Romero Brings Out His ‘Dead’
George A. Romero is hard at work on a new untitled zombie picture, according to Variety. Though long speculated to be working on a sequel to his recent Diary of the Dead, all signs indicate that this upcoming feature is more in line with his previous Dead efforts.
The film "involves inhabitants of an isolated island off the North American coast who find their relatives rising from the dead to eat their kin. The leaders of the island feud over whether or not to kill their reanimated relatives or preserve them in hopes of finding a cure."
Just like a zombie invasion that you don’t see coming until it’s too late, Romero’s actually already deep into filming this new project. The film is fully cast, including Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe and others. Paula Devonshire is producing, while Peter Grunwald, D.J. Carson, Ara Katz and Art Spigel are executive producing alongside Romero. Shooting is taking place in Ontario, Canada.
Shortly after Variety‘s announcement, Ain’t It Cool News received a spy report from someone on the set of the new zombie flick, which the Web site is affectionately terming Island of the Dead. The report includes a description of scenes filmed, as well as a few photos.
The spy reports, "What I know about the scenes [I saw] filmed is that they take place while the survivors of a zombie attack are trying to escape an island they are on, and as they run for the ferry it has already departed and they miss the boat so they are forced to confront the zombies that are chasing them."
Sounds like classic Romero, who made his bones with his 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, critically revered as both an exceptional horror film and social commentary. He continued that tradition with Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, then returned to the franchise decades later with Land of the Dead. He broke tradition from his franchise with Diary of the Dead, filmed in a Blair Witch inspired "found footage" style. Romero’s legendary zombie work has inspired remakes, most famously Zack Snyder’s break-out interpretation of Dawn of the Dead.
