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So Mr George A Romero set a bench mark for Zombie Films in the late 60's with Night of the Living Dead. Creating a new ghoulish (flesh eating) undead, whose origins are unclear, science/religion/nature.
It was back in the late 70's when I was a kid that I spied a Barry Norman review of Dawn of the Dead. What sticks in my head is the extract that they showed, of the national guard troops being attacked through their wooden barrier. The blueish zombies, arms grasping out, mouths poised to bite, the troops powerless to stop them. It sparked some unhealthy obsession with that movie and the whole genre, still unsated. I did finally find my grail, and watch an uncut copy in 1998, with head explosion. Now I have a mission to try and track down the Argento cut of the film.
I suppose what keeps Romero at the top of my list, is his use of the zombies at metaphors. They are masses, the undefined homogenous group that sociologists, writers and others refer to. In dawn their is teh classic example of the American Comsumers. The survivors comment of on the zombies desire to frequent the mall. Are the zombies a Communist threat, of the 'Red under the Bed era', in Night of the Living Dead?
Juxstaposed and challenged by this are Romero's band of survivors, a group of disperate people with a single common goal.
In Day of the Dead the prodominent dynamic is that between Science and the Military, a thinly veiled attack on the military/industrial complex? maybe. The film did suffer budget restrictions, that caused it to condense its original grand vision and spread of characters. Including an army of zombies trained not to attack humans wearing the symbol of an orange circle.
Of course you get your share of gore and violence, disgust and terror, but there is more. Much more at play here. I feel it is a pity that many zombie films have never taken on the challenge of continuing George's mythos, to express observations and philosophy. It may yet happen, the Savini remake of Night, took the Barbara character in the vein of the modern woman, but that was little uninspired (Aliens, Terminator 2).
Dawn is being remade, I hold my breath.
Enough banter for now.
When there is no more room in hell the dead will walk the Earth! |
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