Twilight of the Dead Has Wrapped Filming, and the Cast Is Set

Good news for anyone who grew up with the zombie films. Rue Morgue reports that filming has wrapped on Twilight of the Dead, the closing chapter of George A. Romero's saga, with Kate Beckinsale and Betty Gabriel as the leads. According to the report, it is the last of the Romero films, and that is what makes this a proper moment for fans.

The Dead films are George A. Romero's zombie series, starting with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. I'll admit I got a bit giddy reading the news. A new Romero film, even the final one, is a rare thing, and I'm the sort who reaches for the coffee and pulls the blanket up when news like this lands.

You can read the original story on Rue Morgue here. I read it twice, mostly because I wanted the facts straight before saying anything daft about it.

What the Dead films are, and where to start

Night of the Living Dead was shot on a small budget in black and white, and it still feels unsettling because it refuses to comfort you. Its zombies are corpses that walk again and hunger for the living. They shuffle, they gather in numbers, and they are very hard to stop. The lead, Ben, is played by Duane Jones, and the ending is one I still think about on a dark night. What I love about the early films is how ordinary everything looks. There is no swelling score telling you when to be scared, just people talking in kitchens, cars and shops, and that is what lets the dread creep in.

The series is about more than the gore. Dawn of the Dead (1978) traps its survivors in a shopping mall, where the living want stuff as much as the dead want flesh. Day of the Dead (1985) moves to an underground military base, where the arguments between soldiers and scientists are nearly as frightening as the walkers. Land of the Dead (2005) puts the living dead inside a walled city that divides rich and poor. Diary of the Dead (2007) turns the camera on the people filming the apocalypse. Survival of the Dead (2009) came after, and it is the most recent film before this one.

If you have never seen any of them, Night of the Living Dead is the place to start. I would not blame you for stopping there for a week.

Who is in it

Kate Beckinsale is best known to a lot of us for the Underworld films, where she plays a vampire-fighting warrior. Betty Gabriel will be recognised by plenty of people from Get Out (2017), where she was impossible to forget. That film won Jordan Peele an Oscar for its original screenplay, and Gabriel's performance was a big part of why it stayed with so many viewers. Pairing those two in a Romero film is a strong bit of casting, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

The report does not confirm their characters, so I won't invent roles for either of them. Making things up about a cast is how a site loses its readers. I would rather be dull and accurate than clever and wrong.

What we do not know yet

The report does not include a release date, so I won't guess one. Wrapped filming is the good news. The wait for the finished film is the part that tests my patience, and I suspect it will test yours too. If you want to know what the report does and does not say, read the original piece rather than trusting my summary. I have kept my summary to what it covers.

While we wait, I'd suggest a Dead marathon, one film each weekend, with the lights low and the biscuits within reach.

Why this closing chapter matters to me

What I keep coming back to is how Romero used the dead to talk about the living. The zombies were rarely the most frightening thing in the room. The people with guns, the people with money and the people who would not listen were. If the last chapter keeps that habit, it will be worth the wait, even if I spend the next few years yelling at the screen.

My advice for a first watch is simple. Start with Night, move on to Dawn, and keep a blanket nearby. Dawn is the one I'd pick for a dark night in, mostly because of the mall, and because it is funnier than people expect.

I should be honest that I am a fan, not an expert on the franchise. Romero's fans know the back catalogue far better than I do, and I'd love to hear where I've got it wrong. I watch these with the sofa, a cold coffee and far too much attention to the background, which is how I usually end up spotting the things I missed.

So which Dead film is yours? Tell me your pick, and whether you would stay in the mall or make a run for the car park.