Franchise / Living Dead Series

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The Living Dead Series is a series of horror films started and mostly directed by George A. Romero, beginning in 1968. It is primarily responsible for codifying the modern trope of zombies as shambling, flesh-eating undead whose awakening typically brings about The End of the World as We Know It.

The film series consists of:

• Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Day of the Dead (1985)
• Land of the Dead (2005)
• Diary of the Dead (2007)
• Survival of the Dead (2009)

Romero had planned to make a final film Twilight of the Dead, which was to follow the very last human survivors on a zombie ravaged Earth and was intended to cap-off the original series. Romero had gone as far as hiring a writer Paolo Zelati to pen the script, but sadly, Romero passed away before it could be realised. Though currently, the Romero estate is working on getting the film made.

Each of the three original films also received official remakes (and sometimes their own sequels) at some point.

• Night of the Living Dead (1990)
• Dawn of the Dead (2004)
• Day of the Dead (2008)
• Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2018)

There are two further Spin-Off film series:

• The original Dawn of the Dead was Re-Cut and released in some European countries under the title Zombi, which was later followed by more sequels, starting with Zombi 2 (1979). This film series is also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters, after its regional UK title. These had no involvement from Romero or the original production crew.
• The screenwriter for the original Night of the Living Dead, John A. Russo, later co-wrote The Return of the Living Dead, which portrays the original Night as In-Universe fiction. This horror-comedy film spawned a film series of its own, which introduced another trope which has come to be associated with zombies, in that they specifically eat brains.

Thanks to the fact that the original Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain there are various unofficial adaptations and sequels/prequels. A list can be found on this page.

Other media works:

• Toe Tags: The Death of Death (DC Comics, 2004–2005): A side-story for the Living Dead series.
• Land of the Dead (IDW Publishing, 2005): The comic book adaptation of Land of the Dead.
• Empire of the Dead (Marvel, 2014–2015): Penny Jones is the sister of Barbra and Johnny from Night of the Living Dead
• Road of the Dead: Highway to Hell (IDW Publishing, 2018): A sequel to Land of the Dead.

Literature

• Night of the Living Dead (1974): A novelization of the first film by John A. Russo.
• Return of the Living Dead (1978): A stand-alone sequel to Night of the Living Dead by John A. Russo, with few similarities to the eventual films of the same name.
• Dawn of the Dead (1978): A novelization of the second film by George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow.
• Book of the Dead (1989) and Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2 (1992): Anthology books compiled from a number of authors with forewords written by Romero and Tom Savini.
• Night of the Living Dead (2009): A novelization of the first film by Christopher Andrews.
• Nights of the Living Dead: An Anthology (2017): An anthology book written as a direct sequel to the original movie.
• The Living Dead (2020): A novel started by George A. Romero before his death, and subsequently finished by Daniel Kraus using Romero's notes and incorporating an old short story by Romero. The novel covers a periods of time from the first known zombie attack to the next eleven years.

Live-Action TV

• Day of the Dead (2021): A tv series by Syfy based on the homonymus movie.

Tabletop Games

• Night Of The Living Dead A Zombicide Game: A miniatures game based on the original film with gameplay based on Zombicide.

Video Games

• Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green (2005): A First-Person Shooter Prequel to Land of the Dead.

These films provide examples of:

• Apocalypse How: Night of the Living Dead (1968) implies at the end that the living ultimately get the mass undead crisis under control, but Dawn of the Dead (1978) and also all subsequent entries in the original anthology show that civilization collapses completely into a Class 2, due to the homicidal zombies multiplying and spreading their carnage too rapidly to be containable.
• Beware the Living: This trope is a major theme in the series, making it the Ur-Example and Trope Codifier. For example, in the original Night, the sole survivor of the film gets shot by some redneck zombie hunter, who doesn't bother checking whether his target is alive or not. In the official sequels and spin-offs that focus more on the Zombie Apocalypse's sociological effects, human society falls to complete anarchy. More often than not, the zombies actually end up working in the protagonists' favor by killing the humans who pose a more considerable threat to them.
• Comic-Book Time: The series depicts the breakdown of society over a handful of years, but they reflect the wildly different times they were made in. Night shows the zombie apocalypse beginning in what is clearly the 1960s where that movie was made, whereas Dawn begins a few weeks into the apocalypse despite obviously occurring in the late 1970s. Day is perhaps a year or two into the apocalypse but is clearly set in the mid-1980s. Land mostly avoids the issue by simply making it clear that some time has passed since the zombies appeared but not nearly as much as in real life.^note In an interview, Romero stated that the film is set just three years after the events of Night. The P.O.V. Sequel Diary and its own direct tie-in/sequel Survival clearly move the events of Night to the late 2000s.
• Crapsack World: It's a world where the dead rise from their graves to consume the flesh of the living. If a movie doesn't end on a Downer Ending, be thankful.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Trope Codifier. In fact, the undead originally weren't called zombies at all but ghouls, mythological creatures that lurk in graveyards and consume corpses.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with. The Zombie Apocalypse is, more than anything, a way to provide pressure on the humans, who ultimately turn on each other. On the other hand, this also applies to the zombies if they retain enough of their human personalities, so a zombie may be evil if they were evil in their human life.
• It Can Think: A reoccurring theme throughout the Living Dead series is that the zombies can regain their human memories and learning abilities; even fresh undead can faintly recall their human memories and skills, which can range from something benign like playing a musical instrument to something worth fearing like properly wielding a gun. Since most Romero zombies crave human flesh, they usually weaponize this intelligence to better hunt their prey. Some canonical spin-offs, like Book of the Dead (1989) and Toe Tags: The Death of Death, go as far as to feature sapient zombies.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The series offers multiple explanations for the zombies' existence, some of which are outright supernatural.
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968) provides a possible, if disputed In-Universe, explanation that the zombie phenomenon is the result of radiation from a Venus space probe. The other instalments flat-out ignore this.
  • Dawn of the Dead (1978): Some scientists hypothesize that a virus is responsible for the zombie outbreak. However, the protagonist Peter believes the zombies are actually the supernatural voodoo variety; he thus concludes, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
  • Day of the Dead (1985): The scientists conduct experiments on the zombies to find a cure, meaning they interpret the zombie phenomenon as scientific. However, helicopter pilot John believes that God created the zombies to punish mankind, which is why he scoffs at the scientists' research.
  • Empire of the Dead introduces a new type of undead: vampires. One vampire claims that a "magic germ" is responsible for turning vampire-bitten humans into vampires upon death, making it ambiguous if the vampire germ is supernatural or scientific. Due to their undead nature and enhanced regeneration, vampires are immune to diseases and are immortal unless their heart is split in two. However, vampires are still vulnerable to zombie bites and always resurrect as zombies after dying again, which hints that the zombie phenomenon may be supernatural as it also affects undead beings.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Downplayed. Most of the series avoids referring to the undead as zombies. Dawn was the first installment to use the word, albeit only once late in the movie.
• Our Zombies Are Different: In general, Romero zombies are reanimated corpses that move slowly and crave human flesh, and it's noted that they do not need to drink, eat, sleep, or breathe. From their debut movie, Romero zombies retain their human intelligence to varying degrees and are capable of learning or relearning human skills. In the Living Dead universe, every corpse with an intact brain will turn into a zombie, meaning that any death can potentially create a new zombie. This reanimation phenomenon doesn't just affect humans but also animals and vampires as noted in official spin-offs like Toe Tags: The Death of Death and Empire of the Dead. Due to their undead nature, Romero zombies are ambiguously supernatural as it's never really explained how they came into existence in the first place. As confirmed in media like Survival of the Dead and The Living Dead (2020), Romero zombies carry a lethal pathogen in their blood and saliva, clarifying why a zombie's fluids induce accelerated death in the victim after entering the bloodstream. However, even that's not completely scientific because zombie bites can induce death in other undead, i.e., the aforementioned vampires in Empire of the Dead.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Zombies usually die to severe brain trauma. However, removing a zombie's head doesn't kill them as their brains are still active, even when their heads are sliced from the mouth.
• Thematic Series: Every Living Dead entry takes place in the same world where the dead have risen to feast on the living, but recurring characters are in short supply as every entry focuses on a new cast of characters. Each new entry also tends to chronologically move up what year the zombie apocalypse occurs in based on the entry's release fate.
• Title of the Dead:
  • Every film in the series is some variation on the "X of the [Living] Dead" title scheme. Originally there was also some progression tying it to periods of the day (Night / Dawn / Day), but this was dropped with Land.
  • Some of the official books and comics, like Book of the Dead (1989) and Empire of the Dead, follow this trend as well.
• Trilogy Creep: The original Night, Dawn and Day stood as a trilogy for 20 years and became a hallmark of the zombie film genre before receiving a fourth installment in Land.
• Villain Decay: Inverted. The zombies got more dangerous, monstrous, and infectious with each passing film. At first they were very slow and could be fought off by hand in low enough numbers; by the later movies even trying that will get you bitten or Eaten Alive immediately. Also, the zombies gradually develop sentience/sapience that makes them better hunters.
• The Virus: Played with. While it's ambiguous what exactly is causing the dead rise, it's made clear that it isn't the bites or contact with the zombies that turn people into more zombies; rather, merely dying is enough to turn one into a zombie, so long as the brain is intact. It was because every corpse in the world came back to life in minutes that the plague turned apocalyptic in the first place. The only consistent way of preventing new corpses from resurrecting is to destroy their brains.
• Zombie Apocalypse: While Night of the Living Dead portrays the zombie outbreak as being easily contained by human efforts, subsequent films portray it as an event that causes the end of civilization.
• Zombie Gait: Most slow zombies in fiction take inspiration from this series, which codified the rule that zombies should be slow. That said, this tends to be Zig-Zagged as some installments have the occasional fast zombie.
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968): The cemetery zombie is able to jog awkwardly after Barbara.
  • Dawn of the Dead (1978): Two zombie children sprint when attacking Peter.
  • Book of the Dead (1989): In "Wet Work", the soldier zombies can run.
  • Toe Tags: The Death of Death: The enhanced zombies — Attila and Damien — are just as athletic as, if not more athletic than, the humans. The zombie animals also retain their mobility.
  • Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green: The undead sometimes run after the player character.
  • Empire of the Dead: The gladiator zombies are more athletic than the average zombie due to their training.
  • Nights of the Living Dead: An Anthology: In "Dead Man's Curve", the protagonist notes that the zombies move quickly when spotting potential prey.
  • Road of the Dead: Highway to Hell: The first zombies on panel run after Steve, and some are able to jump and climb unto the protagonists' speeding vehicles.
  • The Living Dead (2020): Some zombies are faster than others, with one character witnessing several zombies running. In addition, the zombie animals are described as agile.