Response 5 - Dawn of the Dead: Who are the real zombies?

Dawn of the Dead: Who are the real zombies?

            While we watched Dawn of the Dead last week I thought over the entire genre of the post-apocalyptic zombie movie. I love these type of films and I own most of the DVD versions of these, from Dawn of the Dead (1978) to Shaun of the Dead (2007). The whole concept of being faced with this insane world and the implications of having to deal with so much death. Not just of people you know but also of the ones you don’t. The implication that all over the world this is happening at the same time, and the human race is in for it. I think these movies create a world where being human becomes so important and being a zombie is so hateful to think about that people would rather shoot themselves in the head and keep themselves from becoming one. That much distain for these monsters is not something found in everyday horror.

            The movie takes an interesting idea about the zombie apocalypse to me. The idea of when everyone who dies is going to become a zombie then what is the true difference between the undead and the people walking around waiting to die. I think that the movie takes a lot of stock in this idea when you see zombies being pitied by the director. Like when the kids come out of the closet or when the zombie sits outside the department store looking sad. The director also forces us to take pity on them when they are being pied in the face and shot with seltzer water from the bottle. The gang at the end seems so just outrageous and mean. Almost caricatures of the humans they were before. Like a traveling group of circus clowns swinging from vines and screaming random things at the drop of a hat. Riding their bikes through the mall destroying the empire which had been built by the main characters. The zombies weren’t even as bad as these people and we take pity as they are easily outwitted, and the characters slaughter them. Their fragile movements seem nearly innocent until they reach a living human.

            When they reach the living humans and begin to rip them apart we are returned to pitying the people who are actually human. The bodies nearly turn inside out as they are ripped apart in grotesque fashion with loads of gore and screaming.  We see this and realize that these zombies are monsters, and that they are undeserving of our pity. This mix of both of these things next to each other confuses the audience. Who are we supposed to be cheering for? The people who keeping finding unique ways and weapons to remove heads and destroy brains or the zombies that just looking for a hot meal and whose minds we can’t get inside?

            I think Romero knows he’s doing this and it’s a theme movies going into the future will continue to play on. To the point where in Land of the Dead (2005), the 4^th installment of Living Dead movies man by Romero, the zombies can think and plan coordinated attacks on humans who are too busy living luxury lifestyles to pay attention to zombie activities and the activities of the poor. These movies Romero made are set in a world that is meant to get us thinking about the human race on the whole. If we are any different from the zombies we are claim to not be. Do we just walk around serving our basic needs? Is anything we do actually worth doing when we will all die anyway? What is human and what is zombie? These questions are purposefully not answered by Romero in his films in order to make us ponder the questions ourselves.