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Romero goes Japan route for “Solitary”
Zombie master George A. Romero, one of America’s preeminent masters of the horror genre, is mining for scares from somewhere other than his own mind: Japan. Following the well-proven road of “Hollywood Horror, via Japan,” Romero has signed on to direct Solitary Isle for Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and Kadokawa Pictures, with 20th Century Fox distributing. The film, based on a story by Koji Suzuki, deals with a group of explorers on an deserted island who are harassed and assuredly killed by the island’s dark secret. Sounds like “The Cave.” Or “The Descent.” Or “Event Horizon,” but with better oceanic views. Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of TV’s “Lost.”
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Zombie master George A. Romero, one of America’s preeminent masters of the horror genre, is mining for scares from somewhere other than his own mind: Japan. Following the well-proven road of “Hollywood Horror, via Japan,” Romero has signed on to direct Solitary Isle for Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and Kadokawa Pictures, with 20th Century Fox distributing. The film, based on a story by Koji Suzuki, deals with a group of explorers on an deserted island who are harassed and assuredly killed by the island’s dark secret. Sounds like “The Cave.” Or “The Descent.” Or “Event Horizon,” but with better oceanic views. Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of TV’s “Lost.”
This will be the third Koji Suzuki adaptation to hit American soil. Previously, Suzuki hit the lotto by writing “The Ring,” or “Ringu,” which was made into a film in three countries: the US, Japan, and South Korea. That story spawned several sequels on both sides of the Pacific. Suzuki also wrote the novel for 2005’s “Dark Water,” the film that killed Jennifer Connelly’s “Starring in Great Movies Streak” that she started in 1998 with Alex Proyas’ Dark City.
As for Romero, this will be his first film since 2005’s Land of the Dead, which was the fourth film in his zombie trilogy. Only in Hollywood. Romero has been getting rich lately, being listed as a producer on all the remakes of his zombie films (Zak Snyder’s fantastic Dawn of the Dead, Jeff Overstreet’s Night of the Living Dead 3D is being targeted for Halloween ’06, and Steve Miner’s Day of the Dead. drops in 2007, with Ving Rhames, Mena Suvari, and Nick Cannon attached. Yikes.) Romero also has some other films stalled in the pipeline, including two Stephen King stories (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, From a Buick 8) and one ridiculously plotted film (Diamond Dead). Here’s waiting for the inevitable fifth addition to Romero’s ongoing zombie epic, and the 2023 remake of Land of the Dead.
