The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Monday, August 06, 2007

Argument Of The Dead

Andrew Clarke thinks Land Of The Dead, George A Romero's 4th entry into the zombie genre he all but created with 1969's Night Of The Living Dead, sucks. Doug Slack thinks Andrew Clarke is a fucking idiot. It is on.

Doug: Don't know what your beef is, but here's why it doesn't suck:

It's easy to fault LOTD for it's obvious metaphors and some cliched horror movie set-ups. But the series was never subtle. We're talking about an over-the-top, end of the world, eat your face kind of story. If anything LOTD looks downright subtle compared to 28 Days Later and James Gunn's (superawesome) Dawn Of The Dead remake. And yet, once again, George manages to subvert the cliches he helped establish. He actually has the gall to make the flesh-eating zombies not just sympathetic, but actual heroes. They are no longer clueless consumers or sad little domesticated creatures. They are punk rock rebels smashing the state and claiming their turf. Surely even you can see how this follows Romero's "They're us!" philosophy to it's logical conclusion.

Andrew: You're right, of course, Doug, it is easy to criticise the obvious metaphors and cliched horror movie set ups, and that's because they are awful. But we can get to problems in implementation later. I want to start with problems of conception and you start your foolish, doomed defence with the film's most obvious failing: the zombies. Puny human, you have played right into my hands!

The political subtext is usually the first thing offered up when placing Romero above the genre hacks that surrounded and followed him. But I argue that the more overtly political the films become, the further away from their strengths they move.

What are zombies about? Death. This wave of personality-less, mindless monsters move slowly and inexorably towards you as you try increasingly frantically to avoid it. They are slow and few at the beginning, making them easy to avoid, but you will get tired and they will keep coming until they inevitably overwhelm you. There is no escape. This is the fear of death, and it underpins the idea of the zombie movie as set up by Romero (with survivors in an enclosed space surrounded by the monsters).

Political readings of NOTLD, where the ‘ghouls’ represent the rise of minorities against the ruling, abusive, complacent majority, rest upon this more elemental bedrock of the fear of death.

Thus, as the zombies become overt, deliberately comical, representations of consumer addiction in Dawn and end up as talking, unionised, working class heroes in Land, they lose exactly the base power of fear that those political interpretations rely on.

But perhaps I am just more scared of death than of black people. I don’t live in Mississippi, after all.

Here’s the point: when the zombies are just these blank expressions of nothing, we can read our fears onto them. When the political reading is made crudely and unambiguously specific, in the form of talking bloody zombies, the fear and the power are lost. LOTD is the work of someone who watched NOTLD and got it wrong.

So, all this political nonsense merely renders LOTD a horror movie that isn’t scary.

Doug: Your criticisms would have been dead on if only you hadn't missed the entire point of the film. If anything, you've bolstered my argument.

Yes, up until now Romero's zombies have been a source of fear. No matter what other soicopolitical metaphors one could hang on them, they always represented the universal fear of death. But like I said before, Romero has subverted his own cliche. They are no longer death. They are now the future. They strike terror only in the hearts of evil cigar smoking republicans who do indeed fear black men more than they fear death. More to the point, these entitled white folks fear change. They fear anything that threatens their status quo. That's what makes the assault on Fiddlers Green (an echo of Poe's Masque of Red Death and EC comics) so triumphant. Sure there's carnage and chaos and much gnashing of teeth, but revolution is never pretty. That's what makes LOTD so punk rock.

You see Andrew, what your missing is this- Land is not a horror movie. It's a sci-fi allegory. Emphasis on the gory.

Andrew: Ok, so you're characterising the move as 'undermining the cliches' and I'm characterising the movie as 'forgetting what made it work', and I will admit I am personally disappointed by the move away from primal horror. Criticism of a film should not be based on what you want it to be, but on what it actually is, so I guess we can agree to disagree on that point, even though I am currently flipping you the finger.

So LOTD is not a horror movie anymore - fine. What the hell is it, then? If it is a political allegory, it is not fit to lick Animal Farm's trotters.

Its main thesis is nothing more than 'rich white people are bad' and doesn't seem to develop it at all. What possible bite can it have when the various characters are broad-stoke painted out of any relevance? Dennis Hopper could be a representation of the moral values of the ruling establishment, but he is also indistinguishable from a stock 'slimy, double-dealing asshole' character that appears in countless other genre movies that don't have pretensions to political heft.

In fact, the gross simplicities of the film work against the allegory. If the zombies are 'us', to the point of almost being the heroes, what does it say that they are still portrayed as a shambling, only barely conscious, mob, capable only of inarticulate howls and violence to express itself? It's a very right-wing conception of a working class rebellion. A right-winger might find it scary, but how patronising of us (do-gooder liberals) to cheer on the 'them' - the stupid underclass, finally getting a glimmer of thought in their stupid heads. And which of this 'underclass' would proudly identify themselves with these zombies? I bet they'd rather be a running zombie.

I'm sure it's not deliberate, and merely an unforeseen result of keeping the original conception of zombies (slow, stupid, individually weak) intact out of tradition or brand recognition, but it does not speak well of the political acuity of the movie.

So, no, it is not a horror movie and, if it is to be a political allegory, it is far too basic to have bite.

No, what it really is, deep down, is a remake of Damnation Alley, starring that bloke from Airwolf. LOTD is a crappy DTV action movie.

Doug: I agree Romero is painting in broad strokes here. He's ignoring so many details that contribute to class division in this country and saying "Fuck this, let's just go to Canada where they have socialized medicine and you can get all the Neosporine you want without having to raid the slums of ZombieTown." But again, subtlety was never his forte nor his intent. Perhaps you think the direction he takes in LOTD requires more subtlety than "LOL! Zombies in the mall!". Perhaps you're right. But that's unlikely, as you're nothing more than a lute strumming faux intellectual. But I digress.

The representation of the impoverished disenfranchised as snarling zombies could indeed be insulting. But only if you assume they need to adapt to our or Dennis Hopper's standards of behavior to earn respect. I would say their culture (for lack of a better word) is irrelevant. All we need to respect is their desire to simply co-exist in society. Let's not blow them to pieces with our Mad Max tank, let's let them stake their own claim in this world simply because they deserve it as much as anyone else. Of course, their "culture" includes eating people, so that might get awkward.

Andrew: And this, I think, is the problem. He's ignoring so many details, but it's OK because he's deliberately being crude. We must respect the zombies, but they're still murdering animals.

While watching the film again, I found myself making so many exceptions and 'yeah, buts' I finally decided that I was just involved in apologia. There isn't any subversion of cliche here, only the cliche.

The opening credits have knock-off Se7en stylistic ticks over crappy hard rock, but that's OK because it's just to sucker in the kids and appease the demographic hungry, trend following studio.

The characters are thin, stereotypical and never developed, but that's OK because they are genre archetypes being used to set up political allegory.

The political allegory is basic and confused, but that's OK because it's supposed to be bold and simple.

You've got characters doing stupid stuff and frequent uninspired horror set ups - the kid with the skateboard waiting at the docks being the main one that comes to mind - but that's OK because, hey it's still a genre film and we can forgive this stuff, right?

The cheesy, stunt cameos are OK because...of some reason or other.

Asia Argento never once gets her tits out but that's OK because...?

All this added up until I felt I was excusing everything and enjoying very little.

Plus the fact that he is no longer using an iconic horror template to build his Subversive Political Allegory TM on but a crappy action movie template, complete with dirtbikes, big guns and a toyline-ready A-Team truck.

I got to the point where I wasn't getting anything else out of it but that crappy action movie. It was very much a case of the emperor's new clothes, compounded by the expectation that this is something 'more' than normal genre gruel, made by a master.

So - maybe I don't see the power or the fun in the broad strokes political stuff. Or maybe there's fun somewhere else that I'm missing. I'll stop ranting and ask where the joy is. What have I missed?

Doug: You know, when I showed this to my wife on DVD she had the same criticisms. Of course, hers were delivered much more succinctly.

"This movie" she said, "...sucks."

She actually had to pause the film to deliver her judgment. It was the scene in the armory when our heroes are getting suited up and trash talking and yeah it's the worst scene in the entire movie and whatever. By then it was too much for her to bear. She couldn't make all the allowances you talk about. I guess Land Of The Dead is where you separate the women from the hardcore geeks.

Andrew: Can I have your wife's number, Doug? Maybe I can get some ice-cream and watch a PG-13 horror with her.

It seems you are saying that, yes, it is kind of balls, but it's Romero, I grew up with him and it has zombies and loads of guts so just leave me alone, OK?

I actually can't touch that. It's kind of pure.

Now, if it wasn't Romero, and if it didn't receive such ready love, I wouldn't be so hard on it, so there's definitely some geek politics in my criticism - it would still be a bad film, but one with a lot of grue and that zips along without getting too boring.

Whether it is because he got old, his glasses got too big or he just couldn't be bothered, Romero is only important by reputation now, not by ability. I'm putting my money on his upcoming Diary Of The Dead being right duff.

Doug (looks up "duff"): How dare you!

I'm positive Romero will pull another grueling tale of terror from one of his many, many vest pockets.

Andrew: In the amazing tradition of Blair Witch! Starring teenagers! Canadian ones!

If I'm wrong I promise I'll eat badly refrigerated pig guts.

Doug: May I remind you of another film Romero made in the woods on a shoe string budget? A film that predates Blair Witch by 30 years. A film called Night Of The Living Dead!

Andrew: Oooooo! I see what you did there! But I'm fairly certain reminding people of Night Of The Living Dead won't make Diary look any better. Night is a classic, which means that, even if Diary is pretty good, it will never have that same 'aura' as Night and will only ever look like some crappy digital video compared to, I don't know, a real film. And has there been a clever-clever meta concept horror movie that has worked?

I actually believe that Romero doesn't much care for zombies, but it's the only way he can get funding for movies. After Land flopped (according to Hollywood standards), he had to go much lower budget, and is hiding that behind rhetoric of 'doing it completely his way, with no interference'. Colour me suspicious. Also the meta-concept just feels like someone trying to distance himself from the actual zombies as much as he can, making a film about anything other than the zombies he knows he is tied to forever.

Doug: Scream worked. And so did The Tingler (Wherein Vincent Price implored the audience to SCREAM FOR IT'S LIFE!), in it's own way.

I've actually met and spoken with Romero before. He strikes me as a laid back hippy type. His refusal to play Hollywood politics doesn't seem to be entirely rooted in some kind of artistic ethos. I saw a guy who has no natural talent for networking and no desire to learn. His portfolio also attests to this attitude. So I have a hard time believing the man is just going for a calculated rip-off/cash-in. Especially at this point in his career.

Or maybe I just have a man crush on him. That ponytail can melt your socks.

Andrew: You've met him? That's not fair! And extremely cool! How big are his glasses? How much hair is coming out of his ears?

Doug: They were like two giant panes of reinforced windows, the kind they install in airports.

This was a few years back. He was appearing at a college for a showing of Night Of The Living Dead (a video projection in an AP hall) followed by a Q&A. Sadly, not a big turnout. He talked to the audience a bit and asked if we wouldn't like to see his new film, Bruiser, instead. Of course we would! So he actually pulled a video tape out of his sweater pocket and gave it to the "projectionist". This was actually the best environment in which to see Bruiser - with Romero and his fans- since the film is... not great. Afterward we were asked to move the Q&A to the student lounge area. There was a showing of What Lies Beneath scheduled next for this room and it would take awhile to add extra seats for the crowd outside. Romero, some kind of geek pied piper, led our meager group out of the auditorium and past a giant line of students eager to see the Hollywood horror blockbuster. Sometimes life provides the best metaphors.

So then we just hung out on some comfy chairs and shot the shit about movies, the industry, and Italian food.

And THAT'S why Land Of The Dead doesn't suck.

Andrew: I am defeated.