Branching

I read today that there's a sequel to the remake of Dawn of the Dead in the works. It won't be a remake of Day of the Dead, the sequel to George Romero's original Dawn, and the third in his Zombie series, but a sequel in its own right.

The recent remake of Dawn wasn't a sequel, either, to 1990s remake of 1968s Night of the Living Dead, but a stand-alone film. Odd that a remake of a sequel can stand on its own, but nevermind.

There's also a sequel to the original Day of the Dead, called Day of the Dead: Contagium, which, oddly enough, doesn't have anything to do with the characters or events in Day, but takes an alternate look at what might have caused the whole Zombie epidemic in the first place, which makes it, technically, another remake -- or, to borrow a term from Tim Burton -- a re-imagining of Night.

You see where this is headed?

In addition, Romero's former Night partner, John Russo, has produced his very own sequel to Night, called Children of the Living Dead... which itself has spawned a sequel, Escape from the Living Dead. (Since, like Day, this is the third in the series, can it too be considered a re-imagining?) According to allthingszombie.com, Russo states that Escape will have a budget of $5-10 million, and that several big-name stars are said to be interested in the film, including Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Swayze, Dennis Hopper, and even Jim Carrey. This is bullshit, of course, because Children was soooo mind-numbingly bad, its director, the improbably named Tor Ramsey, has taken a public stand against it in the "bits and pieces" section of homepageofthedead.com. Turns out that he's pretty much of an asshole himself, but he does explain how the film was ultimately taken out of his hands, even as he was directing it. No Orson Welles, this guy.

Return of the Living Dead was marginally a sequel to Night -- when Russo was involved early on, it was meant to be a direct sequel, but it soon became less so and more a stand-alone film which paid homage to Romero's film. Of course that saw two sequels, both of which sucked, and will soon, all too soon, see two more sequels, which will no doubt suck in their very own special ways as well.

Why does it seem that every Zombie movie made in the last twenty-five years is either a remake of, or a sequel to, or a remake of a sequel to one of Romero's flicks? His universe has branched off in so many different directions, it's about to lap itself -- and it can be argued that it already has. Shaun of the Dead, while it took the whole Zombie thing in an entirely different direction, profound though it turned out to be, still made reference to the original Night by way of the mysterious satellite that may or may not have been the cause of the Zombie epidemic.

Man, can't ya just have Zombies without having to rely on Romero for your background material? Cripes, even 28 Days Later decided to go another way with the whole "rage infected monkey" thing. But, as has been pointed out ad nauseum by more experienced reviewers than myself, 28 Days Later was not a Zombie film, so does it really count?

I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, the Final Word on Zombies will be Romero's own Land of the Dead, due out next year. Likely, it will be George's Final Word as well...