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"Night of the Living Dead" gave birth to the Great Almighty Romero Zombie Apocalypse Genre (GARZAG for short), and by the time Romero's follow-up "Dawn of the Dead" (1979) had come out, the genre had fully matured. A mix of blood-spattering special effects and social commentary with a dash of satire, "Dawn of the Dead" found humanity on the brink of extinction in a cautionary tale for the post-Vietnam generation, and in the process became the Bible of zombie lore. In decades earlier, giant irradiated monsters and emotionless pod people served as metaphorical warnings against the threat of communism and nuclear conflict. But in the wake of the turmoil experienced in the 1960s, it had become clear that many of America's greatest threats came from within, and shambling, flesh-eating ghouls became the perfect allegory for a disillusioned, ideologically divided country. A new era of film steeped in nihilism that rebuked the happily-ever-after sentiments of Hollywood played well to a cynical generation that was falling in love with the antiheroes of films like "Easy Rider," "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Wild Bunch."
Thirty years after "Dawn of the Dead," GARZAG is still going, stronger than ever, with a seemingly never-ending parade of the living dead in theaters and direct-to-video, due in large part to a resurgence that started in 2002 with the video-game-inspired "Resident Evil." Over the past several years we have been bombarded by theatrical releases that range from very good ("Shaun of the Dead"), to good (Romero's "Land of the Dead"), to not-that-good (Romero's "Diary of the Dead"), to terrible (the second and third "Resident Evil" movies). There have been both reimaginings of Romero films, including Zack Snyder's entertaining "Dawn of the Dead," Steve Miner's terrible "Day of the Dead," and Jeff Broadstreet's even worse "Night of the Living Dead 3D." Home video has been flooded with titles like "Zombie Wars," "Flight of the Living Dead," "Gangs of the Dead," "The Zombie Diaries," "Zombie Honeymoon," "Fido," "Dance of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead 2: Contagium," most of which are just plain bad. And then you have "Dead Snow" (in theaters); Romero's sixth zombie film, "Survival of the Dead," coming in the near future; and the upcoming "Zombieland," which looks like it would have been better suited for Chevy Chase 25 years ago.
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All of these zombie movies might make some fans happy. But too much of a good thing done badly is not good at all, and it is clear that something has gone terribly wrong with GARZAG. Part of problem is that, for the better part of three decades, the genre catered almost exclusively to horror movie fans, seldom venturing into the mainstream. The genre thrived in the world of Italian exploitation flicks during the 1980s, where filmmakers like Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi and Bruno Mattei pushed the envelope of gut-churning gore (and quality cinema). Even films like 1985's classic "Return of the Living Dead" (which introduced GARZAG to fast-moving zombies that talked) and Romero's own "Day of the Dead" (which introduced GARZAG to intellectual discourse) stayed within the confines of the horror world. And then there was the slew of direct-to-video movies like "The Dead Next Door" and "the Dead Hate the Living," all of which kept the genre going into the 21st century.
The big change came in 1996 with the release of the first "Resident Evil" video game, which essentially took the zombie apocalypse into a new medium and expanded the scope of the genre, becoming a major franchise that included video games, novels, comic books and a series of movies that kicked off in 2002. "Resident Evil" represented what was fun about GARZAG, while conveniently avoiding anything that resembled intelligence or social commentary. Following on the heels of the first "Resident Evil" movie was "28 Days Later" (technically not a zombie film, but close enough), and the combined financial success of both movies helped take the genre from a special place for fans of classics like Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" and Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" to a money-maker for mainstream Hollywood. Suddenly Hollywood realized that there was money to be made in a genre that was nearly 40 years old, meanwhile aspiring filmmakers still struggled to recapture the same lightning of the original "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead." And this is when things started to fall apart.
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While the endless parade of films has drained the life out of the living dead, video games have taken the soul. As fun as games like "Left 4 Dead," "Dead Rising" and the countless versions of "Resident Evil" may be, they have helped transform zombies into little more than moving targets for video games. This transformation has become reflected in most films, which have lost sight of the fact that zombies can serve as the perfect metaphor for just about anything, and not just something to shoot through the head. Where Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was a cynical comment on consumer culture, Snyder's remake in 2004, entertaining though it may have been, was little more than a video game come to life (much like "Resident Evil" and "House of the Dead") with nothing to say.
The world of comic books, which is known for draining the last vestiges of originality from anything and everything, has also been going to work picking at the rotting corpse of GARZAG. A perfect example would have to be "Marvel Zombies," a line of comic books set in an alternate Marvel universe where heroes like Spider-Man and the Hulk are flesh-eating zombies. Of course, now that Disney owns Marvel, things could get worse with "Disney Zombies." Still, the comic world and its fans treat the zombie genre as if it just started in 2003, when writer Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead" debuted. Entertaining at times, "The Walking Dead" owes whatever originality it has to the 30-plus years of other zombie tales that came before it. Soon to be a television series on AMC, "The Walking Dead" could allow the genre to evolve within a medium that has yet to really yield anything significant, or could simply provide proof that the creative well has gone dry.
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GARZAG reached its crowning moment in, of all places, the world of literature with Max Brooks' brilliant "World War Z." Expanding on the mythology that was born in 1968 with "Night of the Living Dead," "World War Z" took the genre to levels no film, video game or comic book has ever gone, with an incredibly detailed "oral history" of the zombie apocalypse told from a global perspective. And short of Romero's original three living dead films, there has been no better zombie story told in any medium than the epic tale of human survival recounted in Brooks' book, which is headed for the big screen in the near future.
An idea that started with a group of Pittsburgh-based filmmakers in the 1960s has transformed into an iconic genre that fuels multiple mediums of entertainment and has spawned a thriving subculture. Like so many other fans, I have seen my beloved Great Almighty Romero Zombie Apocalypse Genre interpreted well and shamelessly ripped off. We heave seen zombies used as metaphors for societal ills, and as a substitute for original thought. We have watched great zombie movies, played great zombie games, and read great zombie books, just as we've weeded through total garbage of the living dead. But now is the time to leave it all alone. Even if there is a remote chance the genre can be improved on, it really isn't worth sitting through all the trash it will take to get there, because one more "House of the Dead" movie is one too many. Now is the time as to put the walking dead out of their misery.
