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1

audience expectations re: race.

Posted by annie | October 30, 2006 6:01 PM
2

Night of the Living Dead: The idea that the world is being taken over by the suburban, white, middle class (just look at the zombies). Also, the protagonist is the black guy--but there's no way he can win against these hordes. Further, the zombies don't move fast--they're slow as hell--but they will take you over and defeat you by sheer numbers, making you a part of their mind-numbed mass culture.

An interesting comparison is "Dawn of the Dead", made just a couple years ago *by the same director.* Check out how his critique of culture has changed--it takes place the fortress of a mall, and suddenly the zombies are fast, even more inevitable and inescapable, coming in to the cities from the suburbs....so yeah, George Romero's vision in this movies is a real commentary on American culture, given to us through this hugely popular art form....talk about the vernacular intellectual...anyhoo, I hope that's what you were thinking of? Or was I just pointing out what everyone already knows? Zombie movies are really, really interesting.... :) And I think they're all like that: Romera effectively created this genre that is particularly given to cultural commentary, and even, in a way, requires it.

Posted by Katie | October 30, 2006 8:55 PM
3

What “critiques” is this one historian referring to?

Given it's Wikipedia, the author probably made that up.

Posted by Gomez | October 31, 2006 7:39 AM
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""Dawn of the Dead", made just a couple years ago..."Romero's

The 2004 "Dawn of the Dead" is a hack remake of Romero's 1978 "Dawn of the Dead." Romero did fortress mall horror 20 years ago, couldn't Hollywood have come up with something more contemporary by 2004? I can't believe they didn't make the zombies into terrorists.

Posted by Georgie | October 31, 2006 9:56 AM
5

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I grew up near where that was filmed, so the movie always scared the bejesus out of me. My school bus would drive by the cemetary, and you'd meet old people in town who were zombie extras back in the day.

Posted by blehpunk | October 31, 2006 12:33 PM
6

Josh, this is a low attempt to get me to blow all my pesos at an internet cafe, go broke, and therefore return to Seattle.

I think the main comment is a kind of meta-comment that fuses Cold War paranoia and racism. Remember, this is 1968: the FBI is spying on and maybe killing black civil rights leaders and militants, Vietnam is heating up. Faced with a truly civilization-threatening apocalypse, the people in the house are bullied by the know-nothing white guy into risking their own survival. The black guy knows what has to be done, but half the crowd dies not listening to him. Then when its all over, the cops mistake HIM for the enemy, plug him and (this might be the worst part of the movie, the end credits) haul him out of the house with meathooks and set fire to him. Subtle? No. But great. Many facets of that film are sheer lucky accidents - the ´found´ music just laid on top of the action (from a 20s composer found on vinyl in a college library), the black-and-white film because they couldnt afford color, the low-tech ghoul makeup (that might also be the ONLY scary thing about the much-hyped ´Carnival of Souls¨). Everyone who has not seen ¨Night¨, do NOT get the 35th anniversary edition. Some horrible plot-extension is laid on the start and end of the movie that is so ham-handed and counter to the spirit of this film that it is stunning. Get the real thing, preferably on video, and play it on a crappy TV in a dark house by yourself. You will shit your pants.

In my opinion it is not ´Night´ but ´Dawn´(1978 not 2005) that is the towering accomplishment of horror cinema. Now THAT movie, I really CAN´T explain. But the first five minutes are absolutely terrifying, and in them not a zombie is seen nor a drop of blood spilt. A genius intuition of society in end-times chaos.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | October 31, 2006 12:51 PM
7

I always thought pure solipsism explained at least part of the appeal of zombie movies; who among us has not at least occasionally felt like the only thinking, feeling human among the soulless, mindless, hordes reacting with vegetative tropism to the latest fad?

Or is that just me?

Posted by Geni | October 31, 2006 4:44 PM
8

Grant,
Here's the confusing thing, though. Watch it again...and you will see that while you/me/ are led to side with the black guy over the know-nothing white bully... it ultimately turns out that the white guy was onto something... and in fact, the black guy's underdog heroism and underdog smarts (and his plan) doesn't work. And I'm not talking about his tragic death at the hands of the Klan-like posse... I'm talking about his plan for the night... It seems to me, the last time I watched it, it wasn't as simple as: the white bully vs. the black hero. That gets twisted in the last 15 minutes or so. Again: This film is odd.

Posted by Josh Feit | October 31, 2006 6:57 PM

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