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The Ghoulish Guidance Archive
Dear Ghoulie,
You were in a movie once, maybe you can answer a question that's been bugging me for years now. Why do Hollywood producers insist on churning out crappy remakes of old GOOD movies instead of making new GOOD movies? Even worse are the crappy SEQUELS, like this "Day of the Dead" knockoff. What do you make of this, and what can we do about it?
-Mad Movie Man
Dear Madman,
Before I address the issue of remakes and sequels, let me say this: George A. Romero is the greatest documentary filmmaker who has ever lived. The original "Day of the Dead" and all of the films in the "Dead Tetralogy" were not products of someone's imagination; they were documentaries. "Night of the Living Dead", the film in which I appeared, was real, not fiction. That movie documented actual events as they transpired. Needless to say, it is quite painful for me to view that particular film and I avoid it like the plague. Of all the films that feature the undead, Romero's remain the only true and somewhat sympathetic accounts of our beginnings. These particular films have actually engendered affection for our kind with a certain segment of the population, and we are occasionally able to recruit human minions to do our bidding. I have great hopes that Mr. Romero's next film will be yet another masterpiece chronicling the real world of the undead and will further our quest for world domination.
Having said that, I will tell you that I do yearn for another good zombie story, either fictitious or fact-based, but I have yet to encounter one in which the zombies are not the villains. The fact is that since the dawn of time, the human race has been complicit in its own demise and it is their mistakes and refusal to unify for a common goal that gave rise to our kind in the first place. So far, no films outside The Sacred Tetralogy have exposed the truth of our victimization and oppression by the human masses and I fear that those in wide release may, at some point, alert the general public to our existence. This would be very bad for us. The last thing we need is more yahoos buying guns and practicing head shots. The good news is that the vast majority of people still regard these films as fiction.
I do agree with you about laziness and the lack of creativity in movie-making of late. Most sequels and remakes resemble the cinematic equivalent of a loose bowel movement. There are exceptions, of course, but most of them seem to be produced in order to sell another product and to amass wealth without regard to the movie-goer's intellect or limited income. However, it is ultimately the theater patrons' responsibility to choose their movies wisely, and if they are stupid enough to pay to see another flaccid sequel or regurgitation, they deserve what they get, in spades.
Love,
Ghoulfriend
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