[Documentary] Birth Of The Living Dead (2014) Review

A couple of weeks ago I was walking around HMV looking for Carl Sagan's Cosmos and by chance I managed to spot this new release titled 'Birth Of The Living Dead.' It's a really cool documentary about the origins of Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead.'

The documentary gives insight into the history of the sixties regarding the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. This shows what the audience of the sixties felt about this film and especially when it came to a black man being the hero. The meaning behind this film goes so much deeper into the social context of the time. There's a political aspect to this sub-culture, underground film. As Romero states, the main character, Ben, was not written with a race in mind, they purely hired Duane  because he was a great guy.

Romero has a good sense of humour in this documentary and he made me laugh a lot, making me so glad I met him as he's obviously a decent bloke. I love is hippyish use of the word 'man' and he explains how ten of them chucked in $600 each and managed to make a movie. All cast members being family and friends and people they have previously worked with. They managed to beat the odds - budget, being a black and white film and not being well known film makers.

A mad fact is that nobody knows how much money it has made. They received no royalties for this film due to copyright issues. Somebody forgot the copyright sign in the opening credits!

If you get this, there's still scenes after the credits. It's a great companion alongside the film, definitely recommend it.

George A. Romero Autograph And Picture - Now Framed!

Meeting George A. Romero was one of the best experiences of my life and I'm so glad I did it. Getting my picture with him and his autograph will be a memory that I will never, ever forget. Because this memory means so much to me, I really wanted to frame the autograph and the picture, but I couldn't find a frame that would fit these two objects in perfectly, and a custom frame would have been too expensive.

So, I went to Homebase and bought a 50cm x 40cm frame, with my staff discount it came to £7.99 and I then drove to Hobbycraft and bought an A1 piece of black card, which was the smallest bit of card which could be made to fit into the frame, all of the other cards were too small, plus I really needed a sturdy bit of card - not flimsy paper. I also got some masking tape which all in all came to £3.00.

I cut the card down to 50cm x 40cm and cut out two square 'frames' within the card in order to fit the autograph and the picture. I used my math skills - which I'm not great at - to get the positioning right. I cut everything with a Stanley knife and a ruler to make sure it was straight.

And here is the end product:

To be honest, I'm very proud of it.

If I can do it, anyone can, and it's a nifty way of making your own custom frame. It didn't even cost that much either - £10.99 not bad for a custom frame if I say so myself.

[Film] Romero's Original Six (1968 - 2009)

Here it is, my long awaited review of Romero's original six zombie films. Starting with the classic trilogy and finishing up with his last three, adding up to a final six. Of course, I've seen these all before, but I wanted to re-watch them and then write the reviews so I got it spot on. I believe that any one who is starting to get interested in zombies should probably start with these films, so to me, they are the most important. I know it took a while, but I hope it was worth it.

What I love about Romero's films is that he has cameos in them. He has a cameo in Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead and Diary Of The Dead. See if you can spot him too!

Night Of The Living Dead (1968) - The first, the great, the original. Night Of The Living dead was the one that started it all and led to us having a great range of zombie films that we have today. All zombie films owe this one a thanks really, for getting them started. Having grown up in a generation where CGI and gory effects have spiralled out of control and are at their peak, you watch this film and really appreciate the root of zombie greats. The simplicity of the zombies could in fact be scarier - you wouldn't 100% know if they are a zombie or not! Considering this film was classed as controversial at the time of its release, you do feel like you go into a time warp and feel the fear that teens of the 1960's felt (being in black and white and all). If you don't know where to start, why not start here at the beginning of it all?

Dawn Of The Dead (1978) - In this film we see the characters do what we all pretty much would think of doing if an apocalypse was upon us - lock down in a massive shopping mall. Come on, we all thought of at least, if you get it right it would be the perfect place to stay. But, however, not when a local biker gang decide to break in. Brilliant film, definitely worth a watch.

Day Of The Dead (1985) - I really enjoyed this film, it is different from your average zombie film. The living are forced underground into a military area and half work together, the other half, not so much. The first half are really interesting as they experiment with zombies to know the why, how and what they are capable of learning, which leads to everyone's favourite zombie... Bub! The second half, military men, are a bit closed minded, and here we can see where The Walking Dead team were influenced when it came to their character, the Governor. I don't understand why this film was seen as a bit of a come down compared to the other two, I suppose there was less zombie air time, but there is still a good chunk of it.

Land Of The Dead (2005) - Twenty years zombie fans were awaiting for this addition to the original trilogy. Land of the Dead - when zombies get smart. With better graphics in those twenty years, Romero's films just get gorier, and that is most definitely a good thing! In this film the zombies prove they can actually learn, linking with the evolution of Bub, which means it isn't just bites that the living should be worried about. In this film we get a little zombie cameo from a zombie who appears in Dawn Of The Dead, what a great touch.

Diary Of The Dead (2008) - Hand held cameras from first person experiences but don't let that put you off, Romero has done it again with his amazing knowledge of the horror genre. Loads of gore, typical Romero style of blood and guts everywhere. I believe this was the worst rated by critics of the previous four, but I thought it was one if the best. It still maintained a gripping, interesting a blood filled story line. I liked this one a lot.

Survival Of The Dead (2009) - As usual a complete gore fest, within the first two minutes someone's head gets blown to bits. It's based on the army guys from Diary Of The Dead, the ones who tell the guy to turn the camera off, although nobody else from Diary Of The Dead is in this one. To be honest I can sort of understand why this was the lowest rated of all six. There is a story line, they go to an island, two main men of the island disagree, one believes the zombies should be put down, the other believes they should be conditioned into eating things other than people. So there's effectively a sort of turf war. It's good but not my favourite.