Movie: Land of the Dead
For me, zombies pretty much equal the apocalypse. I realized that my zombie fascination is really just an extension of the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fascination I've had since - well, since I can remember. One of the first short stories I ever wrote concerned a bleak survival outlook combined with stubborn hope after a nuclear holocaust.
So that's the frame of mind from which I approached Land of the Dead. Did it succeed? You betcha.
It was apocalyptic. It tread new territory for zombie movies - dealing with events years after the end of the world. It was gory and funny at the same time. It used heavy-handed techniques to make vague social commentaries about the sorry outlook of humanity.
Zombie fans will not be disappointed.
2 comments:
J,
It's really interesting that you equate zombie movies with the apocalypse because someone actually had a paper on this subject at last year's Marxist conference. He argued that the apocalyptic genre deals with the establishment of a community and the difference between those who are in the community of believers (the elect) and those who aren't (the damned). The question I raised was that it seemed that the logic of the zombie movie actually seemed to reflect the growing frustration at the end of the 20th century with the impossibility of apocalypse. Zombies are like vampires in that they spread the "infection" of the other, the problem isn't simply that there is a huge apocalyptic army that threatens to destroy all of us--but also that we can become the enemy, that ultimately the zombie does not offer the absolute distinction that is needed for the apocalypse to come about because any of us could be infected and turn into a zombie at any time. This is why the endings of zombie movies are kinda unsatisfactory for me, because it seems as though there can't be an ending. Zombie movies, even more than vampire movies, signal the end of endings or the apocalypse of apocalypse. Perhaps this is why there are so many sequels to the Night of the Living Dead that branch into other sequels. I mean, isn't Land of the Dead the sequel to Dawn of the Dead which is supposedly the sequel of Night of the Living Dead? But isn't there also a Night of the Living Dead Part 2? And remakes of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead?
ACtually its even more complicated that that sequel - wise - Dawn of the Dead was released as "Zombi" in Italy, and spawned an entire series of "unofficial-official" Italian sequels, Zombi 2 being the best (underwater zombie sharkfight!) Italian horror ran with zombies in ways American horror didn't until the last couple of years - see stuff like Demons, where an exploitative horror movie literally "comes alive" and creates zombies that make the transition from the screen to eating the audience, all while the theater-goers assume it's part of the show.
I'd be very very interested in reading that paper. I've been tossing around a lot of ideas about zombies and the apocalypse, this was just a scratch on the surface.
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