Do you think they might run into the mall or the science lab?

GR: No, I don't think so. No. It's simultaneous, so they could, but that's not the way I would want to go with it. The biggest thing that we didn't touch on was the idea that somebody, anybody, any lunatic could throw up a blog and all of a sudden he's got 50 people following him. We didn't really touch on that so much and that's a direction that I'd like to go with, the idea of people developing tribes just by preaching to the converted. People that tune into Rush Limbaugh know what he's going to say and already agree. That's what happens I think with these columnists.

It's interesting, the blogs and videos they find in Diary are actually helpful. People who have fought zombies share the information about how to destroy their brains.

GR: Not so much the blogs. They get that information from police radio broadcasts. That's really where that info comes from. Mainstream media is sort of denying it, and then when it comes down to the blogs, that's what I mean. We haven't gone into that because they're the ones who are sending it out without a lot of information. There's also something there. All they know is what happened to them and yet they're trying to put out this film and the main character, Jason, is so obsessed with doing it that he loses sight of reality, loses sight of his own survival and winds up perishing because of that. I don't think they get a lot of accurate information, certainly not off the net.




George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead

Was the scene where electrocuting the zombie doesn't work an answer to the Return of the Living Dead spinoff franchise, that claimed electricity would kill them for good?

GR: No. Not at all. It was an idea that came to me in the shower. Wouldn't that be cool if she tries this and it oughta' fry her but it doesn't, so she comes back.

You start to explore how other cultures are responding to this. We see video from Japan and they even go through Amish country. What other cultures would you like to explore in this scenario?

GR: I don't know but it's a good idea. I really haven't thought much about that. We were just trying to show that it's worldwide. That's all.

Since each film takes a different approach, what are the must-have elements in one of your zombie movies?

GR: Zombies! No, in fact, I could do away with the zombies. I don't give a s**t. The stories have nothing to do with the zombies. The zombies might be a hurricane. They might be any disaster that comes along, but zombies are my ticket to ride in a certain way.

But all the films have scenes where they barricade, where they gather supplies, where they start in-fighting.

GR: That recurs because it's human argument, right? It's people not knowing exactly what to do and just getting caught up in arguing about ridiculous stuff instead of trying to really directly address the problem. I don't think it's so much that. The zombies are the ticket to ride. These are zombie movies so you have to have zombies. You have to figure out a cool way to get rid of the zombies, to kill them off, lose the brain somehow. That's really the only element. The rest of it is they're stories. They're stories about people.




George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead

Does Diary even focus more on the human story and less on the zombie element than the other films?

GR: I don't know that it necessarily does. Probably certainly not less than Night, but the story's more obvious and the zombie sequences, particularly the gore sequences, go by very quickly because they're shot subjectively by these people that are sort of standing back a little bit. Whereas the tendency when you're doing it objectively is to go in for close up and do product shots on the gore. That just tends to stretch it out. I think pound for pound, it's equal at least to, maybe not all of the films. Maybe Dawn and Day went a little further but it's just that it goes by so quickly I think, because we're just looking at it from over here. We're not going in and studying it and taking five minutes to kill that zombie off.

How do you come up with new ways to dispose of the brain?

GR: You take a shower. I don't know, man, it just comes to you.

You don't sing. You think of zombie kills.

GR: I do. Of course I do. I'm already just faced with the idea of possibly having to do another sequel, and knowing that someday I probably will do another zombie movie, already the first thing you start to do is figure out new ways to dispose of these guys. It's tough to come up with stuff.

It's always been interesting to me that the first film was Night of the LIVING Dead, but then it was always …of the Dead. Aren't they still living dead?

GR: Yes, they are. It's not my fault. Don't ask me. I don't make up the titles. The funny thing is, my partner at the time when I made Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead didn't want to get involved with any sort of litigation, so he shortened it to "of the dead." Now anybody that wants to hire me to make a movie, it has to be "of the dead," Something of the Dead.

You said you didn't know where to go with the Land of the Dead thread, but Land suggested there might be uncontaminated areas he was heading off to. Wouldn't that be a place to explore?

GR: That's actually the way I'm sort of going. You want to just get somewhere where there's at least less turmoil, someplace a little less civilized where at least if there is a conflict, it's going to be smaller and maybe more controlled. But yeah, that's obviously the way I was going and that's what I was doing with Land because there was a hell of a lot of talk while we were shooting Land that we'll do a sequel to this right away too. It's the obvious thing to do. If I was one of those guys, I'd say, "Let's go to the Yukon, man."