Welcome back to Horror 101, a series of articles where we explain horror movie legends and their lore. For beginners, the confused, or just those who need a refresher, these articles are for you.
The zombie craze of the 2000s to 2010s had an undeniable and unrelenting grip on the consciousness of horror fans and the world in general. Shambling masses of the formerly living were a hot commodity, in everything from television to movies to gaming, and just about everything zombie was being greenlit. But as that new zombie bubble grew and properties like The Walking Dead and The Last of Us were exploding in popularity, the original series of films that started it all were finding a second wind: Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” series was back, and even had new films being made. Night of the Living Dead, the one and only!
…And Return of the Living Dead.
And it’s sequels.
And also Zack Snyder was doing his own thing.
So, it may have gotten a little confusing trying to sort out and untangle the many overlapping Romero and Romero-like zombie films. But that’s what we’re here to do today: sorting out the various canons, how their zombies came to be, and how two franchises sprung from one classic movie. And hopefully, we won’t boil our brains in the process.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DIFFERENT LIVING DEAD MOVIES?
From the jump, what is now a piece of horror film history was a controversial coming attraction. George Romero and John A. Russo’s Night of the Living Dead, a story of survival in a bizarre and at the time unheard-of zombie apocalypse, was met with anger and indignation for its liberal amounts of violence in an era where the MPAA’s rating system was yet to be implemented (many even suspect Romero’s work was a major catalyst for getting the rating system codified).
But more important than its taboo nature was how much it made back: Night of the Living Dead was a smash hit at the box office, making back over 250 times its budget and cementing a franchise. But where there’s money, there are big problems: the schism between Night of the Living Dead’s many sequels is primarily a case of ownership of the film rights.
In another case of creatives suffering from success and splitting up (I’m looking at you Friday the 13th), Russo and Romero had differences regarding how they should take the property forward. Eventually, they settled on splitting the film’s “surnames”, with Russo owning the rights to title films with the phrase “Of the Living Dead”, while Romero owned the rights to make films under the “Of the Dead” title.
WHAT FILMS MAKE UP THE “OF THE DEAD” SERIES?
Despite what some cursory Google searching might tell you, the Night of the Living Dead series (or “Of the Dead” series) is six films, only 4 of which are in the same continuity.
The only direct sequels to Night of the Living Dead are Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead. The slow collapse of society, the behaviors of the zombies in these films, and the motif of zombies regaining some intelligence over time are the primary links between them since the casts of each film are never connected. In these films, the zombies result from some unknown pathogen, with the original film indicating it was brought back to Earth by a space probe returning from Venus.
Be it radiation or a cosmic virus, it raises the recently dead and turns them into contagious monsters, which eventually causes the destruction of society and leaves humanity separated into small clades. But they have one fatal weak spot: having their brains destroyed. (I know you knew this. Of course you knew this, who doesn’t know this?) Diary of the Dead (2007) and its follow-up prequel Survival of the Dead (2009) are not actually sequels or reboots to the previous films in the franchise, but their own weird third thing. They just share the “Of The Dead” name because of Romero’s claim to it, and have similar zombies. In these films, we never actually find out what caused the zombies to rise from their grave.
But we do get an Amish guy fighting zombies and flinging dynamite at them, which was kind of cool.
WHAT’S UP WITH THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD SERIES?
Return of the Living Dead, however, is a completely different beast. Russo’s Return series takes a unique approach as a sequel, and paints the events of Night of the Living Dead as a dramatized version of a real-world government coverup.
Though Night is just a film in this universe, Return of the Living Dead posits it depicts the first Trioxin outbreak: the experimental use of a bio-weapon known as Trioxin gas created nearly indestructible zombies that hunger for human brains. These zombies are also fully conscious, feel everything happening to them, and eat brains as a form of relief, which is absolute nightmare fuel! They can, however, be put down with electricity, as we find out in Return of the Living Dead 2.
Though the government was able to control the first outbreak, some of the zombies remaining bodies ended up being stashed at a medical supply warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky. Shock of shocks, some bozos open the canisters containing their remains, and a second outbreak ravages the United States.
The U.S. Army is incredibly incompetent in these movies, so the outbreaks happen a few more times in the sequels, and control of Trioxin gets so bad that college students even begin taking it as a recreational drug just for fun.
It’s all just a series of Trioxin “whoopsies” really.
WHAT ABOUT ZACK SNYDER’S “OF THE DEAD” MOVIES?
These have no relation, to either of the previous series really. Dawn of the Dead (2004) is a remake of the original Dawn of the Dead, but does not share continuity with Night of the Living Dead or any of its sequels. Army of the Dead (2021) is also somehow not a sequel to Dawn of the Dead (2004). For some reason? I wish I had a better answer for that.
ARE THE ZOMBI FILMS SEQUELS TO NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD?
This, this question is the one that gets me.
Hilariously, due to the Italian legal system, yes. The first Zombi film was just an Italian rerelease of Dawn of the Dead, and because Italian copyright law allows producers to make sequels to films they didn’t make, Fabrizio De Angelis was able to make a sequel to Dawn of the Dead called Zombi 2. It was also directed by giallo visionary Lucio Fulci, who gave us that amazing scene of a zombie fighting a shark!
This leads to an even more confusing chain of films. In Italy, there are only three official Zombi movies, but there are two other Zombi 3’s that were not sequels to Zombi 2 and just took the name! To make it even worse, Zombi’s 4 and 5 are American releases of unrelated Italian films, which is completely backwards from how we started this. On top of that, Pulgasari, a film we discussed here, is called Zombi: The Communist Bull-Monster for its Pakistan release, despite having no zombies, no communists, and if you really think about it, arguably no bull monster! My brain is boiling inside my skull!
…But yes, the answer to that question is yes. The three Zombi films are their own separate and messed-up continuity splintering off from the original Dawn of the Dead and, by extension, Night of the Living Dead.
Well, that should be all for today’s Horror 101 lesson. See you in the next class and stay tuned to Horror Press’s social media feeds (@HorrorPressLLC on Twitter and Instagram) for more content on horror movies, television, and everything in between!