Ryan's Journal

I rather unexpectedly caught the first hour of Dawn of the Dead on cable the other day, and in a shocking turn of events found it to be an entirely enjoyable film. I suppose there's something direly important to be said about how someone who once couldn't handle the sight of blood now treats little zombie girls chewing on geysering necks as necessary plot development. That's not really what we're here to discuss. The premise that a zombifying virus could effectively take over the entire world in a mere number of days is not so hard to imagine, and I guess one archetypal goal of such films is to inspire a camaraderie of survival against plausible and increasingly bleak odds. (When I say plausible, I mean in a suspension of disbelief sort of possibility; imagine a world where zombies exist - then...) Dawn is the director's first film, starring mostly independent film actors or otherwise non-stars, a B-movie homage on a more A-/B+ budget.

I also watched War of the Worlds, a film with similar pretenses and presumably an infinitely larger supply of financial backing, directorial talent, and acting megapower. It occured to me that drawing a comparison should be manifestly unfair, but, really, not because Worlds was better.

While in this case the world conquerors were otherworldly instead of undead, the sense was the same - flee anywhere your heart takes you, yet no place is safe, for the evil tripedal alien race will either vaporize, crush, eviscerate, or feed on you. Here the similarities ended. Clearly the design and budget for computer effects in Worlds was astronomical, a shame since the return on investment was minimal. Once again, Hollywood puts form over substance to ill effect. Aside from the terrible acting and unbelievable story turns (Spielberg! Let the protagonists die every once in a while!), War of the Worlds is mostly an inspiration to depression; hordes of people are massacred in new and increasingly repulsive ways, and you never find a way to care about the characters you're forced to follow.

Even though the two are essentially the same at a plot level (and Worlds should really be billed as Horror, not Sci-Fi/Fantasy), their execution couldn't have been any more different. Zombies made the experience fun while aliens made it unbearable.

So stick with zombies. Friday Flicks attendees, guess what's coming up real soon in the queue?

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