Post by abisai on Nov 10, 2004 12:25:01 GMT -5
There was a thread once about the Dead series but I think it was moved. Anyhow, I have recently watched the original Dawn and Day of Dead and can participate in silly arguments about their deeper meanings.
For the record, I've owned the original Night of The Living Dead since college and consider that a classic film and great stuff. My take is it was a straight horror masterpiece without any intention for a larger meaning than dead people attacking living people. The relation to Communism I doubt very much was in their minds when the were filming. I have to watch this one again to see if I can pull out evidence either way.
Dawn of the Dead was a goofy, quirky movie. I can see why people would not like it, since it is really not that good. In fact, it is largely a bad film. But it grew on me and I took some appreciation for it. Larry is in this one as the blond militant who dies in the end. Way to go Larry. To me, this one has too much said and shown to not intentionally be trying to make a commentary. My take is that after people said first was about Communism Romero figures, fuck it, let's try and do that there and see how it would work if I did try and use symbolism. At the beginning the dead almost entirely minorities. There are lines about how they eat to stay alive, they can use clubs, and they walk the mall because that is what they know to do. This sounds like straight class depiction of lower classes. What we see is the living slaughtering them for self-preservation, culminating in them running the mall by themselves safely - which ends up a hallow and lonely victory for the rich (living) since there are no poor (dead) to compare themselves to. Then there is the attack from the other ruling body, the motorcycle gang. They are ruthless, use the dead (poor) to their advantage, and they all ride bikes together as peers. That sounds like... dum dum dum Commies. The core unit opposes these usurpers with guns. They consider allowing them to take resources so that they will leave, similar to Cold War arms race instead of battle or detente in eastern Europe. In the end, the black dude nearly gives up to join the dead, but decides that he can't. Why? He's a pig-headed elitist fuck that's why. He'd rather be rich (living) than join the poor (dead) even though he knows at this point the end is emminent, so he clings to life.
Day of Dead was horrible. There was some potential with the plots and I loved Frankenstein and Bubb. The monsters and make-up were given a serious haul in this one and I get the vibe that it was a return to a straight adventure-styled horror movie. Larry preached about the budget being cleaved from Romero after filming started and given the complete deterioration of the plot to chasing dead in caves and shooting them certainly speaks to that. I wish they were able to do something better, anything. Whatever. Yeah, there are still elements that point to a symbolic representation of military versus science, but either the movie got away from all that when it went to shit or it never wanted to. I am guessing the later. The best part of this one was Bubb to me, that was cool and brings up the following:
What are the dead and why do they walk? They eat not for nourishment, for they have no digestion. They eat humans and I don't recall seeing them eat other dead or animals. So it's people the dead are after. This begs for an Apocalyptical explanation from one of the religions, but I am assuming that this was never something that was an intention. After all, there are no depictions of life post-dead for example. Bubb was interesting because they talked about this being the core of the brain living, implying that all the dead are are the basest emotion driving onward. How do they walk and why to they kill then? Why don't they eat other dead? Is there an electro-magnetic phenomenon affecting the brains? Is it a virus? Is there really an extraterrestrial influence?
What say you men?
For the record, I've owned the original Night of The Living Dead since college and consider that a classic film and great stuff. My take is it was a straight horror masterpiece without any intention for a larger meaning than dead people attacking living people. The relation to Communism I doubt very much was in their minds when the were filming. I have to watch this one again to see if I can pull out evidence either way.
Dawn of the Dead was a goofy, quirky movie. I can see why people would not like it, since it is really not that good. In fact, it is largely a bad film. But it grew on me and I took some appreciation for it. Larry is in this one as the blond militant who dies in the end. Way to go Larry. To me, this one has too much said and shown to not intentionally be trying to make a commentary. My take is that after people said first was about Communism Romero figures, fuck it, let's try and do that there and see how it would work if I did try and use symbolism. At the beginning the dead almost entirely minorities. There are lines about how they eat to stay alive, they can use clubs, and they walk the mall because that is what they know to do. This sounds like straight class depiction of lower classes. What we see is the living slaughtering them for self-preservation, culminating in them running the mall by themselves safely - which ends up a hallow and lonely victory for the rich (living) since there are no poor (dead) to compare themselves to. Then there is the attack from the other ruling body, the motorcycle gang. They are ruthless, use the dead (poor) to their advantage, and they all ride bikes together as peers. That sounds like... dum dum dum Commies. The core unit opposes these usurpers with guns. They consider allowing them to take resources so that they will leave, similar to Cold War arms race instead of battle or detente in eastern Europe. In the end, the black dude nearly gives up to join the dead, but decides that he can't. Why? He's a pig-headed elitist fuck that's why. He'd rather be rich (living) than join the poor (dead) even though he knows at this point the end is emminent, so he clings to life.
Day of Dead was horrible. There was some potential with the plots and I loved Frankenstein and Bubb. The monsters and make-up were given a serious haul in this one and I get the vibe that it was a return to a straight adventure-styled horror movie. Larry preached about the budget being cleaved from Romero after filming started and given the complete deterioration of the plot to chasing dead in caves and shooting them certainly speaks to that. I wish they were able to do something better, anything. Whatever. Yeah, there are still elements that point to a symbolic representation of military versus science, but either the movie got away from all that when it went to shit or it never wanted to. I am guessing the later. The best part of this one was Bubb to me, that was cool and brings up the following:
What are the dead and why do they walk? They eat not for nourishment, for they have no digestion. They eat humans and I don't recall seeing them eat other dead or animals. So it's people the dead are after. This begs for an Apocalyptical explanation from one of the religions, but I am assuming that this was never something that was an intention. After all, there are no depictions of life post-dead for example. Bubb was interesting because they talked about this being the core of the brain living, implying that all the dead are are the basest emotion driving onward. How do they walk and why to they kill then? Why don't they eat other dead? Is there an electro-magnetic phenomenon affecting the brains? Is it a virus? Is there really an extraterrestrial influence?
What say you men?