With Romero following up Day of the Dead with Land of The Dead, many thought that the next natural step would be World of the Dead. Some suggested Planet of the Dead, which he could still use, but I think most would agree that “world” rolls off of the tongue easier. Romero went for (or was forced towards) the shrunk down budgets though, and got all distracted making the dead Survive and keep Diaries over and over. He’s snoozed too long on that next natural title for his main zombie… “franchise” isn’t the right word, but let’s just say “universe.” Now, American Film Market and STYD has seen the release of a teaser poster and synopsis for the sequel to The Zombie Diaries (not to be confused with Diary of the Dead) and they’ve dubbed it World of the Dead.
The film is from Kevin Gates and Michael Bartlett, and I honestly can’t even begin to keep up with which zombie film the original Zombie Diaries even is. The milking of these horror staples is so thorough and relentless that I’ve completely lost track of these smaller zombie flicks, and it’s almost a shame that the Walking Dead turned out so well, because this shit isn’t going away. It’s getting to the point that Zombie films are becoming something more like pornography than just horror genre entries. They’re made cheaply, routinely, and in massive numbers, with the public seemingly happy to devour as much undead shuffling as can be filmed.
The poster for this sequel is below, and I must honestly say the visual structure of it seems unbalanced without a “George A Romero’s” at the top. If he ever gets a big budget again, maybe we can just go with Cosmos of the Dead.
