Zombies: Bringing the past and present back from the grave

Night of the Living Dead.  Land of the dead.  Both of these movies could be explained in just one word: ZOMBIES!  These two flicks, although from different times, they have stood the test of time to come out as great, gorey flicks that inspire and excite the monster in all of us.  Whether it is the plot, the gore or simply the zombie makeup, these movies are the basis for all zombie lovers. 

Without the horrific genius of Mr. George A Romero, we wouldn’t have zombie movies to begin with.  His creativity and eye for detail make his zombies movies the best and are an inspiration for zombie film makers.  I find that what makes these movies fantastic are my three criteria for a gorey good time: plot, acting and makeup.  So sit back relax and lets take a journey into the zombie filled world.

In the beginning, there was 1968’s Night of the Living Dead.  I believe this movie may have had simple yet humble beginings as a monster flick, but it set the standards for future zombie movies.  The plot was simple yet horrifying.  A group of people flee to a home from the undead.  The undead have risen from their graves and death due to radiation from Venus.  The dead crave only one thing: flesh.  This kind of suspense, not knowing if the main characters would survive the horde of zombies, made NOLD a classic.  I think a pivotal scene in the movie was the basement scene. This rocketed the movie into horror history, and gave Mr. Romero his legendary status.  As we see the father get shot, he stumbles down the basement stairs and dies.  As the mother follows him to see if he was ok, the audience finds their daughter feasting on her fathers innards.  As the audience can tell the daughter has become one of the undead.  The daughter comes toward her mother, with a garden shovel, and begins to kill her.  I love how even the littliest creature could hold such power and kill without any feeling.  The only way of killing the zombies were to burn it, shoot it in the head or a massive blow to the head.  

When it came to acting for zombies, there really wasnt much to do.  Romero gave us the quinticental zombie act.  The undead would moan, due to their vocal cords dying off with the rest of their body.  They would move very slowly, as if they are walking due to their limbs stiffening after death.  They also wouldn’t drag their bodies as they walked.  These zombies were the slow moaning type and set a base for which future movie makers could work off of

As for makeup, NOLD zombies were very simple.  Since this was a black and white movie, the makeup looked to be no makeup to pale in face with some darkened eyes.  Most of the zombies didn’t look to have any decomposition or sign of death.  The blood was only seen when the zombies would eat.

Nearly 40 years later, George makes another fantastic zombie flick named Land of the Dead.  This takes place in a world full of zombies, never naming as to what caused the zombie outbreak, but simply everyone is surviving the world now.   What made this movie stand out for me was that the zombies weren’t just killing.  Oh no, they were thinking and uniting together to fight and kill off the humans. This movie is just chuck full of gore, zombies and zombie killing galore.  In this movie, compared to NOLD, there were more ways to kill a zombie.  Fireworks were used as a distraction so the civilians could get supplies without be ripped to shreads by those lovable zombies.  I can name so many ways that the zombies were killed, but there are just way too many.  Some of them included shooting off the head, cross bow right through the brain, machete off the head and the good old shot through the head.  I think a great scene in this movie was with a nod to Dawn of the Dead, Pillsbury, a huge burly soldier and Riley, the hero who doesn’t want to hear a person’s story, approach a hummer without a roof.  As they go for the weapons stashed in the car, Pillsbury flashes his flashlight and they see zombies eating and picking off the flesh of the latest kill.  I think this is fantastic how Romero takes scenes from his past movies and reworks them into a brand new way.  

As for the zombie acting, Romero does it again!  He has evolved his slow moaning zombie into a fast, vicious, thinking zombie.  From just being able to move slowly, these zombies are more than that.  They begin to unite and think and use what skills they had before they died.  Big Daddy, the head zombie, sees the pain and death of his fellow zombies and begins to do something about the onslaught.  He unites his fellow zombies, and even communicates with them, to march forth to the city.  With weapons in hands, the zombies now are ready to fight off the living.  I think that these zombies dont want to bother with anyone, but find there own paradise, as are the humans.  In a sense, zombies and humans are looking just for a place to call their own.

With the makeup in this movie, it has far surpassed the makeup of NOLD.  From the days of old, where have white makup and blackened out eyes could make you look like a zombie, LOD has evolved the zombie makeup process.  Zombies now have contact lenses that vary from a glazed look to red outer rims of the eyes.  Zombies now look more medically dead, making the look more realistic, with realistic decompostion.  The look isn’t just relied on makeup, but now the look uses latex based scars and wounds called prosthetics.  As with NOLD, blood wasn’t used very much on the actor.  Now, the blood runs like a river on the actors.  Blood is used everywhere from the mouth to inside the wound to even coming out of the head.  Makeup has evolved to the artists imagination.  No more black and white makeup.  The audience craves more blood and gore and cooler looking zombies

So as you can see, these two are rooted in monster movie history as the past and beginning point of zombies to the future point for zombies.  

• Posted by ColleenJones
• Posted in Uncategorized