Movie #1: Night of the Living Dead (1968 version)
THE FILM
- A classic zombie film, shot in black and white and very limited in it effect, Night of the Living Dead, was certainly not a Horror film by any of todays standards... this of course is due to the de-sensitized nature of todays culture. There is no doubt that back in the 1970's this would have been super scary. The acting started off pretty average but did get a bit better, we had 3 main women, and three main men. We had the scared out her mind chick, the Brains/ Leader (token black guy??? maybe not), the whinger, the sex appeal, the brawns, and the motherly one. Each played their role well, in classic tribute to their stereotypes... However! the Token Black Guy character did not live up to expectations, with popular beliefs in today society, that the token black guy gets killed off pretty early and spouts sensless gangsta slang, In Night of the living dead he did not do any of these things, being possibly the smartest most ruthless character on set, if people had listened to him they might have actually survived! This of course was a nice addition to the film, somthing that didnt really catch on in future films, due to the current stereotype.
THE ZOMBIES
- In Night of the Liviing dead, the zombies took a bit of time to get into character, wether or not it was on purpose, or bad direction, the zombies started off able to run fairly fast, show intelligence, and use their hands with astoninshing dexterity! however from the mid point and towards the end the zombies conformed to the generic zombie form, of shuffling and barely any intelligence! however the zombies could still weild weaponry with astonishing accuracy (guns ot included). Towards the end, the "little girl" zombie does not really coincide with the stereo type well, as she kills her mother with a spade but does not attempt to eat her...? this of course is extremely out of character and breaks the atmosphere a bit. To be honest it seems like the director needed to add in some more classic HORROR themes/ shots and opted for that.
Another in consistency was the rate at which the corpses re-animated, at the start of the film we are introduced to a dead body within the main house... it is partially eaten and is kind of freaky. everyone expected that is would re-animate and go on a killing spree. But apart from every character referencing it at some point, it never plays any role... whereas other corpses would re-animate anywhere between 5 -10 minutes of dieing...
There is also no mention of if you are bitten that you will turn into a zombie, this might be due to its age, and the fact that this zombie stereotype was not common back then.
Overall, it is a interesting take on the zombies, great for character acting with the calssic shuffles and poses.
Movie # 2: ZombieLand (2009)
THE FILM
- Zombieland was set in a post apocalyptic world where zombies ruled, and there seemed to be only a small handful of survivors left. The story is a self narattated tale of a young man (college age) who has developed a list of rules that helps him survive the masses of zombies. These rules range from the more common sense rules, to the strange but crucial, to the hilariously funny. As this movie is all about surviving the best they can in this zombie ridden world, compared to classic "OMG zombies" and people freaking out about them. The characters seem to play it fairly cool and even activly have fun taking the zombies out whenever they can. Zombieland is as much a talk about a boy coming to grips that he is not the loner he thought he was, and the fact that he has lost his family (he dint liek em anyways) as well as his desire for a girlfriend and love (usual geek meets hot chick scenario). the odds of course are stacked in his favor, as out of the 4 characters there are 2 guys and 2 gals, so well youc an see where this is going.
The characters in this film are: the Smart / paranoid one, The crazy battle hardened badass, the cool chick who has trust issue, and the young girl who is there for people to go awwww at. again each role is used to its full potential. The bad-ass character is a riot, as well as the main characters paranoia. There are a few apocalyptic references such as twinkies... which instead of surving as everyone said, they are extremely rare. Overall it is a different kind of zombie movie, that is obviously not a true Z flick but still a good alternate look at the scenario.
THE ZOMBIES
- In zombieland, the zombies are nearly 100% true to form, the bite a victim and they turn into a zombie, if they devour you, your pretty much dead. The zombies do not show any signs of intelligence, they will pursue a person as fast as they can for as long as they can: this leads us to something that is peculiar, the zombies shuffle about slowly when they do not see prey, but when they see living people they get enraged and run as fast as they can, as in they actually run. this is of course breaks the common stereotype of zombies. The zombies do not show any sort of enhancements, such as good hearing or seeing, they seem to be a bit easier to kill and more susceptible to automatic Uzi fire as well as the classic shot to the head. Over all the zombies are quite realsitic and go well with the pace of the film, with a nice contrast between, hungry zombie and normal zombie. Things that i will be taking away from this film, are the RULE aspect, it seems to be a item that can be parodied and used to enhance my honors project.
Movie #3: Shaun of the Dead
THE FILM
- Shaun of the Dead is simply a great film, funny, clever and well... easily a film everyone should see (as well as its sequel HotFuzz). The film starts with a few moving montages showing the current everyday activities that already turn us into zombies (TV, repetive sports practice, and listening to music) along with this is possibly the best opening scene ever (character introduction) introducing sean penn, as the main character. The film is in all essence a comedy, light hearted, taking inspiration from classic zombies movies, and references a bunch of zombies and draws on lots of stereotypes... This is a good thing, so far it has shown the best depiction of zombies, and does not disappoint with any erratic/ odd behavior. The acting is excellent and the take on Z day survival is great, witha combination os freaking out and level headed-ness (heroic action). overall it is a fun watch, there is so much to this movie to type up - so in short watch it.
THE ZOMBIES
- Due to the pardoy nature of the film, the zombies in shawn of the dead are a near perfect representation of what a zombie should be like, No doubt the directors have sampled all the zombie movies as well as manyother classic zombie texts (namely the Zombie Survival Guide). The zombies are emotionless, slow, mindless killing machines. aside from the odd memory of the past, the zombies seem to show hold to the past. The zombie virus / diseas is tranferred by the biting of the victem, though no real mention of rising from the grave exists, The original victem (non bitten) seem to have caught/ come down with a cold like symptom that causes them to mutate and zombify. some zombies do show odd movement of dexterity, but mainly in the use of a pun. ON the whole the zombies in shaun of the dead are a great watch, especially for those who are looking at studying the zombie way. They are uniform and easily sit at the standard that zombies should be portrayed against. I wil be sampling the sombies in this movie a lot during my honors project.
Movie #4: Zombie Strippers
THE FILM
To put it simply, do not watch this film, honestly it is a aweful movie... to quote somone close to me "the acting ... its like a porno, but without the sex". 100% true, to make it funnier, (after some wikipeida searching) the entire cast are pretty much pornstars. so seriously jsut dont watch it... the film is rated MA, so there is no actual sex in this film, though at leat 70% of the film is boob shots. So aside from the acting (which we know is terrible), the storyline does them not actual justice. The start is some kinda news sequence telling you how bush is still in power and they are trying to do a whole bunch of war crap. in short they need to re-animate the dead soliers to boost their numbers... SOmthing goes wrong in the test labs and zombies go wild... (resident evil anyone?) a speicalized team go in a erradicate a zombie... one of the team get bitten and escapes the facility and death into a strip club.. boobs shot galore... teh fact that the movie kinda forgets character to focus on strip scenes is appling.... but after teh prize stripper gets bitten she starts a chain reaction, of zombie strips and guys going wild, private lapdances that end up killing clients (zombifying them), some sleazy club owner and some jealous strippers turns into some kinda zombie strip battles along with the random appearance of the zombie hit squad who take on the zombie hoard and kick ass.. ther is some zombie stripper on zombie stripper fighting action... which is kinda funny... but honestly this film is just crap... probably why its gotten the largest write up, this is a warning for all.. dont watch it!
THE ZOMBIES
The zombies are slow and fast, smart and dumb, the zombies in this film honestly are just props. they serve no actual function but to bite the strippers and make them into smart zombies who want to dance and eat guys... and that in no way is meant to be suss. Honestly i do not think the director did much research into zombies except watch resident evil movies. For some reason chick zombies are smart and intelligent and guy zombies are some ravenous horde.. so kinda like real life if you want to look at it that way. there is nothing in this movie that i will be taking from this movie, the zombies are appalling.
No comments:
Post a Comment