Living Dead - George A. Romero's Dead Series

George A. Romero's Dead Series

As of its latest installment, Survival of the Dead, Romero's Dead series includes six films all written and directed by Romero himself. Labeled Trilogy of the Dead until Land of the Dead, each film is laden with social commentary on topics ranging from racism to consumerism. The films are not produced as direct follow-ups from one another and the only continuation is the epidemic of the living dead. This situation advances with each film, but with different characters, and the time moves ahead to the time when they were filmed, making the world's progression the only interlocking aspect of the series. The fifth film does not continue the depiction of the progress of the world; instead it goes back to the beginning of events from the first film, but is nonetheless contemporary as the sequels are. The films deal with how different people react to the same phenomenon ranging from citizens to police to army officials and back again. There are no real happy endings to the films, as each takes place in a world that has gotten worse since the last time we saw it, the number of zombies ever increasing and the fate of the living remnant always in the balance.

Romero does not consider any of his Dead films sequels since none of the major characters or story continue from one film to the next. The one exception is that the military officer from Diary of the Dead (Alan van Sprang), who robs the main characters, is a main character in Survival of the Dead as well.

George A. Romero's Dead series includes:

1. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
2. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
3. Day of the Dead (1985)
4. Land of the Dead (2005)
5. Diary of the Dead (2007)
6. Survival of the Dead (2010)