'Dead' heads invade Venice
Zombie pic is first to compete in Lido
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But what many of this year's festival attendees may not know is that the first edition of the festival in 1932 opened with an Oscar-winning horror film: Rouben Mamoulian's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Toplining thesp Fredric March took home the Venice actor prize (he also took home the Academy Award for actor) and pic won at the Lido for what was then called "most original story," a prize that went to the director.
In that sense Romero's film -- the latest in a series stretching back to "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968 -- continues a Lido tradition.
Inspired by William Wyler's western "The Big Country," Romero's film remains true to deeper issues that inspired his earliest zombie movies: man's inability to forget old hatreds and enmities.
Talking about the film's themes and issues on Wednesday, Romero said, "It is about underlying conflict -- man's inability to forget his enemies even long after what started the conflict in the first place has been forgotten."
Much imitated but arguably never bettered, Romero's zombie world has always reflected political concerns -- an enduring engagement with "revolution and failed revolution" as Romero, a self-described "child of the '60s" put it.
Now backed by independent finance -- his last studio film was "Land of the Dead" made for Universal Pictures in 2005 -- Romero said he is enjoying being free of the restraints that brings.
"I've got the flexibility to do what I want. There is no policeman looking over my shoulder or committee trying to steer the film."
That freedom meant he could use a "broader brush, more colors" in "Survival of the Dead," where the human characters are, he said, "more dehumanized than the zombies."
