FearZone ...of the Dead

The Dead Don't Die isn't just a zombie blog. Starting in December, it's also a monthly column for Greg Lamberson's FearZone. First up will be an interview with Don May, Jr. of Synapse Films. We'll discuss his involvement with Night of the Living Dead, from Elite's 25th Anniversary laser-disc to the recent 40th Anniversary DVD, as well the upcoming Definitive Document of the Dead.

Also on the horizon, extensive coverage of George A. Romero's latest living dead opus, known simply as ...of the Dead. Early reports suggest that the title is a placeholder. Others have referred to the film as Island of the Dead, an unlikely title, with the remake of RKO's Karloff chiller, Isle of the Dead, on the horizon. I hope ...of the Dead sticks. It has a nice Steinbeckian ring.

After a few months of confusion and erroneous reports (It's a sequel to Diary of the Dead/It's not a sequel to Diary of the Dead/It's about an island of intelligent "zombie overlords" who cull the living), we're finally getting some solid and reliable news on the film's storyline.

Direct from Voltage Pictures:

On a small island off North America's coast, the dead rise to menace the living. Yet the islanders can´t bring themselves to exterminate their loved ones, despite the growing danger from those they once held dear.

A rebel among them hunts down all the zombies he can find, only to be banished from the island for assassinating his neightbors and friends.

On the mainland, bent on revenge, he encounters a small band of survivors in search of an oasis on which to build a new life. Barely surviving an attack of ravenous flesh eaters, they commandeer a zombie infested ferry and sail to the island.

There, to their horror, they discover that the locals have chained the dead inside their homes, pretending to live "normal" lives with bloody consequences. What ensues is a desperate struggle for survival and the answer of a question never posed in Romero's Dead films:

Can the living ever live in peace with the dead?

Somehow, I don't think things will turn out like the end of Shaun of the Dead.

Neither as ambitious and compromised as Land of the Dead nor as experimental as Diary of the Dead, Romero's latest is the most promising entry in the series since Day of the Dead.