Movies - Living Dead

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	Movies - Living Dead

The Living Dead is the blanket term for the three separate series that originated with the seminal 1968 zombie movie Night of the Living Dead created by George A. Romero and John A. Russo.

After the films initial success, the two creators split in disagreement regarding where the series should go and a contract was drawn up. Any future Romero films would lose the "Living" prefix and simply be referred to as Dead movies and Russo, who wanted to branch the series off into literary territory, would retain the rights to "Living Dead" (though fans nevertheless refer to Romero's as Living Dead films), so thus both series would be considered canon and each would be able to do what they liked with the continuity of the projects.

Romero's Dead series

Night of the Living Dead
(Romero, 1968)
Dawn of the Dead
(Romero, 1978)
Day of the Dead
(Romero, 1985)
Land of the Dead
(Romero, 2005)

Labeled a trilogy until Land of the Dead, this is considered by most fans as the one true series. Each film is laden with social commentary ranging from racism to consumerism. The films are not produced as direct follow-ups from one another. The films' only continuation is the epidemic of the living dead, the situation advancing with each film, but with different characters and even moving the time ahead from the last to the time in which they were filmed despite the world's progression being the only interlocking aspect of the series. They are different stories telling how different people react to the same phenomonen ranging from citizens to cops to army officials and back again. There are no real happy endings to the films as each takes places in a world that has gotten worse since the last time we saw it, the number of zombies ever increasing and the fate of the small amount of the remaining living always in the balance.

Russo's Living Dead series

Return of the Living Dead
(O'Bannon, 1986)
*Return of the Living Dead Part II (Wiederhorn, 1988)
*Return of the Living Dead III
(Yuzna, 1993)
*Return of the Living Dead Part IV: Necropolis (Elkayem, 2005)
*Return of the Living Dead Part 5: Rave From the Grave (Elkayem, 2005)
Night of the Living Dead
30th Anniversary Edition (Russo, 1998)
Children of the Living Dead
(Russo, 2001)

In 1998 Russo went back to the original film to reshoot extra sequences into the film. This 30th Anniversary Edition added a subplot, alternate opening, as well as a completely new score. The result is a widely reviled version of the original. It is considered to be incredibly inferior, riddled with needless touch-ups.

Children of the Living Dead was a direct sequel to the Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary Edition, as it followed up on scenes that were newly inserted. It was another widely panned effort on the behalf of Russo. Director Tor Ramsey made his frustration filming quite well known, even during post-production when his effort to fix the film was "corrected" by its writer Karen L. Wolf, whom he claims was tyranical over her script, despite little knowledge of the horror genre. It is these two efforts that leave many fans to criticize Russo with claims of ill-attempts to reclaim what he lost after the original Night of the Living Dead. Only Return of the Living Dead
, based on the novel Russo wrote, gained popularity, spawning four sequels. These films (with the exception of the third film) differ in that they are not serious and employ silly humour, as well as using different zombie "rules."

Dead series remakes

Night of the Living Dead (Savini, 1990)
Dawn of the Dead
(Snyder, 2004)
Day of the Dead
(Miner, 2007)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Living Dead ]

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Movies - Living Dead

Romero's Dead series

Russo's Living Dead series

Dead series remakes

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