The horror! Why has there been such a flood of horror
films this year? Is it a reflection of the times? Could audiences be using
the fantasy of horror to escape the horrors of the real world? So far in
2005, we have had Hide and Seek, Boogeyman, Alone in the Dark, White Noise, Cursed, and The Ring 2 — and it’s only March! If you’d rather
bring your horror home, a zombie flick is a good bet. Zombies are all over
the new-release walls at the video stores, and apparently many showed up at
the polls last year.
Movies about the undead have had a long history in
Hollywood. George Romero’s Night of the
Living Dead (1968) may have jump-started the
subgenre for modern times, but it all began more than three decades earlier
with White Zombie
(1932). Bela Lugosi stars as a lunatic on a remote Caribbean island who
uses a potion to turn people into zombies. The slow, lumbering pace
actually enhances the creepiness of this cult classic. White Zombie can be found in bargain
bins at many retailers for only $1. It’s worth every penny.
Romero followed his landmark film with the superior
sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978). Remaking the best gore film ever made was decidedly
a risk, but the new version (2004) is pretty good in its own right. The
remake diverges from the original’s storyline considerably, but the
use of the shopping mall as a refuge remains the film’s centerpiece.
Odd bits of humor break up the hopelessness and despair. My favorite gag is
the rooftop sniper picking off zombies who resemble Burt Reynolds and other
celebrities.
Box-office failures rarely spawn sequels,
particularly those that are slammed by critics. Resident Evil (2002) is actually
good mindless mayhem, and Resident Evil:
Apocalypse (2004) was necessary to continue
the story of Alice (Milla Jovovich), the beautiful-but-lethal zombie
fighter. As video-game adaptations go, the Resident
Evil films are really not that bad, and
anything featuring Milla is worth seeing at least once. House of the Dead (2003) is
another movie based on a video game, but this time the undead is completely
brain-dead. Director Uwe Boll could have made a better movie by filming the
actual game.
The genre has a new classic: Shaun of the Dead (2004), a British
comedy that has “cult” written all over it. Shaun is an English
working-class stiff who fails to notice that most of the people around him
are becoming zombies until it’s too late. Much of the humor is
derived from the random choices of weapons. Shaun is quite skilled with a
cricket bat, but the funniest scenes involve the flinging of record albums
at the heads of zombies. Although humorously billed as “A romantic
comedy. With zombies,” it is a gore film that definitely warrants its
R rating. Romero was so impressed with the film that he cast the
film’s stars in the continuation of his saga, Land of the Dead, which is slated
for release in theaters in October.
DVDs scheduled for release Tuesday (March 22):Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Finding Neverland,Being Julia, Fat Albert, The Final Cut, Uzak, Amarelo manga, and Rachida.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2005.
