Tomorrow is another day

By Noel Vera

George Romero's original "Dawn of the Dead" had corpses again rising
up from their graves to consume the flesh of the living, only this
time Romero had the inspiration to set his film in a shopping mall.
The parallels between zombies and shoppers, shambling about,
mindlessly consuming, was just too good to resist; the film has
since become a critic's favorite, cited (along with the
original "Night of the Living Dead") as a cult horror classic.

To be honest, while I do like "Dawn," it isn't my favorite of
Romero's "Dead" films; that would be the not-as-highly regarded "Day
of the Dead." I'm familiar with criticisms of that film--too talky,
too hemmed in by production constraints (Romero had to rewrite the
script and set the film in an underground military complex when the
budget was drastically reduced), the characters too unsympathetic
and cartoonishly drawn to sustain our interest.

But the "Dead" movies aren't so much examples of sophisticated
filmmaking as they are powerful metaphors given evocatively free
rein by a cunning and imaginative filmmaker. "Night of the Living
Dead" was about how well a handful of people under pressure are able
to uphold normal standards of humanity and decency (not too well,
unfortunately); "Dawn" was the same formula set against a large-
scale parody of American consumerism--even the blandly overbright
quality of the lighting was perfect, as it mimicked mall lighting
exactly.

"Day of the Dead" took that struggle--of survivors quarrelling among
themselves about the best way to survive while zombies pressed in
from outside--and pushed it as far as it could go. The arguments
were uglier, the characters coarser because the stakes, reduced to
as little as they can be, are that much higher (Who thinks of being
nice or decent when you and all you know or even heard about are
going to die out?). And it actually makes sense that "Day,"
conceptually the most ambitious of Romero's "Dead" films, should
also be the most spatially constrained--instead of showing us a
world taken over by zombies, Romero hit upon the brilliant possibly
genius idea of showing us a blank wall, and telling us that beyond
the walls is a world taken over by zombies. Our imaginations went
into overdrive accordingly, and claustrophobia and the stench of
desperation the characters gave off completed the effect--of a dead-
end, no-win situation, of a candle burning itself out, of rats
crammed in a tight hole tearing themselves into pieces. It's
Romero's most intense work, and if it's not his most subtle, well,
neither is the end of the world.

Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn" also takes place in a mall, also has
some of the infighting among the survivors that makes zombie films
interesting, also has the memorably terse reply from the original as
to why zombies would congregate at a mall: "Memory, maybe.
Instinct." Romero fashions an opening that recalls the creepiness of
his "Night of the Living Dead"--there, two siblings visit a mother's
lonely grave; here, mother and father wake up to a daughter's
embrace. Ana, the mother (Sarah Polley, who's too good to really
need to appear in anything like this), wanders around what looks
like a city somewhere in Canada (it's supposed to be Milwaukee), and
hooks up with Kenneth, a police officer (Ving Rhames) and various
other survivors, including the pregnant Luda (Ina Korobkina),
finally ending up in the shopping mall. There's some resistance from
the mall's security guards, led by C.J. (Michael Kelly), but that's
pretty much resolved early on. Most of it follows Romero's original--
the aimless wandering about and partaking of various foods and
goods; the constant bickering; the random potshots at passing
zombies (here they sharpen the game by looking for and aiming at
celebrity look-alikes--well, maybe not all are meant to be look-
alikes…); the eventual crisis and disintegration of their secure
little conclave.

What hasn't been done before in Romero's original has been buried
under a revved-up version, with loud metal music quickly replacing
the soothing Muzak, and shaky handheld shots and shock cuts
replacing Romero's steady and deliberate filmmaking. Snyder shoots
like a filmmaker fresh out of commercials and music videos (nowadays
there's not much difference); he gives his picture a similarly hip,
glossy look. Romero, working on smaller budgets, knew that his
makeup effects were the money shots (the, in effect, reason his
films got financing), and would shoot them straight on, under bright
lighting. He shot very much like a pornographer, and the effect of
his gore was similar to the effect of sex in American pornography,
presented bald, with no apology or style: you couldn't look away,
you couldn't pretend it wasn't there. Snyder's MTV style turns
Romero's satire on consumerism into yet another consumer product,
yet another tarted-up example of the modern horror film where,
because the camera shakes so much and cuts away so often, the full
impact of the images can barely register onscreen.

And what's with this recent trend of fast-moving zombies? Romero's
zombies, despite their unintelligent, shambling walk, were
unsettling precisely because they were so slow, so clumsy; they had
one thing these newfangled zombies don't--time. You felt that they
never hurried because they knew they didn't have to, that they had
the world on their side. The horror of Romero's zombie movies is the
horror of men trapped in a sunken submarine, or of a town sitting
besides a crumbling dam--you can fight off leaks as hard and often
as you can but you know that sooner or later the water will close in
over your head. These new zombies lack the terrible patience of
Romero's zombies; they seem more like the punks you see in post-
apocalyptic films of the '60s and early '70s--not so much undead as
a little crazed, or hopped up on drugs.

Snyder's "Dawn" isn't all bad; it has one good scene, of Luda giving
birth (the sick baby joke to end all baby jokes), and it is grittier
and more unsparing than Danny Boyle's arty "28 Days Later." To tell
the truth, I enjoyed myself; I just didn't think I was in the
presence of a genuine horror classic, the way I did when watching
Romero's original "Dead" films.

First published in Businessworld, June 11, 2004)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)