EarthlyAlien

Day of the Dead (1985) Unrated

John: "You want to put some kind of explanation on all this? Here's one as good as any other: we're bein' punished by the Creator. He visited a curse on us. Maybe He didn't want to see us blow ourselves up, put a big hole in the sky. Maybe He just wanted to show us He's still the Boss Man. Maybe He figure, we gettin' too big for our britches, tryin' to figure His shit out."



Having to follow in the footsteps of two of the greatest - hell, the greatest - and most high regarded zombie films in history (Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead) isn't an easy task and perhaps that's why this third entry in George A. Romero's "Dead" series never really got the respect (or kudos) it deserved. Which is too bad as it ranks right up there with the other two films and actually is the most intelligently written of the three.

Initially supposed to be the final instalment of the "Dead" saga, Day of the Dead was and is an unusual change of pace. A grim, talky, but weirdly energetic and almost upbeat affair, the film turned off audiences and critics in its initial run only to become something of a cult item. Though certainly the weakest of the first three films, with more obvious flaws, Day of the Dead has a strong story and atmosphere, reflecting Romero's growing interest in building up a world around his zombies instead of focusing on the flesh-eating shenanigans.

The walking dead outnumber the living by 400,000 to 1. In an underground government facility located beneath the Florida Everglades, a slowly-decreasing group of scientists and soldiers work together to combat the zombie menace. Well, they do in theory; the military force, led by Capt. Rhodes (Joe Pilato) and consisting of the most macho, sexist, racist, and generally crude dregs of the army, is losing patience with scientists who still have no solution. While the chief surgeon Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), known as "Frankenstein" by just about everyone else, has the army round up zombies for his experiments in trying to control the undead and tame their aggression, it falls to Sarah (Lori Cardille), a chemist, to try and keep the entire operation from falling apart. Her soldier boyfriend (Antonè DiLeo) is headed towards a nervous breakdown as a result of working endless shifts, and the most sensible people in the operation seem to be McDermott, an alcoholic radio operator (Jarlath Conroy), and John, a helicopter pilot (Terry Alexander), both of whom live in a trailer outside the complex's safe zone and don't believe that anything good is going to come of the project. Logan has been showing some progress with an unusually intelligent zombie named "Bub" (Howard Sherman), but there's a question of just how stable the Doctor is, and how he intends to "reward" his subjects.

The film Romero planned to make and the one he made ended up being very different. The original script was a grand epic taking place on a tropical island, where a mad general had raised an army of trained zombies. However, the project was deemed too expensive - though both Night and Dawn had been huge hits, financiers would only put up the money if Romero could promise an R rating, which he ultimately couldn't. So he settled for an unrated picture and a lower budget, crafting this smaller-scale apocalypse that could mostly be filmed in an underground cave complex. (The actors, who arrived at the set pre-dawn and left after dark, suffered Vitamin E deficiencies as a result of not seeing the sun for long stretches.) This is a smaller film than Dawn, and not nearly as action-oriented - there is, to be honest, a lot of talk, and it's actually a long while before we get to the first proper zombie attack (though the film does have a brilliant opening wherein the team takes a helicopter to scout out a city that is inhabited entirely by the walking dead.)

As a result, the film does seem aimless at times, and Romero's dialogue and direction of the actors is not what you'd call realistic or understated. The soldiers are, as mentioned, near troglodytic in their machismo, and so negligent and shiftless it's hard to believe they passed basic training. McDermott, who is Irish (and drinks quite a bit) and John, who is Jamaican, both have very strong and faked accents, and in particular John, with his wise sayings and carefree attitude, comes dangerously close to the "Magic Negro" stereotype, though I'd argue that he gets enough depth in the end to avoid that. Pilato, playing Rhodes, gives what I'm just going to go ahead and call a Romero over-the-top performance, to the point where it's goofy and hard to believe at times, but completely appropriate to other moments - and he manages to improvise the PERFECT last line for his character, so I have to give him credit.

Of course, being comic-booky and exaggerated isn't necessarily a bad thing for a horror/zombie film, even a more dialogue-driven one. There's even an element of political satire, as the military's overriding nationalism seems to parallel the escalation of the Cold War and the return to "traditional values" heralded by the Reagan administration, and of course nuclear anxiety is also mirrored in the weary, nihilistic attitudes of John and McDermott, who are about ready to give up on the whole Western civilization thing and try to escape to an island somewhere. The conflict between basically three separate factions (one could even split it further, arguing that Logan is an entity unto himself) does provide a driving force for the film even when the zombies stay in the background.

Needless to say, the undead do come out to play in the end, and the climax of the picture features a richly satisfying zombie rampage, with make-up and gore effects once again by Tom Savini; the improvement from Dawn is that we no longer have zombies who are simply people with facepaint, and all the hordes of ghouls do look pretty realistic. On the human side, the acting is mostly energetic: Lori Cardille, the daughter of Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille, who played a reporter in Night, is intense and believable throughout, and there's something enjoyable in everyone's performance, including Sherman's Bub, who's a masterpiece of purely physical acting. The best work, though, comes from Richard Liberty as Logan, who tweaks the mad scientist angle just a little to make his character disarmingly eloquent, soft-spoken, and likable.

Finally, I'd be remiss in talking about this film without praising the lush, Carribean-tinged score by John Harrison (who would later become a director in his own right - his credits include the "Dune" miniseries.) This was actually the first film in the series not to include cheap "library" music as part of the soundtrack (Night used it entirely, while Dawn alternated the needle-drop material with an original score by Dario Argento's Goblin), and it adds an interesting kind of energy to the grim proceedings.

Day of the Dead is a film with some obvious problems - it's not quite as keen and relentless as the first two - but it has an undeniable charm to it. It's a genuinely original horror story, rendered with bloody enthusiasm and more than a little wit to it. If it wasn't really satisfying as the finale of the series, it was because nothing could top those two horror masterpieces. While pretty uneventful for the first hour, the script build-up is excellent and when the blood-spilling does commence it leads up to one of the most exciting finales in zombie film history.

Captain Rhodes: [as the zombies are disembowling him and eating his entrails] Choke on 'em!"

Dawn of the Dead R

Michael: "Truck's not gonna make it to Fort Pastor.
Steve: No, forget the truck. That place is fucked, man. Bloodbath city.
Kenneth: How do you know?
Norma: We just came from there.
Kenneth: Is everyone there dead?
Steve: Well, dead-ish.
Kenneth: Is everyone there dead?
Steve: Yeah, in the sense that they all sort of, uh... fell down... and then got up... and started eating each other."



When first word on a possible remake of Romero's untouchable classic Dawn of the Dead was mentioned, a lot of people shunned the idea and thought it ridiculous. When it was revealed that James Gunn (the man who managed to write two of the most ridiculous screenplays in history, in less than two years) was working on the script, it didn't help matters either. Once the first trailer appeared online, people's minds were changed drastically, because it was actually beginning to look like a pretty decent zombie flick.

I went in watching this four years ago with an open mind, because, although my personal opinion on the concept of 'remake' is widely known, I don't consider Romero's work 'unremakable'. The "Dead" trilogy spanned three decades ('60s, '70s and '80s) and each film was a reflection on the kind of country the U.S. were at those times, as well as the way Americans viewed themselves. Things change. To remake The Exorcist or The Shinning would be preposterous, but Dawn of the Dead... somehow makes sense. I came out of the theatre very satisfied in terms of entertainment (which is what I primarily based my rating for this film on) but it must be said that, no matter how entertaining this may be, it doesn't even begin to approach the original's brilliance and vision.

Above all, Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead is true to itself. Without irony, cheek, or a gentle nudge to the ribs, it manages to exist as a pure experience - watching the dead rise from the earth, begin their flesh-feast, and eventually take over the world. There is no explanation, no resolution, and no political subtext; only a refreshingly straightforward story that attempts thrills and chills without poking fun at its obvious flaws.

There are genuine laughs to be had, but they are real, rather than the result of camp or mockery. In fact, this might be one of the first films in years to be the essence of horror without the Scream-inspired self-awareness. Yes, it's a remake (complete with the shopping mall setting), but it's not trying to comment on the Romero classic. It's not trying to be better than that film by showing it can be more clever and knowing. It is an update in that it has better effects and much more realistic carnage, but I would argue that it is aiming lower than the earlier film. Romero constructed a merciless satire of American consumerism, while Snyder's film would rather we witness the end of the world without comment. That's why the film is so much fun and easy to watch and the reason why I enjoyed it so much.

The ten-minute pre-credits sequence is a showstopper, an adrenaline-fuelled nightmare come to life as downright horrifying as any film opener since Apocalypse Now. Young nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) leaves the hospital she works at and drives to her home in the middle of Milwaukee's idyllic suburbs. She makes love to her husband Luis (Justin Louis) in the shower and goes to bed, missing all of the signs around her, including a news report, that something is seriously wrong. When Ana awakes to find Luis mortally wounded (a neighbour child has ruthlessly bitten him on the neck), only to have him suddenly attack her after his heart has stopped, she narrowly escapes. Pure chaos has rang out on the streets, leaving Ana fearful and perplexed as to what is happening in the world. Cue Johnny Cash's haunting "The Man Comes Around" and a marvellously innovative and atmospheric opening credits scene, and you have a flawlessly rendered set-up to a fine, graphically violent horror flick.

The pulse-pounding pace at the onset slows down soon after so the rest of the premise and characters can fall into place. After totalling her car in an accident, Ana finds herself joining police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames), Michael (Jake Weber), and Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant wife, Luda (Inna Korobkina), to hide out in the Crossroad Mall. From then on it's the discovery of what is really happening: a fast-acting virus spread through bites that will reanimate the carrier once they have died into a bloodthirsty zombie. Soon joined by some more humans, including three security guards and several other refugees, Ana watches as the days tick by and the number of zombies increase at the mall entrances. In lieu of waiting for their own doom, the group devise a plan to escape to the nearby marina and sail to a hopefully deserted island. First, however, they will have to get past the hoards of dangerous, angry zombies clustering the streets.

Romero's bleak vision of humanity learning to cope after a time of war featured sympathetic protagonists waiting out the apocalypse. It also featured terrifying gore effects courtesy of special effects king Tom Savini (who has a cameo here as a badass sheriff), brutal and hard-hitting action sequences, and an unrelenting sense of encroaching dread. Snyder's version can't hope to compare, so it ditches any notion of social statement and goes instead for the balls-out, adrenaline rush of 28 Days Later, minus the grade-Z digital cinematography in favour of the technical splendour of a slick car commercial. Result: it truly looks awesome.

Sarah Polley, a Canadian-born indie staple who rarely ventures into the mainstream, is exceptional as Ana, a young woman devastated by what is happening around her, but who refuses to give up hope. Polley brings to her lead role the stark, honest emotions and no-holds-barred reality that goes along with the situation. In the process, she elevates what could have been a standard-issue horror heroine part to one with three dimensions and worth rooting for. All other performances, namely Ving Rhames (as the little-talk hard-ass cop), Mekhi Phifer (as a street-thug-slash-soon-to-be-daddy, whose wife nurses a zombie bite and a swelled pregnant belly that's a gruesome set piece waiting to happen), and especially Jake Weber (in the Brendan Gleeson role from 28 Days Later, a de-facto dad for the band of survivors), are concentrated and unfailing. Nonetheless, most of the characters could have afforded the depth and care brought to Ana, who is the only one we see with a life before things literally go to Hell.

Amidst the heightened suspense and skilfully created terror, Zack Snyder does make a few key errors that keep the film from being the masterpiece it pays tribute to - 'cause really, that's basically what this is - and flirts with becoming. For one, it is suggested that what is occurring is strictly virus-based, but if this is the case, then it is implausible that the entire town would fall apart overnight. Where did the virus come from to begin with? And if he wants us to believe that the long-since dead have risen from their graves, then the film is missing any such clarification (a brief scene where Ana drives by a cemetery and witnesses the dead rising would have cleared this up, but is nowhere to be found). Any way you look at it, it is an unavoidable and clumsy plot hole. Likewise, a stronger sense of the interior mall setting should have been rendered, instead of the majority happening in front of the same store over and over.

Still, this new Dawn of the Dead is creepy, smart and good filmmaking. It takes no prisoners in its sole goal to scare you silly. And what the viewer is left with by the end is an unshakable sense of both pure despair (at the narrative's amazing outcome) and admiration (at the film's well-made nature). While Romero's Dawn of the Dead remains a classic of zombie and horror cinema, then Zack Snyder's version does it justice and honours it properly. Despite what naysayers and sceptics might have thought, it defies lowered expectations. Well-crafted in every way, Dawn of the Dead is another unforgettable, nerve-tingling ride through the American Dream gone hideously, gruesomely wrong. A very important contributor to the survival of the Zombie sub-genre.

Televangelist: "Hell is overflowing, and Satan is sending his dead to us. Why? Because, you have sex out of wedlock, you kill unborn children, you have man on man relations, same sex marriage. How do you think your God will judge you? Well friends, now we know. When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

Dawn of the Dead R

Francine: "They're still here.
Stephen: They're after us. They know we're still in here.
Peter: They're after the place. They don't know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.
Francine: What the hell are they?
Peter: They're us, that's all, when there's no more room in hell.
Stephen: What?
Peter: Something my granddad used to tell us. You know Macumba? Voodoo. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."



After the much-talked about Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968, George A. Romero took a 10-year break from zombies, but not from the genre. He put out The Crazies in '73, as well as the failed Hungry Wives. He then took a stab at the vampire genre in '77 with Martin before returning to the sub-genre that he started. It was the year of 1979 (although the film premièred in Italy in '78) that saw the return of Romero's zombies for U.S. audiences with Dawn of the Dead, a film that was on a much bigger budget and scale compared to the first. Some people argue that Romero's Night is one of the highest-grossing films of all time: it cost $120,000 and there is no way of knowing exactly how rich it made Romero in the box-office. As for Dawn, it cost a bit more, $1.5 million, and it grossed at least $45 million world-wide.

That's not really important, except to show the level of amateurism - in a good sense - there was in that first film. Romero was 28-years-old, a kid, and that film was pretty much a dream put in action by a bunch of other kids from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and yet, it would forever change the horror genre. Dawn of the Dead is an obviously more crafted film (you don't get the feeling that you're watching something extremely raw and ground-breaking) and, while Night still is one of the greatest American horror films ever made, Dawn is my favourite instalment of the "Dead" series, and most definitely my all-time favourite horror film. I remember seeing it when I was but a wee lad, probably around the 100th time it was on TV. I was repulsed, I was disgusted, I was shocked, but most of all I immediately became a zombie/Romero fan for life.

Following in pace with its predecessor, Dawn of the Dead begins with an epidemic of zombies killing everyone. It follows two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his girlfriend as they seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Dawn of the Dead is a horror comic book come to life, with the challenge being survival. Imagine if you will, the dead are rising from their graves with no certain reasoning but that they are hungry to fest on the flesh of the living. And everyone they kill becomes like them, a mindless zombie surviving on instinct and hungry for the warm flesh of living mankind. The dead are everywhere. There's so many of them. The entire world is at war with the dead. So much as a vicious bite tearing into your flesh can spread the disease. The armies are over run. Towns are put into a state of warfare; there is seemingly no hope. And this is where the story of Dawn of the Dead begins.

The mall is the first of Romero's reversals. Night's would-be survivors were trapped in a rural farmhouse, and their only hope for survival was represented by the hope for escape to the City. Like much of America in era, Dawn's pampered protagonists abandon the unpredictable, ethnically diverse city in favour of the comforting anonymity of suburban USA - specifically, the suburban mall at which they land and eventually inhabit. Romero's distinctly Pittsburghian sensibilities can't be underestimated when explaining Dawn's appeal; the Monroeville Mall perfectly evokes the feel of a hollow monument standing at the centre of a community that couldn't be bothered to define itself any more distinctively than could be represented by their choice between Florsheim or Kinney's shoes. The mall, in essence, shoulders the burden of their identity.

Once the four make unto themselves an idyllic paradise inside the mall, cleansing it of zombies and sealing if off for themselves, they inevitably cave in to the buyer's delight, so buried in furs, guns, diamonds, and leather (and, ludicrously, cash) that they ultimately end up oblivious to the approaching motorcycle gang that threatens to crash the party. Eventually the gang breaks through the barricades (and, somehow, the moat of zombies still drawn to the mall because, according to one character, it reminds them of something they used to need) and anarchically turn the film upside down, transgressively taunting the zombies, stealing their jewellery, smashing their pusses with cream pies, and chopping their heads off for sport, not survival. Again, the way Romero portrays the roving gang is a distinct retraction from how, for instance, he painted Karl Hardman's Harry Cooper character in Night. As least in the first film, opposition didn't equal antagonism. Here, Romero's world contains strains of humanity that, as demonstrated by their lack of respect for the zombies, could be justifiably considered "worse" than death.

Dawn of the Dead features make-up/special effects by the wizard of gore himself Tom Savini. Savini is a long time partner of Romero's and this was his biggest task to that date. By today's standards, and Tom Savini's standards most of the zombies are fairly tame looking in the film with skin discolouration being the most obvious visual disfiguration. But what you have to realize is that there was no previous standard before this. Night of the Living Dead had only one flesh eating sequence, which was more than enough to freak audiences out in 1968, but Dawn of the Dead is where is got messy. The open sequences feature a raid on an apartment complex infested with the living dead. And is loaded full of gunshots and flesh tearing. The end sequences are amazingly blooding as the zombies overcome and tear victims apart. Tom is a huge contributor to this film as well as the zombie and horror genre. He designed the zombies for Dawn, and perfected the look in Day of the Dead.

Dawn of the Dead is a dated film. It takes place in the seventies, feels like the seventies and makes social commentaries on the issues of that day, including the women's liberation movement, war, foreign affairs and even economy. There's seemingly danger in every aspect of the world. So if you're in the situation of our main characters with really no hope and survival being all that you can live for then the idea of holding up in an abandoned shopping mall could be the greatest salvation. There you have access to endless supplies, temporary shelter and a place to secure a plan. Problem is it's infested with zombies. And even if you re-kill all the zombies and board up the doors you're still sitting on one of the greatest bulk of supplies available and a prime target for other survivalists and small armies. Again no hope is in sight.

Romero directs with a real kinetic charge and Dawn of the Dead is the most out-rightly action-oriented of his films. What turned the film into a real cult hit and inspired a whole new generation of Italian filmmakers though is the splatter effects. The film's entire raison d'être is often the inordinate delight that Romero and Tom Savini find in the number of ways that people can be mutilated and killed on screen. The film really gets quite creative in this regard - shotguns blowing heads off at point blank range, the top of a zombie's head sliced off with a helicopter blade, dispatches via a screwdriver twisted into a zombie's ear, zombies biting chunks of flesh out of victims' shoulders, people held down and their intestines ripped out and devoured by clambering zombies. Upwards of 200 hundred killings take place on screen and any scene, from any film, shot after 1978 approaching those descriptions drew inspiration from here. Allow me to exemplify: Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead may have the single most impressive on-screen disembowelment in recent cinematic history, but it's only because Romero paved the way for filmmakers like Wright, Robert Rodriguez or Danny Boyle to rip our guts along out with some luckless character's entrails 30 years ago.

In the U.S., Dawn of the Dead was released uncut rather than face the choice of either cutting the gore down or receiving the dreaded X rating. An unrated film is usually considered commercial suicide, with many newspapers refusing to carry advertising for such films, but despite this Dawn of the Dead nevertheless became a cult success. It is my favourite horror film and it played a big role in why I started to be obsessed with films in the first place.

Dawn of the Dead explores the end of mankind, being destroyed by mankind physically represented by zombies. Romero's 'message' (if you wanna call it that), for those who assume there isn't any, is quite simple: man vs. man and how we deal with our own mortality and the horror of becoming mindless and uncontrolled. Or maybe it's just the coolest zombie flick ever made, period. Either way. Everything I learned about zombie films I learned from George Romero. Everything I'm still learning about zombie films I'm still learning from George Romero. Shopping malls in the '70s had ice rinks and gun shops. Romero zombies are slow moving and weak (they're dead, remember?) but there's an endless number of them.

I never feared for my safety walking through empty parking lots, darkened rooms or deserted alleys after watching any horror film made after I was born, but every night when I turn out the light after watching Romero's film, I wonder if somewhere in the shadows of my apartment there isn't a cold hand creeping up to grab me from behind. Dawn of the Dead illustrates the difference between old and new school horror: namely, that effective thrills come from giving life those mysterious things that go bump in the night, not simply shining the light in their direction when they leap out from the darkness.

I guess there's no real point in going on and on about how much - or why - I worship this film and the man behind it so much... I just do. I'll keep wearing my Dawn of the Dead t-shirts like I have for years and my Collector's Edition - The Original Director's Cut DVD will always be one of the pieces on my collection I'm the most proud of. I wouldn't sell it to you for all the money in the world.

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: "This isn't the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we're in a hole economically or... or we're in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line, folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!"

Night of the Living Dead Unrated

Field Reporter: "Chief, if I were surrounded by eight or ten of these things, would I stand a chance with them?
Sheriff McClelland: Well, there's no problem. If you have a gun, shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat 'em or burn 'em. They go up pretty easy."



Regarded as the grandfather of the modern zombie film, Night of the Living Dead is a legendary achievement in both horror and independent filmmaking, one that, like all great horror films, retains its power even as our ideas of what's scary change. Deceptively simple, the film builds dread and fear with layers of psychological conflict, action, and a kind of relentless exposition that gives a nationwide scope to a claustrophobic problem. It was innovative in many ways, and though it didn't really create the zombie film as a genre, it crystallized it and set the pattern for future entries, becoming the standard by which they would be measured.

It was the late sixties. Vietnam was proving that America was not all-powerful, and asking questions about who were the good guys, about motivation, about the human race as a whole. Anti-war protesters were being beaten and gassed for what they believed, while America was attempting to destroy another place... for what they believed. Hippies were spreading a message of love, new ideas were flourishing in all areas, from making peace to making war, and technology was becoming more important and influential. The result was that the good guys were often over-looked, good deeds were mostly forgotten, and many lives were thrown away aimlessly and without purpose. Those who survived wondered why, and had no clue why they were here. It seemed outside, bigger forces were at play, and that unseen beings were controlling the public. Two films which would change the course of cinema were released: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny (Russel Streiner) are sister and brother,
who arrive at a cemetery in the countryside to put flowers on their father's grave. An old man wandering in the distant background suddenly attacks Barbara, and Johnny is killed when he intervenes to save her. Barbara runs from her relentless attacker to an abandoned farmhouse, and as more strange, mindless assassins gather around the house, she meets with fellow survivors of similar attacks: Ben (Duane Jones), a young African American who quickly takes control of the situation; Harry and Helen Cooper (Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman), a middle-aged couple with an injured daughter (Kyra Schon); and Tom and Judy (Keith Wayne and Judith Ridley), young lovers out on a country drive. As the traumatized Barbara slips into a catatonic state and Ben and Harry argue about the best plan of defence against these monsters, radio and TV broadcasts gradually reveal that they're facing an army of the walking dead, animated by radiation from space and feeding on the flesh of the living. Things get worse.

One of the things that I always notice about the film whenever I see it is how big a role the media plays. The characters are as isolated as those in any other horror film, but thanks to technology they (and we) get to find out what's happening, even if this doesn't actually help them in the long run. That this was very much a contemporary film was significant at the time, as the general trend over the past decade had been towards Hammer's Gothic/Victorian monster-fests, as isolated from the present day as the Universal horror films of the thirties and forties. Here was something taking place on our doorstep, happening to regular people, and happening to everyone. While not unprecedented, this was still unusual, and the overall effect is to make the horror seem more pervasive and unstoppable; simply being smarter than the average horror film protagonist isn't going to get you out of this one.

The film broke a lot of rules that were informally in place. Certain characters die who would be thought invulnerable in other horror films of the day, the apparent heroine goes into shock and becomes absolutely useless for the rest of the film, and the zombies (never actually called that in the film) behave more like a "real" phenomenon than supernatural entities; the rules which apply to them have little to do with ritual or ceremony and everything to do with contagion and a kind of warped biology, their brains still being active and hence their one vulnerable spot, like a vampire's heart. But I think the emphasis on strategy is really what sets this apart. Everyone is forced to think in practical terms about what can be done right away, and the central conflict between the human characters is about the safest course of action for surviving the night. And it's here that the film gets really complicated.

Ben, as the eventual protagonist, is a proactive and charismatic figure, generally wise and level-headed. Harry is, let's face it, a jerk, twitchy, short-tempered and vindictive. But Ben's plans do have a way of going awry, and Harry does have the makings of a good idea in that he wants to stay in the cellar, which is the safest room in the house. But whether or not he's right doesn't matter, because he's more preoccupied with being right than with helping people out. The tension between the characters complicates the already difficult task of surviving a zombie attack, and as the series progresses we'll see Romero's interest in psychological and social obstacles as ways of showing how humanity just might find itself in a losing war against a brainless slow-moving enemy.

A larger theme of social upheaval is also present, as the zombies represent a kind of new society overthrowing the old. Even at points where it seems like the problem might actually be contained, it's at the cost of anything resembling a familiar status quo - the dead need to be callously gathered up and burned before they can revive, the bonfires a contrast to the cemetery of the film's opening. Homes and families are placed under siege and traditional community seems to fall by the wayside. (The legendary ending seems to suggest a final disintegration of essential humanity, even if humans manage to survive.)

The proceedings are always tense, even in the slower moments, something emphasized by a loud score and the frequent bangs of hammering. The performances are manic and generally strong. Judith O'Dea goes overboard at times, but at others is strangely effective (there's always at least one performance like this in a Romero film, for some reason.) While it's always clear that we're looking at a low-budget film, there's something very efficient about the timing and structuring of scenes, and it looks a lot better than it should. Gore-wise, the film may not be shocking any more, or frightening, but it is compelling and utterly intense. Its combination of black and white photography and grisly horror is particularly unsettling, and gives the film a grimy, realistic quality.

George Romero has said that he laces all his zombie films with social commentary. In Night of the Living Dead he cast an African American as the hero (the race wasn't specified in the script) who saves the white girl, in an era when civil rights were still very much an on-going debate. Add to this the fact that all of the mindless zombies have pasty white faces, and Harry the intolerant white man wants to hide in a safe place and not worry about anyone else. We have an African-American hero who may be up against the undead in the text of the film, but is faced with racism in the subtext. I don't know if the choice of filming in black and white was part of this metaphor (in 1968 it was a choice). But it looks so perfect that it makes me wonder why black and white isn't used much for horror any more. Perhaps it's because the majority of black and white horror films didn't go for grisly gore, and most horror films are cheap knock-offs of each other. When people came to copy Night of the Living Dead they copied the zombies, and the arguments, rather than things worth copying like cinematography and theme.

Night of the Living Dead is one of the best, greatest and most influential horror films ever made, but chances are you knew that. But it's always worth taking a second or twenty-third look at the film, especially around a certain time of the year or whenever you feel like not getting to sleep easily. It may not be the best of the series, but it's a close second, and it'll always be a classic in its own right. Horror films would never entirely be the same after this, and it's still got a few lessons to teach, forty years later.

Field Reporter: "Are they slow-moving, chief?
Sheriff McClelland: Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."

Dog Soldiers R

Cooper: "Go on then Bruce, what scares you?
Bruce: The self-destructive nature of the human condition.
Spoon: You're just taking the piss now.
Cooper: What about you, Spoon?
Spoon: Castration.
Cooper: There's no argument there. Joe?
Joe: Only one thing guaranteed to put the shits up me: a penalty shoot-out.
Cooper: Figures. Terry?
Terry: Watching a penalty shoot-out... with Joe.
Bruce: What about you, Coop?
Cooper: Spiders. And women. And... spider-women."



When Dog Soldiers was released in the UK, six years ago, it came out with so little fanfare that the majority of true, natural born horror fans almost missed it; which would have been a terrible shame indeed, considering the pure unadulterated quality this film contains. Instead, thanks to this film and the Blair Witch Project, my calm and reasoned psyche is now forever scarred in such a way that even thinking of staying in forests at night makes my skin physically crawl off my body in search of the nearest metropolitan area, possibly as some form of independent survival instinct. That's how good Dog Soldiers is.

As I understand it, when you're in the military of any nation, the top brass like to send the squadies out into completely uninhabited areas to play at being soldiers. I believe this is called 'training', or some other military terminology, like 'bunker' or 'second front'. In Dog Soldiers, Sgt. Harry Wells (Sean Pertwee) and his squad of 5 are dropped in the middle of Scotland's woodland on such an expedition, much to the displeasure of every member of the squad, who all had better things to do with their weekend than walk through acres of Scottish timber in the freezing cold.

If only that were the least of their problems... you see, it turns out that there's a reason that part of Scotland is pretty sparsely inhabited, and it has nothing to do with the area's lack of cable access or good satellite reception. Instead, it comes in the form of a number of big, hairy, angry and dangerous inhabitants. Werewolves. Spads of them, in fact. After a couple of less than successful encounters with their furry pursuers, and a more useful encounter with a helpful researcher named Megan (Emma Cleasby), the battered soldiers make it to the only house in the area, there to muster their defences till help arrives.

What also bears mentioning is the presence of a second British unit in the area, some special forces whose encounter with the werewolves is a spectacular failure, and whose only survivor, Cpt. Ryan (Liam Cunningham) is about as trustworthy as one of those 'I wish to deposit 8 Hundred Billion Dollars in your bank account' e-mails. For his own safety, Cpt. Ryan is forced to shelter with Wells' squad and the stage is set for the majority of the film. House. Men with guns. Lots of Werewolves. By the time we'd reached this point a scant 30 minutes into the film, I knew I'd found a new favourite.

Dog Soldiers, a title that is either brilliant or incredibly stupid (I haven't decided which), is director Neil Marshall's (The Descent) first feature film, a horror/action film that happens to be a frisbee full of fun. It's derivative (take your pick: Aliens, Predator, Night of the Living Dead, American Werewolf in London, heck, even Braveheart), but at least it's a wide range of rip-offs - smart, non-insulting rip-offs. And a major plus in its pocket is that Dog Soldiers belongs to the "we stay and fight" school of horror, instead of the "we flee and shriek like Catholic schoolgirls" school right down the road.

As you might have noticed, it's hardly an original premise - it's Aliens, or Assault on Precinct 13, or even Zulu. However, the performance of the various squad members (including Kevin "Lucius Vorenus" McKidd as Pvt. Cooper), as their desperation increases and their ammo runs low keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. And unlike the films it obviously draws references from, sandwiched nicely in between the intense terror and desperation moments are thinly spread layers of black, typically British comedy, like a perfectly made sandwich, if the bread was the terror... and, well, you know what I mean.

Whether it's the back and forth banter of the soldiers as they bicker about meaningless trivialities, or some truly inventive battlefield surgery (I'll never look at superglue the same way again), the bits of this film that didn't have me gripping my seat arms had me rolling in the aisles instead. However, the ushers quickly came in and asked me to stop, so I settled for just chuckling to myself. It's not all wine and roses though. The plot, as I've said, is fairly derivative, and the twists, such as they are, aren't particularly inventive or hard to predict. However, if you've gone to watch this film for plot twists or originality, you're probably missing the point. As a no-frills, unpretentious "survival horror" film, Dog Soldiers provides a nice twist on a popular genre, with a bunch of good acting and some non-CGI-pure-make-up werewolves as well.

Be warned, however, that the effects aren't for the weak of heart or stomach. It can get a little gory at times, and there's internal organs all over the place in some scenes. Also, as you would expect from squadies in this situation, the language is pretty coarse from the get go - some grounded in British slang, some all-purpose swearwords, but all pretty offensive if you don't like that sort of thing.

However, I'd be remiss in mentioning the one other thing in this film's favour before ending this review. Dog Soldiers, as well as being bloody good on its own merits, has earned a special place in my heart for establishing a new cinematic record: 'The Longest Set-up For A One Line Joke (Which Is Really Funny) In Cinema History'. Showing the kind of mutant dedication EarthlyAlien can sometimes display (as well as a lot of time of his hands), I've meticulously timed this joke - there's precisely 96 minutes between the set-up and the punchline. Whoa.

The best Werewolf flick since Ginger Snaps and a fine début by a director who - mark my words - will give a lot to the Horror genre.

Cooper: "Any questions?
Joe: Just the one, Coop. Exactly what is it we're fighting against?
Cooper: Megan, do you wanna run it past the boys?
Megan: Lycanthrope.
Joe: You what?
Cooper: That's werewolves to you and me.
Joe: You're taking the piss.
Spoon: What? It makes perfect sense to me."

Doomsday R

Eden Sinclair: "If you're hungry, have a piece of your friend."



I've always found post-apocalyptic scenarios a little boring. Sure, the point is to see how humanity survives in a world fraught with chaos, but all too often filmmakers' predictions of the future end up looking exactly the same. Doomsday doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table, but at least writer/director Neil Marshall has enough good sense to inject just the right amount of creativity and style into the formula, helping the film come across as entertaining if not good.

The foremost reason I enjoyed Doomsday as much as I did - besides being written and directed by a filmmaker I admire immensely and a hell of a fun to watch - is because, despite blatantly cribbing off about eight other films, it puts a creative spin on the whole "civilization-ending virus" plot. While most films (think 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead) simply chronicle the outbreak of the virus, Doomsday takes place twenty-five years after it's been contained.

It's called the "Reaper" virus this time around, but it's your typical human-turned-zombie deal. In April 2008, it breaks out in the U.K., but the British government is able to contain it in Scotland and completely quarantine the area, leaving the infected to die. Cut to 2032: a new outbreak occurs. The government sends a team headed by tough-as-nails security officer Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) into the Scotland dead zone to find the laboratory of a doctor called Kane (Malcolm McDowell), who had been working on a cure before all contact was cut off.

Once inside Scotland, though, Eden and her team quickly realize that it's not just full of corpses - an entire society of people who are immune to the virus has popped up, and apparently everybody's completely freaking nuts, from hordes of vicious cannibals led by the psychotic Sol (Craig Conway) to a medieval community of survivors, led by McDowell's character, not too comfortable with outsiders invading their turf. If there's a moral of the film, it's this: if you leave the people of Scotland without a government, within twenty-five years they will all turn into insane tattooed sadistic cannibals who gather in abandon concert venues to burn people alive. That's either preposterously prejudicial... or just hilarious.

Once Eden and her team is inside the quarantine, the film can be neatly broken up into three parts:

Part 1: Escape From New York. The good guys meet the crazy sadistic cannibals and try to avoid them in the ruins of a major city.

Part 2: Army of Darkness meets Gladiator. Somehow we're suddenly in a medieval castle on the Scotland countryside, and Eden is fighting an actual knight, with body armour and all, in an actual arena.

Part 3: The Road Warrior meets Mad Max. The film's best scene. A big car chase with the crazy tattooed cannibals jumping from car to car. No, it's not nearly as good as the car chase in The Road Warrior, but that's clearly what it's going for.

If this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach sounds like fun to you, chances are you'll like the film. The editing gets way too confusing way too often, with a series of quick close-ups that frequently cause you to lose your bearings. Still, there's an enormous amount of fun to be had here, as long as you don't walk into it expecting a masterpiece.

While Marshall was responsible for 2005's The Descent, considered by many - including yours truly - the best horror film of the last decade, Doomsday harkens back more so to his début, Dog Soldiers. Despite the dour storyline, there are no traces of satire to be found here as was evident in 28 Weeks Later and Land of the Dead. Doomsday is as carefree as apocalyptic thrillers go, indulging in pure, unadulterated, blood-shedding joy.

It's not so much in the same heavy vein as George Romero's zombie flicks but rather along the same lines as John Carpenter's work from the '80s, namely Escape from New York. Marshall stretches the term "borrowing liberally" to its breaking point here, copying the latter film down to having the hero (or, in this case, heroine) sport an eyepatch. Action buffs will definitely be struck with a sense of deja vu, not to mention why Marshall didn't just remake New York instead of offering up a pale imitation of Carpenter's cult classic. The answer is simple: honouring the work of the greats, the films we grew up watching, drawing inspiration from it while sending something new to the world, is quite different from remaking them.

As I mentioned before, Doomsday leaves the genre's basic elements relatively intact. The survivors still look like they wandered off the set of Mad Max, the good guys are mostly made up of cannibal fodder, and the protagonist is a human Rolex that could probably swallow a live grenade and still keep on ticking. But worry not, for Marshall doesn't let himself get too bogged down in going through the motions. There are a few little touches here and there that bring a much needed brush of insanity to the production. Right off the bat, he's not afraid to let the blood and gore flow like the mighty Mississippi, as he announces near the beginning by blasting a cute bunny rabbit into ribbons. Then there's Conway's completely off-kilter performance as Sol, a psychopath who's so over-the-top, he strikes fear into your heart as much as he makes you giggle like an eight-year-old. He's definitely a much more vivid character than Mitra's Eden, who doesn't do anything more than Kate Beckinsale already did in the Underworld films. I'd say it's a tie in terms of looking hot and cool at the same time.

Hats off to masterful cinematographer Sam McCurdy, who worked on Marshall's last two films. The Doomsday "look" is perfect and swings between dark nights of rain and days of blown-out dreamscape. Talking of looks, keep your eye on Eden, because hers is bionic and she takes it out to use a nifty camera. You could argue that the virus that makes you explode with blood is not original, but hey, I'm not going to.

In my opinion, it's the lack of character development and some of the performances that hold the film back. Rhona Mitra's character needed a bit more dimension. I wanted to see a stronger emotional bond with her team. To me, the performance of the usually brilliant Bob Hoskins felt a bit forced. Story-wise, I'm not at all sure they killed the right people off, and I would have liked to see more conflict between the punks and the medieval gang from the castle. Maybe I'm just whining. This is a fine action film and, while I'm sure the '80s were cool and all, this is the '00s and Marshall managed to make a fine homage to those cult action films - much in the same line of what Tarantino and Rodriguez did last year - while also adding something new - namely a female lead.

As far as Armageddons go, Doomsday is a cut above snoozefests like Resident Evil: Extinction, as it bothers to bring at least a little energy to the party instead of sluggishly repeating the steps of other, better films of its kind. Seen by yourself in the middle of a multiplex, Doomsday won't seem like much, but when gathered with some fellow gorehounds, it proves to be a fairly entertaining, testosterone-filled ride. Everyone needs some of that once and a while.

Kane: "In the land of the infected, the immune man is king."

1. Donnie Darko R

2. The Shawshank Redemption R

3. Mulholland Drive R

David Lynch's most complete and perfect film!

4. Fa Yeung Nin Wa (In the Mood for Love) PG

One of the most sensual and romantic films ever made, without one single kiss. This film is 100% pure beauty. From the colors, to the music, to Maggie Cheung... Stunning in every possible aspect, In The Mood For Love is one of the first masterpieces of the twenty first century, perfection reached in the art of film making. No matter what Kar-Wai does in the future, this will always be the film that made me 'fall in love' with him...

5. Amores Perros R

One of my personal favourites... Amazing script, wonderfull acting, brilliantly shot! A modern masterpiece!

6. Oldboy R