Are scary movies just gory splatter films filled with gratuitous sex and violence? Of film’s many genres, only pornography is generally held in lower regard than horror films. Other genres that have their roots in ‘50s B-movies and ‘60s exploitation cinema, such as science fiction and fantasy, enjoy much greater success and esteem. The Wizard of Oz and Flash Gordon bring back fond childhood memories, while Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have found modern mainstream success. Only so-called thrillers like M. Night Shyamalan’s films and the many Japanese remakes of recent years usually have similar financial support from Hollywood.
Even within the genre of horror there is a pecking rank. Elegant and erotic, vampires have the charisma to attract Francis Ford Coppola, Neil Jordan, and other quality directors. Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito have both been drawn to the primal energy of playing a werewolf. Buried at the bottom of this heap lies the zombie.
Slow and ponderous, a zombie does not easily invite fear or admiration. Only as a faceless mob do these undead assailants pose a threat; this anonymity, and distorted humanity, is what makes zombie movies so imposing and effective. Zombies transcend other archetypal monsters because they are representative of a true threat—ourselves. At their best, zombie films do not celebrate violence, they merely reflect reality.
Just as his literary counterpart Stephen King will never be honored with a Pulitzer Prize, filmmaker George A. Romero is not likely to garner an Oscar for his mantle. But with his first film in 1968, Night of the Living Dead, he left an indelible mark on cinema. Independently produced on a modest budget of $114,000 according to Internet Movie Database, this film is often cited as the progenitor of the modern zombie movie. Romero never actually used the word zombie in Night of the Living Dead; instead the reanimated corpses are referred to as ghouls. Shot in black and white, the film’s grainy texture and high contrast gave it a sense of intense candor.
Shortly after Night of the Living Dead’s theatrical release, Variety dubbed it “pornography of violence” and questioned the “moral health of filmgoers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism.” Knee jerk reactions of this type fail to recognize that the film was not made in a vacuum, but had to be a product of its time. Elliott Stein, writing for The Village Voice, astutely observed that “the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam.”
Closer to home, Night of the Living Dead resonates the darker moments of the civil rights movement. Most of the film takes place in an isolated old farmhouse, which becomes a haven for a middle aged couple with a young daughter, a teenaged couple, and a lone woman; all white suburbanites. They are soon joined by Ben, the hero, who is—in Romero’s most subversive action—a black man. Feminists have, justifiably, been critical the film’s weak and helpless female characters; this critique could also be directed at most of the male characters as well. These characters behave this way not to denigrate women, but to illustrate the breakup of the nuclear family. Radio and television broadcasts are used to insinuate the collapse of American society outside of the house.
Romero saves his most depressing parallel of the 1960s for last. Ben, sole survivor of the Night of the Living Dead, is shot by the authorities; another black man dead.
George A. Romero’s original film spawned a veritable horde of zombie movies: spin-offs, rip-offs, re-makes, parodies, and homages. Romero himself made three sequels. The first, Dawn of the Dead, also featured a strong black man as the hero, and this time, stronger women as well. This 1978 film had the characters take refuge from the undead in a shopping mall, and delivered a timely diatribe against consumerism. Shot in color this time, Dawn of the Dead gained a disturbingly visceral edge from its expanded palette. Romero’s sequel “pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events,” according to Variety.
His latest sequel in 2005, Land of the Dead, took place in an urban environment retrofitted to mimic feudal defenses and hierarchy. The wealthy elite had retreated to their ivory tower, a luxury high-rise, where they ruled over the masses, huddled in barricaded slums below. In Land of the Dead, Romero provides a sound social commentary on gentrification and the increasing class stratification in America. “Romero,” Peter Hartlaub writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, “lets the walking dead illustrate post-Sept. 11 paranoia.”
A big budget Hollywood re-make of Dawn of the Dead was released in 2004. This film was, in the words of Roger Ebert, “instructive in the ways that Hollywood has grown more skillful and less daring over the years.” Dawn of the Dead is a beautiful film. The wholesale mayhem is gloriously cathartic, the movie exudes style, but without Romero’s direction, it has a serious deficiency of substance. Removing the satirical aspect of zombie films to dumb them down makes their violence utterly senseless.
Just as the zombies in this Dutch cartoon hunt for brains, good zombie movies seek out an intelligent audience. These films act as a sort of feature length political cartoon, offering social commentary and macabre humor. Humanity has achieved such a thorough worldwide domination that our fears—genocide, nuclear war, or a pandemic—are now manmade.
The walking dead themselves pose little danger in many of these films, provided that the survivors stick together. Many of the characters in zombie flicks meet their grisly end not at the hands of the dead, but the living. It is the zombies though, that allow us to dispense with social niceties and explore our true potential for greatness and depravity. Zombies allow us to literally get under our skin and pick our brains.
I recycled some of my hours wasted on schoolwork into some content for 3PE. This was my final paper for my College Composition class. I managed to pull a 93% even though my instructor was kind of a Jesus freak. I thought some of you might dig it…