hundred thousand times in the fiction section here.

I think it's widely liked among the general public because will be one of the first vanilla zombie stories your average mainstream twenty-first century TV viewer has been exposed to. To them, it is new, it is exciting, I can appreciate that. But to me, everything about it is old hat, tired and boring.

The Zombie Autopsies might turn out the same way, or go the other direction and try too hard to be wacky and unusual, and abandon the basics of the genre altogether, like some of Romero's recent work has. But I am hopeful.

[EvilNed]

I judge them as movies as an art form in general, I suppose. Zombie movies are a genre I love, but that doesn't mean I love every zombie movie. Far from it. There's stuff like Day of the Dead, 28 Days Later and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things in one corner, and Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Dead and World War Z in the other.

[krisvds]

Recent interview with George here:

http://dailydead.com/exclusive-interview-with-george-a-romero/

Quote on TWD, Man of Steel and WWZ :

George A. Romero: "I have to say that I love The Walking Dead [comic] books. Frank Darabont did a great job with the first season, but I didn’t know what happened with the show after. I used to be the only guy in this playground, but now there’s too damn many. It’s very hard now, particularly with World War Z [the movie]. When I first saw it, I wasn’t thrilled with it, but the following weekend, I saw Man of Steel and I suddenly loved World War Z [laughs]."

[AcesandEights]

Recent interview with George here:

http://dailydead.com/exclusive-interview-with-george-a-romero/

Quote on TWD, Man of Steel and WWZ :

George A. Romero: "I have to say that I love The Walking Dead [comic] books. Frank Darabont did a great job with the first season, but I didn’t know what happened with the show after. I used to be the only guy in this playground, but now there’s too damn many. It’s very hard now, particularly with World War Z [the movie]. When I first saw it, I wasn’t thrilled with it, but the following weekend, I saw Man of Steel and I suddenly loved World War Z [laughs]."

Is it weird that I've gotten in this habit of mentally transposing Stan Lee's voice over Romero's when I read quotes from GAR?

[shootemindehead]

However 'The Zombie Autopsies' turns out, it has to be the dumbest name for a zombie film since 'The Video Dead'.

As far as 'The Walking Dead' goes, I reckon I like it because it is such a vanilla-type zombie apocalypse. To me that's one of its strengths, although I agree that some of the characters are too blah. Especially the one's written for the show. Most of the comic-book characters come off better.

Needs more gore though and a sense of real danger. It's still a little too cozy for me.

[EvilNed]

I'd agree on the title. It's pretty stupid.

Also, I might be a bit too harsh on TWD. For all it's faults, it's still a lot better than much out there.