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Welcome to Zombietown
Oct. 29, 2006. 11:40 AM


On a grey, damp day on the outskirts of Toronto's west end, amid the ruins of an industrial warehouse space, a slender, impossibly tall, silver-haired man weaves through a crowded soundstage, taking a long drag on a du Maurier cigarette. He sits down, alert but somewhat troubled, his eyes beaming behind a pair of bifocals that threaten to take over his entire face. It's somewhat difficult to believe that this kindly, quirky looking character is the man who in 1968 almost single-handedly changed the face of horror cinema.

A towering exercise in Grand Guignol excess (with elements lifted from Richard Matheson's popular mid-'50s pulp novel I am Legend) that doubled as a deft commentary on Vietnam-era America, the movie witnessed the advent of a nationwide zombie plague that turned its unsuspecting victims into relentless cannibalistic killing machines. Originally called The Night of Anubis, but later re-titled Night of the Living Dead, the iconic, deceivingly benign looking writer/director behind it was none other than George A. Romero, recently minted Toronto citizen and the undisputed archduke of the undead.

The 6-foot-5, 66-year-old film veteran is currently spleen deep in the thick of a four-week shooting schedule for Diary of the Dead, his latest foray into socially volatile flesh-eating mayhem. On this dismal October afternoon, Romero is stowed away in the bowels of the grimy back-alley set, struggling to wrap his head around a difficult (though, unfortunately for this bloodthirsty scribe, carnage-free) scene while attempting to suppress a deep, lingering cough.

"These don't help," laughs Romero, compulsively taking another drag of his cigarette, "but neither does this weather and really, I've been fighting this damn cold for weeks."

Diary of the Dead is the latest entry in Romero's beloved Dead series, which includes 1978's seminal Dawn of the Dead (an audacious Day-Glo masterpiece that in many ways surpasses its black-and-white predecessor); 1985's Day of the Dead; 1990's underrated Night of the Living Dead remake (written and produced by Romero and directed by effects guru Tom Savini); and 2005's Land of the Dead, also filmed in Toronto (after which Romero moved here full time). The new film charts the gory misadventures of a Winnebago load of fresh-faced film students (including The Exorcism of Emily Rose's Joshua Close and rising Canadian star Shawn Roberts) who unexpectedly find themselves documenting the apocalyptic genesis of yet another unstoppable undead revolution.

This weekend, Romero was scheduled to guide his crew through special-effects work, including zombie shots, on the film, which ostensibly offers more of the same extreme violence and pulse-pounding action of the previous instalments. But Romero wants this to be a much different entity.

"Diary of the Dead talks a lot about the media and this whole electronic eye that's everywhere out there, all the time," the director says. "And the main character (Close), well, you don't ever see this guy, he's a voyeur. The film argues about the importance of media, and status of someone in that position ... it's an entirely new take on my themes."

Indeed, what's always elevated his horror films several severed heads above his many imitators and contemporaries is the aging gutslinger's restless quest to inject heady doses of socio-political commentary and satire into his work. A zombie isn't just a zombie in Romero movies, it's a metaphor. So when Romero's hungry walking dead devour their victims and bathe in their spurting blood, it's usually a punchline to a joke about something beyond cheap, stomach-churning thrills.

For example, Dawn of the Dead skewers American consumer society as a quartet of heroes barricade themselves in a shopping mall, attempting to live as a family while the zombie population increases and ennui sets in. The follow-up Day of the Dead sees a skeleton crew of soldiers and medics studying the ghouls in an underground bunker. Though the doctors want to domesticate the creatures, the army wants to destroy them, leading to infighting, paranoia and Reagan-era melodrama (and the inevitable climactic zombie attack).

Diary of the Dead will be no exception to this metaphorically rich tradition, but it exists in a different world from the other films, creating a new storyline with slightly different rules of engagement.

"This film is an experiment, a rejigging of the myth," Romero says. "Basically it's also an attempt to re-establish a lucrative franchise. You know, we lost the copyright on Night and the others are owned by various people around the world. So we're really trying to start over with an idea that I've had for several years, and just do this thing under the radar as inexpensively as we can, and just see if it works."

Abandoning traditional third-person narrative style, the film is being shot in a kind of faux-documentary manner that, on the surface anyway, appears to be Romero's skin-ripping, politically charged answer to the shaky-cam antics of 1999's The Blair Witch Project. But the maverick genre auteur is quick to dispel any comparisons.

"It's not Blair Witch and my style is not Blair Witch, and it's not a purely visceral thing," Romero says. "My style is arch and theatrical, where Blair Witch went for ultra-realistic. Even though it IS shot first person, I'm trying to maintain the artifice and make some potent comments about the observer ... while still supplying lots of nasty zombie stuff."

With 16 films under his belt (including the Stephen King/EC Comics adaptation Creepshow and the psychological vampire thriller Martin), Romero has always worked best on the fringe, making financially successful and critically lauded cult movies at his speed, his way. But in 2005, the studio Universal stepped in to finance what would be the fourth official instalment of Romero's zombie series, the long in gestation, supposed final chapter, Land of the Dead. It saw Dennis Hopper portraying a Bush meets Trump-esque lunatic who protects the wealthy within the confines of his fortified luxury condominium in a vain attempt to block out the zombie holocaust. But the escalating population of starving, rotting ghouls have in turn become the victims and are, under the leadership of an undead gas station attendant, getting organized.

A clear parable of the "have nots" rising up against the decadence and arrogance of the "haves," Land was Romero's first fully studio-backed film, and although well reviewed and embraced by the fans, the movie's release was mishandled, and in turn was almost ignored at the box office. Odd, considering the same studio's remake of Romero's own Dawn of the Dead the previous year (also filmed here, and starring Sarah Polley) pulled in $102 million worldwide.

"Land was invisible. No one saw it," laments the director, still stung by the ordeal. "The U.S. marketing campaign was a dud, no posters went up in the theatres, the TV spots were barely there ... I think Universal really misunderstood the value of the picture, of its post-9/11 politics, of its fan appeal, and didn't know what to do with it."

But many of the director's devotees believe this return to his low-budget roots (Diary aims to come in at just under $5 million) will enable Romero to deliver the goods without fear of grand-scale commercial approval. Local film buff and zombie movie completist David Goodfellow is optimistic.

"I'm really hoping for a return to the tone of my favourite Romero films in the past," Goodfellow says, "and I'm glad he's using a relatively unknown cast. With Land of the Dead, the working formula was abandoned by using recognizable actors like Hopper and John Leguizamo and utilizing extensive CGI effects, which I think took many fans out of the moment."

This then begs the question — what does Romero, arguably the most cutting-edge horror filmmaker of his generation, think of mainstream Hollywood's current leanings toward glossy, violent remakes of classics (the aforementioned Dawn redux, Michael Bay's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Amityville Horror makeovers) and hollow ripoffs?

"I don't go out of my way to watch them, I really don't," Romero says, sneering ever so slightly. "But you know, I don't let myself get up in arms about it either. Stephen King has a great answer to this question. If someone asks him how he feels about people in Hollywood ruining his novels, he responds by saying, `My books aren't ruined,' then he just points to his bookshelf and says, `They're right here!'

"And as far as what's new and trendy, I honestly don't give a damn. I've been disappointed for a long time that very few people do anything interesting with this genre except just, y'know, `cut 'em up.' That's been a sore point forever with me and it's something I've always attempted to rectify."

Diary of the Dead is aiming for a spring 2007 theatrical release. Here's hoping the master of the movie macabre gives the fans a weighty glob of what's been sorely missing from the modern horror film: brains.

Chris Alexander is a columnist for Canadian horror magazine Rue Morgue.

Thanks so much for that link John. How scary is their artist's drawing of Romero?

Is it mandatory when referring to Night of the Living Dead in an article to use the phrase "changed the face of horror"?

I've done it myself, but still...

Interesting that Shawn Roberts- who played the ill-fated Mike in the opening scenes of LAND OF THE DEAD- returns in DIARY.

Vincent

As much as I admire Romero, I think that he's just not getting it. While I don't have on hand the amount Universal spent on promoting Land of the Dead, I find it hard to swallow that the movie didn't perform as well as most had hoped because of marketing...I live in a fairly small market (about 80K) smack in the middle of rural Northern California, and I saw more than a few TV spots, the posters were up in the local multiplex a few weeks before the opening date (IIRC), and there was a fairly substantial genre media blitz.

Everyone that was jonesin' to see the movie knew the date it was opening months ahead of time.

I'd say the film underperformed because he was -- to a degree -- abandoned by the same fan base that he cites as a reason the movie should have done better. It's a different world from when his other Dead films came out, when you damn near had to wait until the next issue of Fangoria hit the shelves to find out what the other fans were thinking. Today, with the internet and IM'ing, the first matinee in NYC was barely rolling the end credits and the world immediately knew that a lot of folks were disappointed. And a lot of other folks stayed away because of that...

I saw more than a few posts from fans on various boards that essentually said that they were just going to wait for the DVD. And why? Because Romero himself abandoned the expected template that had made the first three entries work: an overriding sense of dread inspired by the living trapped in a situation with no seeming escape, the claustophobia that ensued, the inevitible infighting that led to a breach, and a sense that the zombies were always a viable threat.

With a slant that encouraged empathy for what had up until then been the source of frission in the mythos, Romero was left offering something that a lot of his fan base went to see out of obligation and a fervant hope that the advance word was wrong.

Granted, the man created the damned mythos and he should be allowed -- even expected -- to explore new boundries and situations, but with that also comes an entirely expected backlash.

So Romero blaming Universal for putting a bad paint job on an Edsel is disengenious. Hopefully, with Diary of the Dead he'll be back on track.

EDITED TO NOTE: I did enjoy Land of the Dead, and thought it was a rollicking adventure...I just didn't find it particularly scary. And I used to own a '58 Edsel...one very underrated automobile.

I think Romero's big problem is that he is expected to write a "zombie film with biting social satire" instead of just writing a zombie film and letting the politics and interpretations evolve naturally. Watching LAND..., all I could think was, "All right, man, I GET it." The message feels...I don't know. Required. Like a bad college essay.

And the theater here in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, had a massive cardboard cut-out and posters all over the lobby for LAND.

I give him big points for 'the aging gutslinger' though.

Although I agree that Universal's publicity for LAND was decent, I have to side with George in his overall appraisal of the studio's handling of the film. The DAWN remake was unleashed in theaters in mid-March, a traditionally dead (no pun intended) time for the film market. With almost no competition its tidy profit was virtually assured.

LAND was originally slated for a late October release, seemingly perfect timing for a gory zombie film, especially since that period of the fall is also traditionally devoid of major moneymakers. Universal's decision to push it up to June was the very definition of a botch job. LAND opened one week after BATMAN BEGINS and five days before WAR OF THE WORLDS; it was virtually guaranteed to struggle for any footing with a mainstream summer audience. Pushing any arguments about the quality of the film aside, I think it's fairly obvious that the studio left George and co. out to dry.

I remember reading an article (I think it was in the New York Times) about how studios got too bold with their Summer '05 horror releases and it left them licking their wounds. The article specifically mentioned LAND and THE DEVIL'S REJECTS as two films dropped in the heat of summer (June and July respectively) that got killed. As Joe pointed out, Universal, brainiacs that they are, decided to move LAND's release from October (duh!) to June to accommodate DOOM. And they did it in March.

Bloody Disgusting has the first stills and a teaser poster up for this.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/7592

LAND OF THE DEAD was terribly mishandled by Universal, who clearly saw more profit in dvd then theatrical for it. I tried very hard to put on an event in Ft. Lauderdale for it and was greeted by the sound of crickets chirping, on Universal's end. It came out between BATMAN BEGINS and WAR OF THE WORLDS for crying out loud. Never stood a chance. And this was AFTER the production hell, which included the studio not allowing Romero and Co. to get as creatively grisly as they wanted to. Even Greg Nicotero of KNB was disappointed by what he couldn't do.

So, I don't blame Romero one bit for saying screw it, not the first time he's done this as far as the major studios are concerned, and just going out and making his own thing, his own way, on just as low a budget as he's always had. And this time, he won't have to worry about some "insert expletive of choice here" trying to "reimagine' his work for the "hip" crowd. Everyone loves to heap praise on the man, and yet there's a lot of those people who have no qualms about ripping him off either. Nice.



As for THE DEVIL'S REJECTS. Well, Lion's gate was very generous to us and we had a bang up event for it that did just great. Two things happened.
One, the release date in August. I think this was done so they could release the dvd while Halloween was still warm in people's minds.
Two. After the first week, Lion's Gate pulled all the ads and commercials because in the cast's contract, it stated that if the film made 20 miilion or over in it's theatrical run, they all got bonuses. This included Rob Zombie and his wife. The movie made about 17 million.
This I got on good authority, and while I like the folks at Lion's Gate, I have no reason to doubt that this is likely what happened.

Well, also, both Dawn (remake) and Land had essentially the same selling points ("return of the 'original' zombies for this generation's audience!") and Land came out a year later, after that pitch had already been sold and bought by the people. The fact that it had lesser star power and a lower budget made it basically fill the slot of the cheap knock-off of last year's big hit. ...The fact that, IMHO at least, the Dawn remake also pretty well sucked, also probably drove down the audience's interest in buying a ticket for the experience a second time.

As far as Diary, the jury's obviously a long way's out, but this sounds a lot more promising than just a continuation of the survivors' adventures of theof Land as had been previously reported as Romero's next zombie flick.

Oh, I've no doubt that is exactly what happened.

When I did that show which shall not be named, my contract stipulated that I would receive residuals for any episode aired ten times or more.

Kinda strange how the show seemed to be rerun over and over again in all manner of timeslots, and then just vanish, never to be seen in America again. ;)

Though I hear the reruns on G4Tech TV in Canada seem to be quite popular. But then, that's Canada: entirely different jurisdiction. <_<

Ah well, c'est la guerre.

Um...eh? The DAWN remake was an unqualified success, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, providing the best possible free publicity for Romero's own "official" return to the Z-word. The real reason why LAND OF THE DEAD tanked was that it was an indifferently-made, overly-didactic and foolishly plotted mess, plain and simple. (Roaring zombies? Please.) Let's not start blaming DAWN for the manifest shortcomings of LAND.

That said, I'm not writing off DIARY OF THE DEAD just yet...although that title could have done with some work, IMO. Wouldn't TESTAMENT OF THE DEAD have more of a ring to it?

A lot of people went to see it, sure; so it was a "success." But that doesn't mean they liked it and wanted to see another. I went to see it myself, but I sure didn't like it and I don't know anyone who did enjoy it (past the pre-credits sequence, which wasn't bad).
That's what I mean, it had a ton of "buzz" that got people into the theatres, people who were then (I should think) pretty nonplussed. So then, when another movie comes out a year later being sold to them with essentially the same pitch, the overwhelming response was, "eh. no thanks."

Nor does it mean they didn't like it and couldn't bear the thought of seeing another. Respectable financial success means that the audience hated the film and felt ripped off? With the greatest respect, I think you're rather solipsistically extrapolating your own subjective prejudice regarding DAWN across the entire global moviegoing populace - not the most convincing argument, you'll agree.

Initial buzz and saturation advertising isn't enough to ensure a film's enduring financial success in this day and age; repeat custom and positive word of mouth certainly are, however. The latter can account for the success of the DAWN remake. More people liked it than not; you may not derive much satisfaction from that, but it has to be a fact, easily measured in dollars and cents. For my part, I have a hard time accepting than anyone in the world could have endured, let alone enjoyed, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2 more than once, but its financial success convinces me otherwise.

THat's odd, I love the remake, and I don't know anybody who didn't like it. Even my wife liked it, and she normally does not like Horror, and especially zombies.

I also, BTW, do consider the original to being one of the greatest films ever made. Just so it doesn't seem like I am some nutter who would be biased against either film in either way.

I'm with Carl- Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD is one of my all-time favorites, but I really enjoyed the hell out of the remake, too.

I like LAND OF THE DEAD just fine, although I have some issues with it (i.e., not enough time spent setting up life in Fiddler's Green, and Big Daddy... well, he's no Bub).

Vincent

Well, yeah; I did say "IMHO," after all (and, yes, I will agree)... But:

That's a surprise. I've honestly heard nothing but disappointed, disparaging reactions to this film from people who've seen DotD 2004 (maybe some online write-ups... but even the majority of those, I rememeber being negative). I guess there are more people out there who actually liked this than I thought - fair enough, then.
Still, I think my theory would still be true for at least a percent of the possible LotD audience - those who did feel let down by Dawn. And we were asking in another thread why Slither didn't have more of an audience than it did, too - a film that was heavily touted as being "from the producers of Dawn of the Dead." A kiss of death maybe? ;)

(Edited to fix a weird, floating sentence fragment.)

I gotta say, John, that I found the "fandom" response to the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake- both on-line and otherwise- to be almost 100% opposite of what you describe. If anything, expectations before the fact were very low, and it seemed that when the actual film materialized, it was received far better than most folks expected. I know that DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004 has its detractors, but overall the film was receieved by both hard-core fans and mainstream filmgoers alike far better than most of us ever expected it to be.

Vincent

I'd have to agree...I know more than a few Romeo deadheads and I've yet to hear one say that they were disappointed with the remake...lackluster expectations (and expectations of utter failure) aside.

I'm not sure what anyone who steadfastly claims the movie sucks expected out of it, other than the opportunity to maintain that it was an affront to the source material. It was a solid horror film, and that in itself is a rarity anymore.

Huh. Must be a regional thing, then, maybe. Personally, I enjoyed the pre-opening credits bits (which gave me hopes for the rest of the film) and am usually the only one defending that part (a la, "DotD sucked!" me: "Yeah, but the opening scene was cool." everyone else: "I guess.").
Anyway, this thread is about DIARY of the Dead, so I don't want to hi-jack it much further by turning this into a "everything I hated about DotD 2004" list (besides, it would be too long - heh). I'll just say that I'll be going into this film with fingers crossed... but, since it's Romero, I'm confident it should at least have some merit and reasons to make this worth viewing for sure. Hopefully there just won't be too many negative issues to overshadow them. Like I said before, the fact that this isn't Land of the Dead 2 is already promising.

Disappointed? Yeah, I think lackluster expectations play heavily in that.

It was a decent viewing in a capacity theater. A lot of fun. Except the zombie baby, which belonged more in a Bruno Mattei movie or something than in an otherwise solid, entertaining Hollywood action/horror movie. And the cheaty coda, but whatever, I kind of took that as more a joke or tribute than a real ending.

What I was disappointed with was the fact that it had absolutely no replay value for me at all. I rented the DVD and couldn't have been less entertained, although I had indeed enjoyed it quite a bit the first time... at least sitting in the theater, letting my brain flow with adreneline.

Dread Central has a 6 minute interview with Romero all about DIARY OF THE DEAD.

http://www.dreadcentral.com/index.php?name...rticle&sid=1422

I wonder if Anchor Bay will try and pick this up? At the least, they'd deliver a really nice dvd.

The remake has its flaws (but then so does the original). The remake *was* indeed a big box office success: a $26,722,575 opening weekend followed by a total gross of $58,885,635 could only have happened by good word of mouth.

If you ask me, LAND failed financially mainly because it was a pretty lacklustre effort - with a past master plowing an increasingly fallow field.

Would you be able to fill in this blank?

"You've got to see LAND OF THE DEAD if only for the scene where _____________."

I couldn't.

...Dennis Hopper picks his nose!

...the Pez-headed zombie flipped up and chomped that one dude. That was totally sweet.

...Romero verifies the Zombie lore, not seen since Fulci's shark fight, that Zoms do go underwater just fine.

I remember how important it was in my viewing youth that we understood and respected these Zombie 'rules', and decried any major variation to the 'true' voodoo/space virus shuffling re-animated Dead. I had to take on board Romero's riff of a Zom's past memories/life experiences, as he seemed to be the one who 'deserved' to be writing the rules!

There was a lost of past memory editorial dialogue going on in early 1970s Marvel comics Tales Of The Zombie's Simon Garth character, though this seemed in contradiction to what the Zom was actually doing, and they knew it, but had to fill in those blank comic dialogue/description boxes somehow.

I thought Land Of the Dead was good, and much more fun than being cooped up in Day Of The Dead - and thus more of a sequel to (original) Dawn in style, and only now that a Zombie like Bob (in 'Day') is given a lead role in 'Land'.

Yeah, because that's certainly how I boil down every movie that I like- "You gotta see this ONE SCENE...!!!" 'Cause if a movie doesn't have that one big scene that totally blows you away, it's completely useless, ya know?

Vincent

I don't think any of Romero's films can be summarized by one scene. It's the cumulative effect, not to mention the character interaction, that counts.

The real reason why LAND OF THE DEAD wasn't a huge hit, though it more then made it's money back, was because Universal, after all the fussing to rush it out, didn't back the film up. They rushed it out for Summer when DOOM couldn't make it's June date, and pretty much planned on making their money on dvd. It got buried between BATMAN BEGINS and WAR OF THE WORLDS.

That still doesn't explain why the Romero faithful didn't support it. They knew what the opening day was...

But most films one would deem "worthwhile", where our sacrifice of 90 minutes of precious life did not seem a poor deal, are comprised of at least several memorable moments that would qualify as "must-see scenes" of the type RHS is alluding to - particularly genre films, and even more particularly Romero zombie films. SWAT team tenement raid...helicopter zombie...shopping mall...biker attack..."The Dead Walk!"...subterranean cave zombies..."Choke on 'em"...at one time or another, I and others have been given cause to champion these moments (and many others) from DAWN and DAY, and could probably pick a favourite from each list without too much hand-wringing. If a zombie movie can't boast at least one Big Scene, it's a poor feast indeed.

Now, LAND...that's the one where Dennis Hopper has a big Tonka truck, right? And I think Asia Argento might have been in it. And some twit listening to a Walkman eaten by zombies. These are the salient points I recall from Romero's latest, sorry to say. I'd be hard pressed even to assemble a list of ten halfway decent ideas from which to cherry-pick a winner. Zombies amassed on the waterfront preparing to march on the towerblock might have been a contender...had the scene not been killed deader than dead by that horrid fake-digital look that ruins so much genre product these days. Ten zombie extras in front of a green-screen does not ignite the spark of passion within me.

DAWN and DAY ultimately had impact because, despite the carnivalesque levels of grue, the events they described had the apocalyptic ring of truth. Arterial spurts were not animated by some computer geek. Disbelief did not require undue suspension. Dennis Hopper did not phone in a performance. Subtext did not overwhelm the narrative.

And zombies did not roar.

Anyone who grew up on Romero's movies before VHS and DVD allowed angry loners (you know who you are) to absorb the highlights of the "Dead" series and compose Internat manifestos will remember talking about key scenes, will remember having to talk about key scenes from NIGHT, DAWN and even DAY, talk with real people in real time. The first two movies in particular are like Whitmans samplers of OTT setpieces and 25 years ago you just didn't have a vehicle to do anything with that information and how you felt about it.

Obviously, when I ask you to fill in the above blank I'm not suggesting that all movies be broken down to such a simple dynamic... but I think the responses posted here show that there was very little from LAND OF THE DEAD to share. You saw it. Liked it or didn't like it. And you moved on to another movie. That didn't used to happen with Romero movies.

I would say they did show up. It did $10 million its opening weekend and, despite what we hope, the Romero faithful isn't a very big group. Who didn't show up were the teens fed on 2004's DAWN OF THE DEAD and 2003's TCM reduxes who, in general, was their horror films fast, loud and brainless.

Should a post mortem reveal the unexpected existence of LAND OF THE DEAD's brain, there'll be a big fat 9mm bullet smack in the centre. Intellectual pretensions should not be confused with actual intellectual content...

I don' think I could say that for any of the Dead films... Maybe because I wasn't there when they came out theatrically (born in '75... now my birthdate has come up in two Mobius posts in the same night), so the violence and such didn't strike me as so outrageous. I saw all 3 dead films for the first time on video in the late 80s (I think.... hazy memories of the first times), and the only gore "gag" (which I don't think is quite what you're asking anyway) that stands out to me is in Day, when they split the zombie's head with a shovel, and the eyes still look around in the top half. And Land had some fun gore/zombie gags, too; certainly moreso than the Dawn remake.
There definitely are films that have the "You've got to see ___________ if only for the scene where _____________" moment that you're talking about ("You've got to see Mystics in Bali if only for the scene where the girl's head and lungs pop off and suck a pregant lady's baby out!"), but Romero's films don't have that "key scene" appeal for me... they're more cumulative.


(edited to complete some confusing sentence fragments)

Don't think Richard was fishing for gore gags, just anything that stuck with him.

I guess my point was, if it weren't for the Internet, we wouldn't be talking about LAND OF THE DEAD. I didn't even dislike the movie or anything, it was just unmemorable and bland and there's nothing in it that would make me say anything about it to someone standing next to me.