Anyone feel like its time for a 'soft reboot' of Romero's series?

[nycbsn]

By soft reboot, I mean something along the lines of what Halloween and Robocop are doing.

The upcoming Halloween is a soft reboot in the sense that it takes a new refreshing direction by ignoring everything after Halloween 1 and just picking up after part 1.

The next Robocop is a sequel to the original that retcons 2 and 3, only acknowleding the first film.

Heck we might as well throw Neil Blomkamp's cancelled Alien film which retcons Alien 3 & 4, only picking up after both Alien and Aliens.

Well how about someone like Greg Nicotero doing that with Romero's universe?

The film can just pick up after Day of the Dead, ignoring Land, Diary, Survival, and.... Ughh.. Road. Sorry I didn't want to exclude Land but honestly, that film is a mixed bag for me. However, push come to shove, I'd take Land over the 3 that follow it any day

My point is... Ever since Land, this series has been going downhill compared to the quality of the first 3. Upon reading the premise for the next one (Road of the Dead)... WTF, seriously? Zombies in race cars? This is like bottom of the barrel digging for plots. Might as well add the Disney channel movie "Zombies" to this series cannon.

The series needs a fresh take that continues sometime after Day of the Dead. Land had potential, awesome ideas, neat setting, good cast, but lacking in execution.

Any thoughts?

[shootemindehead]

Nope.

[EvilNed]

Well,

John A. Russo's timeline is an alternate series of sequels to the original Night of the Living Dead.
So in a way that's already happened with Children of the Living Dead etc, (which was shit).

Having said that if the right director were to get their hands on the franchise I believe some great stuff could come from it. Imagine a Blomkamp helmed zombie film set in the Romero universe. That'd be great!

[JDP]

The man himself couldn't keep up with the first three movies, so one would tend to think that the chances that someone else will are slim. But I think that many people could do a better job than Survival and the ridiculous planned Road of the Dead movie. Romero truly fully lost "his touch" with these.

[MinionZombie]

A big old nope on that.

He'd basically said all he needed to say with the movies he did, and there's not really a clearly defined 'universe' surrounding those films anyway being that they have different settings, characters, and time periods. To have someone who isn't Romero try to hop in there would be disastrous and pretty pointless.

Want a smart socio-political zombie flick? Just make one, it doesn't need any kind of Romero branding or connection, just make a movie.

The Dawn remake stripped all of the intelligence and commentary out of the original, hell, even the characterisation was poor. It was just flashy MTV visuals and slick action, that was it really.

The various Day remakes/whatever have all been utter garbage of the highest order as well.

The only decent remake there's been is Night, and that has its flaws, but it worked as much as it did because of the timing (before the zombie onslaught that would start about 15 years after it was made) and the people involved. However, the various other remakes of Night? Yeesh.

So yeah, there's no need for any kind of 'reboot'. That series of films is so synonymous with Romero's name and style and outlook on the world that it just can't be dived into by someone else, not to mention the aforementioned fact that it's not your usual type of 'franchise' with connective tissue between the entries.

[beat_truck]

The original series (at least the first three) were perfectly fine as-is. We don't need any more shitty, dumbed down reboots or remakes. That goes for the rest of the classic movies out there. Time for some NEW ideas, people! Preferably ones that don't suck, too.

[Neil]

Nope.

LOL!

/thread

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The Dawn remake stripped all of the intelligence and commentary out of the original, hell, even the characterisation was poor. It was just flashy MTV visuals and slick action, that was it really.

Yep!

It sort of started well, but the moment there was the cheap sex scene (5-10mins in) to attempt to buy character depth, followed quickly by ninja gravity defying zombie children, and the instant conversion of her partner to a fog contacted lense dinosaur screaming zombie, I lost most of my hope. Underline all this will zombie babies, ninja stealth climbing zombies and stupid characters risking their lives for a dog... Grrrrr!


ps: And let's not even mention impossible/pointless ceiling crawling zombies from the Day remake :(

[beat_truck]

Even though the Dawn remake had some fairly cringe worthy parts, I still liked it overall.:duh: Maybe because I just immediately accepted the fact that it has pretty much nothing to do with the original, besides having a mall in it.

The Day '08 remake... UGH. That movie had absolutely zero redeeming qualities.:barf: I'm hoping that I can keep myself from ever seeing the newest Day remake. It sounds even more atrocious.

[facestabber]

What I appreciate about Dawn 04 is that it, IMO, rebooted the genre. Lets face it, zombies weren't cool enough for mainstream. 04 changed all that. Romero got a budget for Land(which I rate as terrible). But more importantly TWD, became possible.

To topic. I think we all need a new trilogy with new ideas about the ZA. A nice budget with respectable writing and characters. I don't need Brad Pitt and absolutely no need for sprinting zombies.

[nycbsn]

I know he said all he needed to say. But it just kinda sucks that we wait 20 years for a follow up and the result is Land and its even shittier offspring (Diary, Survival, and Road). The sequels are just getting worse (Road), so if they're gonna make more, might as well make a good one that ignores the shitty ones and makes up for the 20 year lead up to what we got.

What im saying is to make 1 that picks up after Day, a movie that is in the same spirit as the first 3, and is a proper send off that closes the series. Think about it, Land and everything that followed never happened. Night, Dawn, and Day are still intact. What would you like to see happen next?

With the right people and budget behind it, it could work.

[beat_truck]

In my opinion, it would take a miracle for a movie to be a continuation of the first 3 and actually turn out to be nearly as good. Hell, as you said, GAR himself couldn't pull it off in his later years. And as far as I'm concerned, without GAR involved, it will never have any relation to the original trilogy. It would be an afterthought. Time to move on and come up with something new and original. Not some tired retread.

[Moon Knight]

Like it or not, the Dawn remake made the zombie genre relevant again.

However, I say leave the films alone and come up with an entire new IP. Actually there are already several zombies movies and series coming along the pipeline.

[EvilNed]

Like it or not, the Dawn remake made the zombie genre relevant again.

However, I say leave the films alone and come up with an entire new IP. Actually there are already several zombies movies and series coming along the pipeline.

Didn't 28 Days Later predate the Dawn remake?

[beat_truck]

28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie.

[MinionZombie]

Didn't 28 Days Later predate the Dawn remake?

Yep. The influence on the Dawn remake is clear.


28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie.

Also yep. It's an infection/virus movie. To be a zombie movie the beasties need to either actually be dead or there has to be the clear belief that they are dead (the latter is in the instance of voodoo zombies). 28 Days Later's beasties are living people who are infected with a rabies-on-roids virus who then keel over after a few weeks because the body starved to death.

[beat_truck]

Also yep. It's an infection/virus movie. To be a zombie movie the beasties need to either actually be dead or there has to be the clear belief that they are dead (the latter is in the instance of voodoo zombies). 28 Days Later's beasties are living people who are infected with a rabies-on-roids virus who then keel over after a few weeks because the body starved to death.

Exactly.

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At this point since GAR is gone, I would hope that the "Road of the Dead" concept has been scrapped. Has it?

That would truly be an insult to GAR's memory if that atrocity actually somehow got made.

[nycbsn]

Exactly.

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At this point since GAR is gone, I would hope that the "Road of the Dead" concept has been scrapped. Has it?

That would truly be an insult to GAR's memory if that atrocity actually somehow got made.

The last time i checked, no... Unfortunately. Tbh the concept, considering it is coming after his demise, sounds akin to pooping on his grave. A crappy way to continue post-GAR.

How about a real Road of the Dead that follows the Dead Reckoning crew on their journey up north to Canada? I know thats asking too much since these movies never continue with the characters of each previous film, but come on, that sounds more like a "Road" of the Dead movie than that other garbage plot. Might as well call it Dead Days of Thunder.

[EvilNed]

28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie.

Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003533694/

Genre's evolve. And if 28 Days Later isn't a zombie film, then neither is Night of the Living Dead. After all; There's no voodooism to be found.

[JDP]

Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003533694/

Genre's evolve. And if 28 Days Later isn't a zombie film, then neither is Night of the Living Dead. After all; There's no voodooism to be found.

Wrong. The people in that movie are infected, but not dead. As stated before by MZ, for someone to qualify as a "zombie" he/she needs to be dead first.

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The last time i checked, no... Unfortunately. Tbh the concept, considering it is coming after his demise, sounds akin to pooping on his grave. A crappy way to continue post-GAR.

How about a real Road of the Dead that follows the Dead Reckoning crew on their journey up north to Canada? I know thats asking too much since these movies never continue with the characters of each previous film, but come on, that sounds more like a "Road" of the Dead movie than that other garbage plot. Might as well call it Dead Days of Thunder.

I would much rather see what happened to those government people in Washington DC that the folks in Day mention and allude to several times and are wondering what in blazes happened to them since communications ceased.

[beat_truck]

Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003533694/

Genre's evolve. And if 28 Days Later isn't a zombie film, then neither is Night of the Living Dead. After all; There's no voodooism to be found.

How am I wrong, exactly? They aren't the dead come back to life, and there is no voodoo involved, either. They are just infected people like MZ said. Not all that much different than having rabies

And, wiki and imdb are both wrong, at least going by the definition of the modern "zombie" that has been around for going on 50 years now.

BTW, more than once, I've found wrong information on IMDB and I am sure there is plenty of wrong information on wikipedia, too.

[EvilNed]

How am I wrong, exactly? They aren't the dead come back to life, and there is no voodoo involved, either. They are just infected people like MZ said. Not all that much different than having rabies

And, wiki and imdb are both wrong, at least going by the definition of the modern "zombie" that has been around for going on 50 years now.

BTW, more than once, I've found wrong information on IMDB and I am sure there is plenty of wrong information on wikipedia, too.

Zombie can also be delfined as mindless automaton, which clearly applies here. Also, genres are defined by general consensus, not individual opinions. Enough people apparently think it’s a zombie film to warrants its inclusion on Wiki and IMDb as one. That’s how genres are defined.

There’s no reason not to call it a zombie film.

[facestabber]

Wrong. The people in that movie are infected, but not dead. As stated before by MZ, for someone to qualify as a "zombie" he/she needs to be dead first.

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I would much rather see what happened to those government people in Washington DC that the folks in Day mention and allude to several times and are wondering what in blazes happened to them since communications ceased.

Yes! And to tie it to Day you could have a story about Washington team traveling to the bases they lost comms with. My nostalgia would tingle if they could recreate the exterior silo elevator/ graveyard/ heli landing zone. Have a team fly over that paying homage to fans and Romero then go tell their own story.

[beat_truck]

Zombie can also be delfined as mindless automaton, which clearly applies here. Also, genres are defined by general consensus, not individual opinions. Enough people apparently think it’s a zombie film to warrants its inclusion on Wiki and IMDb as one. That’s how genres are defined.

There’s no reason not to call it a zombie film.

Well, there's no good reason to call it a zombie film, either.

Call it whatever you like, though. It doesn't really mean shit to me either way.

[JDP]

Zombie can also be delfined as mindless automaton, which clearly applies here. Also, genres are defined by general consensus, not individual opinions. Enough people apparently think it’s a zombie film to warrants its inclusion on Wiki and IMDb as one. That’s how genres are defined.

There’s no reason not to call it a zombie film.

Yes, there is: the fact that they were NOT dead! "Zombie" in this context is a reanimated corpse (not necessarily by "voodoo") and thus implies a preliminary death:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/zombie

The "creatures" of that movie are actually people infected by a virus. There is no preliminary death. They go from being normal to being those wild murdering lunatics without dying first.

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Yes! And to tie it to Day you could have a story about Washington team traveling to the bases they lost comms with. My nostalgia would tingle if they could recreate the exterior silo elevator/ graveyard/ heli landing zone. Have a team fly over that paying homage to fans and Romero then go tell their own story.

Sounds good to me. And give the project to Savini and Nicotero (both of them worked in Day), and give them a nice budget too. Whatever the result, rest assured it will be a million times better than those crappy Day "remakes".

[EvilNed]

Well, there's no good reason to call it a zombie film, either.

Call it whatever you like, though. It doesn't really mean shit to me either way.

There’s plenty of good reasons.
It’s one of the best zombie films there is. If I were to show a friend of mine a 10 zombie films, I’d include it. It’s a perfect example of what the genre should be about. Survivalism against big man and beast. Facing former friends, turned monsters. Life after the outbreak.

[shootemindehead]

https://media.giphy.com/media/145hX7QVWqyili/giphy.gif

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28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie.


Also yep. It's an infection/virus movie. To be a zombie movie the beasties need to either actually be dead or there has to be the clear belief that they are dead (the latter is in the instance of voodoo zombies). 28 Days Later's beasties are living people who are infected with a rabies-on-roids virus who then keel over after a few weeks because the body starved to death.


Wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003533694/

Genre's evolve. And if 28 Days Later isn't a zombie film, then neither is Night of the Living Dead. After all; There's no voodooism to be found.


Wrong. The people in that movie are infected, but not dead. As stated before by MZ, for someone to qualify as a "zombie" he/she needs to be dead first.


How am I wrong, exactly? They aren't the dead come back to life, and there is no voodoo involved, either. They are just infected people like MZ said. Not all that much different than having rabies


Zombie can also be delfined as mindless automaton, which clearly applies here. Also, genres are defined by general consensus, not individual opinions. Enough people apparently think it’s a zombie film to warrants its inclusion on Wiki and IMDb as one. That’s how genres are defined.

There’s no reason not to call it a zombie film.


Well, there's no good reason to call it a zombie film, either.


There’s plenty of good reasons.
It’s one of the best zombie films there is. If I were to show a friend of mine a 10 zombie films, I’d include it. It’s a perfect example of what the genre should be about. Survivalism against big man and beast. Facing former friends, turned monsters. Life after the outbreak.


https://i.imgflip.com/11isjk.jpg

[MinionZombie]

https://media.giphy.com/media/145hX7QVWqyili/giphy.gif

:lol::lol::lol:

Ah, but this time there's a Shyamalan twist - this time JDP and I are in agreement! :stunned: :D

A film may carry some of the hallmarks and elements of another genre, but that doesn't necessarily make it the same thing. Shaun of the Dead gets referred to as a "rom-zom-com" by its creators, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, because a large part of the underlying story is Shaun getting Liz back, but I wouldn't say Shaun of the Dead and When Harry Met Sally are in the same genre. :p

Virus movies and Zombie movies cross similar territory in certain regards - such as humanity being wiped out, images of devastated cities, survivalism etc - but the key difference is the infected in 28 Days Later never die as part of their transformation into beasties whereas in the Romero style death is the transition itself, the victim dies and then resurrects as a zombie while still very much being deceased ... voodoo zombies, again, have the clear distinction where families see their loved ones die (they believe it to be true, but it's a trick induced by some sort of cocktail of drugs), be buried, only to then see them a while later up and walking about in the trance-like state with the family members still believing the person to literally be a dead man walking.

Shivers shares many of the hallmarks of a zombie film, but it's not a zombie film, it's an infection/virus/contamination/plague film. None of the victims of the parasite die, but nevertheless they turn into somewhat mindless sex-crazed beings ... but at no point do they die. Rabid, likewise, is the same situation.

[shootemindehead]

:lol::lol::lol:

Ah, but this time there's a Shyamalan twist - this time JDP and I are in agreement! :stunned: :D


Jesus...this site is too much for me sometimes.

[JDP]

:lol::lol::lol:

Ah, but this time there's a Shyamalan twist - this time JDP and I are in agreement! :stunned: :D

The real sarcasm is how in blazes can you ever not have been in agreement with me :) Perhaps now you are starting to realize how faulty are that fellow's "arguments" and "logic". For me it is not any surprise at all he hilariously thinks it is a "perfect example" of a "zombie movie".

[EvilNed]

Virus movies and Zombie movies cross similar territory in certain regards - such as humanity being wiped out, images of devastated cities, survivalism etc - but the key difference is the infected in 28 Days Later never die as part of their transformation into beasties whereas in the Romero style death is the transition itself, the victim dies and then resurrects as a zombie while still very much being deceased ... voodoo zombies, again, have the clear distinction where families see their loved ones die (they believe it to be true, but it's a trick induced by some sort of cocktail of drugs), be buried, only to then see them a while later up and walking about in the trance-like state with the family members still believing the person to literally be a dead man walking.


By that logic, 28 days later would be in the same genre as Contagion - which clearly isn't the case. It has a lot more in common with Dawn of the Dead than Contagion. Zombies - for instance. In this case the mindless automatons attacking our heroes.

[Moon Knight]

To me 28 Days Later is more in line with The Crazies.

Like Tom Savini once said, they’re not dead people, they’re just crazy people.

[JDP]

To me 28 Days Later is more in line with The Crazies.

Like Tom Savini once said, they’re not dead people, they’re just crazy people.

Also with other 70s flicks, like Shivers and Rabid. None of them qualify as "zombie movies". Neither does their modern off-shoot: 28 Days Later.

[bassman]

I’m gonna kinda be he odd man out here and say that I’m not totally against another creative team taking a stab at it. Our beloved uncle George has now passed on, it’s been many years since the originals, they’re popular, etc etc. it practically has all the reboot/remake prerequisites checked off.

Of course there is a big chance that it could backfire, but there is also the slight chance that it could work well. I’m looking at Frank Darabont as an example of a current director that’s also a huge fan taking the concept and running with it successfully. Darabont’s Walking Dead pilot is the best zombie movie in decades to a lot of fans, myself included. There are multiple writer/directors out there that could pull off something similar, and then set the series off for more original entries. It’s another franchise, but from what we’ve heard, the new Halloween is another good example. David Gordon Green, a predominately COMEDY director, but also huge fan of the original, has taken it and by all apparent reviews thus far, has rebooted it successfully.

It’s a risky proposal, but one that stands a small chance of working out. Whether it works out or not, they won’t erase the classic films we adore. Those are there to stay.

[tkane18]

I wish George had made a 4th movie where the survivors from Dawn meet up with the survivors from Day.

[MinionZombie]

I think the main difference, though, is that Romero's zombie films are so intrinsically Romero's take on the world in different decades. The connective tissue, the glue that holds all those films together, is Romero himself, whereas with franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare On Elm Street, the glue holding them together is in the text of the films themselves and particularly their leading - and continual - antagonists (Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruger).

A Romero zombie film without Romero makes no sense to me. Just make a smart, socially aware zombie film featuring shamblers and have a new voice entirely. You don't need to continue the 'franchise', if you can even really apply "franchise" to the Romero zombie movies. The closest things those films have to "franchise" is the continuation of the "...of the Dead" titles. Beyond that the 'franchise glue' was Romero himself. As Writer/Director/Producer (and some other roles over the years), they were intrinsicly connected to him. Other franchises (like the ones mentioned above) have been told by different voices from film-to-film.

Just make a new movie entirely, having been inspired by Romero's writing & directing methodology.

[Philly_SWAT]

The film can just pick up after Day of the Dead, ignoring Land, Diary, Survival, and.... Ughh.. Road. Sorry I didn't want to exclude Land but honestly, that film is a mixed bag for me. However, push come to shove, I'd take Land over the 3 that follow it any day


It would be tricky excluding Land, as the events depicted in that movie overlap the events in Dawn, or come shorty thereafter, with Day being much later in the time setting. So it could be done, extracting some of the story line depicted in mid-story arc, however, the events shown in Land do not really affect the overall story anyway.

[JDP]

It would be tricky excluding Land, as the events depicted in that movie overlap the events in Dawn, or come shorty thereafter, with Day being much later in the time setting. So it could be done, extracting some of the story line depicted in mid-story arc, however, the events shown in Land do not really affect the overall story anyway.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Daoyinyang]

What they could do is reboot the series. Just don't do the whole running zombies, parkour aspect of things, and have more character development. Also have less characters, adds a sense of dread and trepidation when there's less people.

[Skinrash]

This has already been attempted, twice. Flesheater/Zombie Nosh and Children of the living dead were unofficial reboots that ignored all the sequels and were alternate continuations of NOTLD. Both films are regarded as garbage by most people, so the attempts weren't successful, at least not critically.

[BountyHunter]

28 Days Later, while not TECHNICALLY a zombie movie, is what reinvigorated the zombie craze. It's what got me back into it.

Cuz lets get real here. Change a couple of line of dialogue in the film (calling them dead instead of infected) and you have a zombie movie. Calling them infected is the only thing that differentiates it from other zombie movies.

And guaranteed 95% of casual horror fans think of 28 Days Later as a zombie movie.

[JDP]

28 Days Later, while not TECHNICALLY a zombie movie, is what reinvigorated the zombie craze. It's what got me back into it.

Cuz lets get real here. Change a couple of line of dialogue in the film (calling them dead instead of infected) and you have a zombie movie. Calling them infected is the only thing that differentiates it from other zombie movies.

And guaranteed 95% of casual horror fans think of 28 Days Later as a zombie movie.

Wrong. Changing the labels won't alter the fact that the infected in that movie are actually alive. The fact that they are infected living people and not reanimated corpses is what distinguishes movies like 28 Days Later from proper zombie movies.

[EvilNed]

28 Days Later, while not TECHNICALLY a zombie movie, is what reinvigorated the zombie craze. It's what got me back into it.

Cuz lets get real here. Change a couple of line of dialogue in the film (calling them dead instead of infected) and you have a zombie movie. Calling them infected is the only thing that differentiates it from other zombie movies.

And guaranteed 95% of casual horror fans think of 28 Days Later as a zombie movie.

Don't be silly, of course it's a zombie movie.

[BountyHunter]

Don't be silly, of course it's a zombie movie.

I'd definitely classify it as one, as do the majority of movie-goers. Everything about the 28 movies clearly says "We're a zombie movie, but with a tiny twist".

I stand by my first post. Pretty sure nothing I said in it is inaccurate.

[MinionZombie]

28 Days Later is only 'zombie adjacent' in that it uses a variety of the hallmarks, but so too does The Crazies, but The Crazies isn't a zombie movie either.

The key aspect of a "zombie" is death, either the perception of death (i.e. in voodoo with people believing that their loved ones died and have been resurrected) or actual death (i.e. in the Romero fashion whereby a human DIES and then resurrects as the undead).

At no point does anyone in 28 Days Later, The Crazies, and other infection movies (also including Nightmare City, which Umberto Lenzi clearly stated was not a "zombie" movie) actually die, indeed in 28DL the infection is so fast acting there wouldn't even be time, but the infection also doesn't work that way (killing its host). Indeed, in 28 Days Later the infected humans keel over and then die from starvation. Zombies don't die of starvation for two reasons: 1) they're already dead, so they can't die (they can only be 'put down' in a looser interpretation of "killing"), and 2) zombies go on for years whether or not they've noshed on some juicy human flesh or not.

"Zombie" movies and "Infection" movies are two distinct subsets of the horror genre. It really is quite simple and clear to see the difference.

[JDP]

I'd definitely classify it as one, as do the majority of movie-goers. Everything about the 28 movies clearly says "We're a zombie movie, but with a tiny twist".

I stand by my first post. Pretty sure nothing I said in it is inaccurate.

Trying to ignore what has been explained over and over in the thread doesn't really work. The facts still remain, your refusal to acknowledge them notwithstanding. So, no, the "creatures" in that movie are not "zombies", and merely changing the "label" won't make them so either. They are NOT reanimated dead people. That's what a "zombie" is in the proper movie genre sense. The other meanings of the word "zombie", like in the sense of a strange person in appearance or behavior, are NOT what the cinematic "zombie" genre is about. Otherwise, then, Rain Man, for example, would be "a zombie movie"!

[EvilNed]

I'd definitely classify it as one, as do the majority of movie-goers. Everything about the 28 movies clearly says "We're a zombie movie, but with a tiny twist".

I stand by my first post. Pretty sure nothing I said in it is inaccurate.

Agreed with everything you said. It's a zombie movie in pretty much all aspects and has more things in common with Night of the Living Dead (or Dawn of the Dead) than many other films that are classified as zombie films but come from a different angle.

But in the end it all depends on your definition of the genre. However it's clear 28 Days Later belongs to the tradition of zombie films as established by Romero, and not anywhere else.

[BountyHunter]

Yeah, exactly.

I get that zombies and infected are two different things, but if it looks like a zombie movie and quacks like a zombie movie, then it's a zombie movie.

Technically, yes, it's not one. The point I'm trying to make is that most people consider it a zombie movie because, except for the dead/infected difference, it's the same type of movie.

[JDP]

Yeah, exactly.

I get that zombies and infected are two different things, but if it looks like a zombie movie and quacks like a zombie movie, then it's a zombie movie.

Technically, yes, it's not one. The point I'm trying to make is that most people consider it a zombie movie because, except for the dead/infected difference, it's the same type of movie.

But then again the majority of people aren't very critical. I am sure that to many of them a movie like The Crazies, for example, will also be some kind of "zombie movie", but it in fact isn't, not any more than its "offspring" 28 Days Later is. In the cinematic context, the "zombie genre" is specifically about reanimated cadavers. Accordingly, movies about mummies and the Frankenstein monster (both of them are reanimated cadavers, one through supernatural means, the other through science) have much more to do with the "zombie" genre than movies where living people are infected by something that makes them insane murderers but does not kill them first.

[EvilNed]

Yeah, exactly.

I get that zombies and infected are two different things, but if it looks like a zombie movie and quacks like a zombie movie, then it's a zombie movie.

Technically, yes, it's not one. The point I'm trying to make is that most people consider it a zombie movie because, except for the dead/infected difference, it's the same type of movie.

What people don't seem to understand are that genres are defined by consensus. So if 9 out of 10 people consider X to be a Zombie film, then it's a zombie film and the genre is evolved to encompass that definition. That's how genres are formed. They're not grown artificially in a lab somewhere.

[JDP]

What people don't seem to understand are that genres are defined by consensus. So if 9 out of 10 people consider X to be a Zombie film, then it's a zombie film and the genre is evolved to encompass that definition. That's how genres are formed. They're not grown artificially in a lab somewhere.

They are defined by people who actually know what they are talking about. It's like saying that dictionaries are written by the average Joe and whatever he thinks a given word actually means. Nope. They are written by people who actually make it their job to know the subject and understand the proper meaning of words and their use in the proper contexts. And when it comes to "zombie" in the cinematic/literary context, this is what the word refers to:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/zombie

(in stories, movies, etc.) A zombie is a dead person brought back to life without the ability to speak or move easily.

(in stories) a frightening creature that is a dead person who has been brought back to life, but without human qualities. Zombies are not able to think and they are often shown as attacking and eating human beings:

And there is a good reason why the genre is defined by that specific meaning of the word as opposed to more vague and general meanings like "a person who has no energy, seems to act without thinking, and does not notice what is happening"/"someone who moves around as if unconscious and being controlled by someone else", because then many other movies would absurdly also qualify as "zombie movies". You could even include movies featuring people with some mental disabilities as "zombie films". Utterly ridiculous.