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the living dead
I screened Night of the Living Dead for my students this week, and finally got around to watching Day of the Dead, the final installment of George Romero's trilogy. (The middle entry is Dawn of the Dead.)
Ambling, flesh-eating ghouls give me as much of a frisson as they give anyone (the visceral Tom Savini effects on the second and third films don't hurt). But, taken collectively, these films are about more than zombies: they are about how human beings function in the face of fear, the interpersonal dynamics of power (and race), the social bond and the consequences of its disintegration. The dramatic unit that recurs most frequently in these films is not a scene of zombie attacks, but rather one of flawed, conflicted humans, with diverging sets of desires, in a room, interacting. And if that's not the fundamental core of all good drama, then I don't know what is.
Further reading: Brainstorming at Zombie City Hall. Labels: horror, media commentary |
Saturday, February 16, 2002
12:09 AM
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