MovieChat Forums > Dawn of the Dead Discussion > Depth of the Dead

Depth of the Dead

posted 10 years ago by jriddle73
7 replies | jump to latest

A little essay I wrote on what makes zombie pictures work. An excerpt:

"A noteworthy but little noted feature of these films [NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD] is that, though the dead overrun the world and rip to pieces anyone who falls into their clutches, they never really kill anyone. They're just dumb creatures following some instinctual imperative. It's really the living who kill themselves and one another. The living are stupid and shortsighted and polarized and self-concerned and distrustful and, perhaps on a less negative note, too damned civilized to properly address the growing crisis, and these qualities, again and again, are what actually get them killed. The devil isn't in the walking corpses besieging from outside. It resides, instead, within us. And the reason it's so horrifying is that, when one sees this, one recognizes it as true. The only way dumb, slow-moving ambulatory corpses could overrun the world in the first place is because we, who on the surface have every advantage, failed to come together to stop them. The dead, then, are, on one level, the ghosts of our own tragic--or damnable--shortcomings, rising to overwhelm and perpetually haunt us."

The full article is here:
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/2014/05/depth-of-dead.html

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

[–] tabbycat 10 years ago

Good insight.

[–] regularfellow 10 years ago

I participated in a few threads for "World War Z" before the film came out.

Reading about how slow zeds were a joke and easily defeated. I had a fellow argue that he would wear a suit of armor with sword and slay all the fiends. *shakes head* I hope he was joking.

If you don't know, the novel the feature was based on is an entirely different narrative and quite superior to the movie; told in first person interviews - how they survived the zombie apocalypse. Anyhow...

That simple truth on top is absent for far too many.

The reason we nearly went extinct was due to greed, poor politics and a huge failure to pool our talents to save one another. We just can't get our $h!t together. Look at Sierra Leone, shouldn't that be a memory by now? Nope.

This is why "Night Of The Living Dead" (1968) remains quite relevant; forty-six years later and not much has change. This is how the world will end, lack of cooperation.

[–] jriddle73 9 years ago

I'm told WORLD WAR Z--the book--is quite good and that the movie had no real connection to it.

forty-six years later and not much has change. This is how the world will end, lack of cooperation.

In some respects, it's gotten worse. The big, obvious example is the U.S. government, which, for no other reasons than ideology, is completely dysfunctional. The congressional majority votes against anything the executive wants solely because it's something the executive wants, even when it was their idea in the first place. Congressmen vote against even disaster relief then come with hands out when their own state is hit with some calamity. Even with lives in the balance, these are the games they play.

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

[–] model101 9 years ago

Good read.

Only 1 issue though. Fran never says "They're Us" in Dawn of the Dead. Fran says "what the hell are they", Peter responds "they're us, there is no more room in hell." and the rest of Peter's epic speech follows creating the tagline for the film.

[–] jriddle73 9 years ago

You're right! As many times as I've seen that movie, how in the world did I get that wrong. I'll correct. And thanks.

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

[–] corgi37 9 years ago

Fran has 2 very poignant lines. "It's really all over, isnt it?" and "What have we done to ourselves".

[–] jriddle73 9 years ago

She sees the effect the mall is having on them--it's the Masque of the Red Death. A good character. They all are.

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/