Yes, we all love zombies. We all know that they are a big business and we also know that much of the blame for the current form of zombies rests on the shoulders of horror master George Romero and his brilliant, low-budget 1968 flick Night of the Living Dead. Now, in the grand cinematic tradition of beating even dead things to death with a stick, there is going to be a Night of the Living Dead prequel called Origins and it’s going to start shooting in 2015.
Origins originates in the mind of Cameron Romero, the son of George Romero, who will be directing the feature. It focuses on events prior to those in Night of the Living Dead, as a scientist searches for a pathway to sustain human life in the event of a worldwide catastrophe. Things go terribly wrong (of course), and I guess that this guy winds up creating zombies. Dearie me.
Cameron Romero claims that he’s following in the “family tradition of creating haunting and ever-evolving depictions of the undead.” Hopefully that means that he’s actually going to make a properly frightening film, and not just trade on the family name for fun and profit.
While I am not a zombie-phile, there’s no doubt that Night of the Living Dead remains an effective, influential, and still truly frightening work of horror cinema. I see no reason to sully the memory of that excellent film by a sequel, regardless of whether the director’s name is Romero. Still, worse things have happened, and the plot sounds like it could work. We shall have to wait and see if the son can follow in the footsteps of the father.
Origins will begin shooting sometime this year, so presumably we will get to see it around 2016. You can peruse the full plot synopsis below and see what you think.
In 1962, Dr. Ryan Cartwright was on the scientific and altruistic path to find a way for humans to sustain life in the event of M.A.D (Mutual Assured Destruction), a huge topic brought on by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Little did he know that over the course of the next several years of his life, he would take a well-funded and military focused journey to the darkest corners of the world… as he creates the ultimate weapon for the government and a curse that will plague mankind for the rest of days.