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Featured Article:
John Reppion gives us a fascinating account of the history of the zombie mythos throughout the world with amazing artwork by Abby Perry.
-click here to read the full article-
A review by D. R. Shimon
So here I am, it’s a wet and windy Tuesday night in Central London,
and I have arrived, by hook or by crook, at the Barbican to review four
days of zombietastic, blood-spattered cinematic delights. After the mammoth
task of actually finding the cinema (via a series of tunnels and corridors
so labyrinthine one might be forgiven for believing them to be part of
some kind of Giger installation, with views of what appears to be a triffid-filled
conservatory just screaming out for someone plunging through glass to
their untimely death), and having the besuited Barbie attendants attempting
to effectively mug me to the tune of 3 quid for a bag of choccies, I pick
up my tickets and finally settle into my seat.
They don’t give people much time to get here- 8’0 clock box
office, 8.30 start- but it soon becomes apparent there’s no need
for panic, as people are still ambling casually in ten minutes past that
supposed starting time. One of them, a smart thirtysomething American
dude in fetching jacket and jeans combo, with the kind of hair that screams
“New York stand-up” is Max Brooks, son of Mel, and author
of the acclaimed Zombie Survival Guide. He’s the reason we’re
all here this week, as his second novel ‘World War Z’ is about
to be launched by Duckworth Books and has already been the subject of
a bidding war between Brad Pitt and Lenny DiCaprio’s production
companies over filming rights (the Bradster won, by the way).
Max doesn’t just love zombies: he lives, breathes and sleeps them,
their myth providing endless daily inspiration and quite clearly much
enjoyment. He says these films terrify him- but I get the feeling that
fun is also a major part of the appeal. And what could be more fun than
starting the week’s entertainment with that paragon of the genre,
George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead ? There is obviously little
I could say about this film that the dedicated (or even casual) horror
watcher wouldn’t already know, but the great thing about such an
established classic is that every time you watch it you pick up on something
new that didn’t occur to you before. For those of you who aren’t
familiar with this seminal work, however, maybe I should mention- what
the hell, I like writing about it as much as I love watching it- how from
the opening frames it rewrites the whole language of horror cinema for
a subsequent generation, and how without it the whole genre would be a
poorer place.
Aside from destroying the concept of hero and heroine from the very get-go,
Romero also managed to remove half of the extraneous plot build-up that
had been the stable fodder of the terror movie: the entire film takes
place in situ, with every piece of action happening there and then before
your very eyes. The use of a radio announcement (“stay in your homes!!”)
echoes the sci-fi mutant potboilers of the preceding seventeen years,
but is in actuality an updating of Hammer’s foreboding coachman:
in the world of Night, however, more people actually sit up and take notice
and the threat is very very real. And unlike the films which preceded
and influenced it, it offers no safety cushion in the form of any well-known
thespian personalities: leading actor Duane Jones was not only largely
unknown to cinemagoers at the time, but more importantly he was black.
Which means, of course, that his character, Ben- the closest thing Romero
provides to a hero- is also black.
Whether or not he cast Jones with any social point in mind is irrelevant:
the fact is, he did, and in doing so opened the doors for subsequent moviemakers
to use as unconventional a hero as they wished. Not ONCE during the film
is Ben’s colour mentioned, even when he barks orders at the unctuous
Mr Cooper (Karl Hardman, playing one of the great nobendie tossers of
horror history) and informs everyone trapped in the desolate farmhouse
that he is now in charge. No “love interest” ever forms betwixt
hero and heroine either: Barbara remains fully clothed throughout, and
remains in a catatonic trance for most of the movie, only occasionally
uttering lines of gibberish which allow the viewer to identify with her
less than one should. Her major contribution as a character is that of
being the first blonde girl to be pursued through American woodland by
her would-be assailant, pre- Marilyn Burns, pre- Adrienne King, pre anyone.
And that’s just one of many “firsts” that originate
here: zombies being killed by being shot in the head, zombies being real
everyday people as opposed to those entranced by some kind of voodoo,
and most significantly the idea that there is absolutely NO EXPLANATION
for what is happening until at least three quarters of the way through
(although here Romero drops a slight clanger by resorting to Siodmak/Lourie-style
“atomic radiation” as the answer) These days we wouldn’t
even think twice if that happened: imagine how it jolted them out of their
seats back then. Compare it to Britain’s major horror hit of the
same year, Terence Fisher’s The Devil Rides Out- admittedly, my
own personal favourite horror film of all time, but light years behind
by comparison in terms of construction and theme.
Aside from a couple of “because it says so in the script”
moments, such as throwing a gun away after shooting a ghoul (notice the
“z” word isn’t mentioned once), or stupidly setting
the wheels of one’s own getaway vehicle on fire (PILLOCK!!), Romero
‘s thousand-dollar debut is still flawless. One can feel the tension
build with every moment, from the time ‘flesh eating’ is first
mentioned right up to the time we first see it, to that killer ending
where no-one (save a few rednecks we haven’t seen before) is left
alive and the most damning final line of dialogue ever heard in a horror
movie of any kind is uttered. It would be too easy to see it as just another
B-movie from the glory days of America’s monochrome suburban nightmare:
rather, it ends one era and heralds the start of another. Sure, it’s
not original in every way (there are references to earlier movies such
as Devil Girl From Mars and Invasion throughout, as well as several Westerns,
and I’m pretty sure there was at least one film before where hands
come through a window) but look at every film that took a siege setting,
from Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 through to Haneke’s
Funny Games, as a result- not to mention the growth in popularity of the
zombie movie itself. Essentially an amateur production, shot for a pittance
by a hippie who didn’t (unfortunately for him) understand the concept
of “ownership rights”, NOTLD is proof that sometimes the fans
(which is what Romero remains at heart) do know what’s best after
all. Max Brooks is also a fan, and he knows full well the importance of
the movie, as his informative post-movie questionnaire with Nigel Floyd
shows, although it should be stressed that Floyd, who dropped an obvious
bollock early on by referring to Barbara as “Dorothy”, was
the less interesting of the two. In between answering several questions
with a ready wit and innate likeability, Brooks points out: “What’s
scary about these guys is you don’t go to them, they come to you.
If you get bitten by a vampire, the chances are you put yourself in that
position by being there in the first place, and you probably did something
to deserve it. With zombies, they come to your environment and fuck you
up, and even if you can run faster, you’re gonna eventually be outta
breath, and they’re gonna keep moving”. I couldn’t have
summed it up better myself.
Brooks wasn’t present for the screening of Wednesday’s entertainment,
a beautifully scratchy print of Zombies: Dawn Of The Dead (Argento’s
117- minute cut, of course, rather than the director’s preferred
140) shown in the slightly larger (and considerably darker) Cinema 2.
Obviously, this is now as famous as, if not more than, its predecessor,
so again, I’ll spare you from a full description of what happens
herein, suffice to say that ten years have passed (we’re now in
colour, for one thing, and black characters are now advanced enough to
appear as newscasters in the opening reel), and the dead are still refusing
to lay down. This time the budget is higher, the corpses are everywhere
and the carnage is actually quite revolting- but most importantly of all,
the dead now have a modus operandi (the spread of a blood plague) and
a purpose, and that purpose is to go shopping. “Something in their
memories has brought them here”, remarks Romero’s second great
black hero, Peter (Ken Foree) to an admittedly more developed heroine
(Gaylen Ross), and it has- the urge to consume, to purchase, to be surrounded
by shiny comestibles. It’s ingrained in us from an early age- why
should it leave when we die? The (once more) enclosed setting allows for
far more of an ‘action movie’ than before, but beneath its
gun-toting splatter-drenched surface lies what probably remains the most
scathing cinematic comment on society of the late 20th century- at least
by an American director. Remember, even spam has its own key.
Although the zombies are talked about from the very start, they still
don’t appear till quite some way in, by which time the director
has introduced us to his four principal players- although it should be
said they remain the one chink in the film’s otherwise impeccable
armour, lacking as they do in any back story or singificant emotional
focus. Still, with the apocalypse around the corner, who cares about the
past? There might not even be a future. If there is, it’s not so
much orange but a kind of orangey-grey, the colour scheme of the cinematography
and sets reflecting the end of an era of sci-fi paranoia perfectly in
a manner not dissimilar to Piers Haggard’s contemporaneous Quatermass
Conclusion. In fact, Romero’s screenplay mirrors the late great
Nigel Kneale’s visionary apocalyptica in several ways, not least
of all the way in which human beings are sublimated into huge congregating
masses and then destroyed. Both writers depict authority as useless- but
whereas Kneale’s scientists attempt to address the issues with insight,
Romero’s TV professor, addressing a studioful of disgruntled survivors,
is unsympathetic and unsympathising.
Of course, there’s a fair bit of back peddling involved to explain
away some of the preceding film’s unanswered questions (in particular
the idea that “even animals can use weapons”), and the usage
of mobile phones would render the plot unworkable today, but it’s
still pretty obvious that we are watching a masterpiece. Every scene is
an exercise and lesson in the deployment and employment of tension, from
the truck chase and Scott Reiniger’s subsequent ill-fated attempt
at bag retrieval (don’t go back for anything!! Ever!! Haven’t
you read the book already?), through the mildly diverting (yet still gravitas-laden)
games of basketball and ice-skating, up to the establishment of some kind
of society and residence within the mall which is ultimately threatened,
not by the zombies, but by the intervention of other living people- led
of course by Tom Savini. Herein lies the greatest question the film poses
(no, not whether or not Peter and Stephen take turns on Francine)- namely,
who has the greater right to ownership, the right to kill, the right to
survive? Is being shot by your fellow man any better than being eaten
alive? And in the end, does it make one iota of difference? As Foree says,
“They’re just us”.
It isn’t flawless- some of the zombie actors (particularly the Hare
Krishna) overplay to the point of parody, the flesh-eating sometimes looks
unintentionally cartoonish, Goblin’s score sometimes errs on the
wrong side of cheese (unlike the perfectly executed and timely use of
recurrent library muzak) and the ghost of Manson still hovers over the
proceedings in the form of Savini’s desperado bike gang, most of
whom look like members of Blue Oyster Cult. Not to mention the scene where,
after spending a decade being lauded for introducing progressive black
characters into exploitation cinema, Romero undoes all his work in two
minutes flat by having Foree dress up as a waiter whilst Ross and David
Emge eat a civilised lunch….Mind you, the (again cliché-free)
ending changes all that by posing new questions, but I’m not going
to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I get the feeling, though,
that if you’re reading this, you probably have!!
Thursday
was a strictly no-film night (either the cinemas were all prebooked for
something else or they just couldn’t locate enough prints) so I
returned somewhat refreshed for the screening I had been looking forward
to the most, Conor McMahon’s almost brand new Irish shocker Dead
Meat (2004). Not that I would for one moment denigrate or take away anything
from either Romero or the Japanese directors that were to follow the subsequent
evening, but as a fan of British/Irish cinema above all, and someone keen
to support the genre in these admittedly difficult times, it was this
already acclaimed new addition to the canon I was itching to see, having
missed it at at least two festivals already. I wasn’t disappointed.
Bleak and beautifully shot, with cinematography that for once doesn’t
jump around all over the buggering place (see Wolf Creek, 28 Days Later,
Dog Soldiers and practically every sodding movie shot in the last ten
years) and a plotline that owes more to The Living Dead At Manchester
Morgue, Brain Dead, The Evil Dead or even Hammer House Of Horror episodes
than the usual influences, McMahon’s third film as director is an
absolute delight after the last five years’ worth of post 9/11 gun-toting
drivel that has emanated from these isles. And before you ask, no, it’s
nothing like Rawhead Rex, but maybe even that would have been preferable
than having to sit through Deathwatch or The Bunker again…
Despite the silliness on paper of the opening scene, in which a farmer
is eaten alive by an infected cow, onscreen it’s amazingly effective,
and it’s this fairly logical premise (taking the idea of CJD and
BSE to its natural conclusion) that sets the film apart from so many of
today’s efforts. The next frame features a man with considerable
hair and immense prog-rock beard (a bit like me actually) crossing country
with his slinky Spanish beau (Marian Araujo), so that gets my vote for
a start. He’s not the hero though: he’s attacked and infected
within five minutes, thus pulling the safety rug right from underneath
you like all imaginative horror films should. The hero is actually Desmond
(the unknown but amazingly effective David Muyllaert), a local farmer
who la Araujo runs into (quite literally) after dispatching her errant
zombie lover with a handy vacuum cleaner: the first of many imaginative
and creative “aaarg blood deaths” that push the film a cut
above the norm. Muyllaert is underrated, restrained and amazingly believable:
one wonders if he was an actual farmer plucked by McMahon from County
Leitrim’s rolling landscapes. On the downside, Araujo is not a fantastic
heroine: it is difficult to sympathise with her character, as one imagines
that she would be very difficult to live with and that having one’s
eyeballs sucked out with a hoover might be preferable by comparison: on
the other hand, maybe that just means she’s a fantastic actress.
She does tend sometimes to witter a la Maria De Madeiros in Pulp Fiction,
but on the other hand she despatches her assailants with stiletto heels
(interesting and original death no.2) in a way that shows genuine grit
and balls- even if the SFX involved don’t actually work as well
as they should. The makeup doesn’t quite come off either, but considering
what budget McMahon must have been working on, you have to applaud the
effort involved.
Other clever touches include some genuinely disgusting flesh-schlurping,
coupled with a clever intercut into a closeup of a babbling brook: plus
an ability to convey genuine revulsion and repugnance that Danny Boyle’s
pretentious big budget epic never managed. A bit further into the plot
and we meet a quite obvious joke character (Eoin Whelan) and his creepy
wife, both of whom you’re just itching to see cop it from the off,
some zombie Goths and gypsies, a distressed child who proves to be ultimately
distressing, and some even scarier ones in party hats, see “death
by golf ball”, and divert slightly into homage with a mention of
“rescue centres” and some Shaun-style spoofery: we also see
(or rather hear) the most effective use of pitch black in a film that
I have yet encountered, followed by the one thing scarier than a zombie:
a scarecrow. Shudder. Admittedly, the final denouement, which takes place
in a deserted castle fortress, is not as effective or well-handled as
it could have been, but it does imbue a sense of genuine terror in the
viewer that many “splatter” directors overlook (not to mention
featuring two Peter Cushing tributes in two minutes: see if you spot them)
and bodes well for its directors’ future use of location for dramatic
effect. The long awaited surprise never comes: obviously I won’t
tell you what does happen either, but one thing I wish hadn’t is
the execrably cheesy theme tune (like bad Dio with a mild cyberpunk tinge)
which ruins what is otherwise an admirable movie. Still, he’ll learn.
For all my plaudits, however, I should point out that this, the only night
showing a largely unseen film not from either the US or the Far East,
was the most poorly attended of the week- which says something very sad
about the continued apathy of today’s audiences.
Finally we reach Friday and the double bill most had been waiting for.
Tetsuro Takaeuchi ‘s surf rock’n’roll sleazefest Wild
Zero and Ryuhei Kitamura’s Yakuza-based actioner Versus, both released
in 2000, are both Japanese zombie movies, but about as far from each other
in atmosphere and attitude as it’s possible to be. The former is
actually a vehicle for Japan’s premier garage rawk gods Guitar Wolf
(yes, they are real), a band comprised of their titular frontman plus
his ultra-cool compadres Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf. He fights zombies with
everything from a sawn-off to a shower of plectrums: they stand there
combing their pompadours like Elvis ’68. Brilliant. Along the way,
they encounter their greatest fan Ace (Mashashi Endo) and imbue him with
the powers of “LLOCK AND LOLLL!” which give him the courage
to fight the aliens who are turning the world’s population into
zomboids (well, of course they are) and rescue his true love Tobio (Kwancharu
Shitichai) from danger. The only trouble is, in doing so he has to face
something he may find more unimaginable than alien zombies itself…I
won’t spoil it, but let’s just say it touches on areas that
would have once been unimaginable in Eastern cinema, and are still pretty
unusual now. There’s also a genuine love between two other progenitors
that lasts even after becoming members of the living dead, a goddess in
very short business skirts, and a camp nightclub owner to die for. I would
advise you all to see it.
Versus, on the other hand, is about five different genres collapsed into one, and all the more fascinating for it. It’s a yakuza thriller, it’s a blood- and-guts action flick, it’s a samurai epic, it’s science fiction, it’s a zombie splatterfest. Some may say that the hero looks a little too like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix: some describe it as “Reservoir Dogs in a forest” It’s all these things and more, although 100 times more entertaining than the Wachowski brothers’ tedious big-budget wankfest, and with some genuinely offbeat dramatis personae. For one thing, the Yakuzas are so far removed from the archetype it’s sometimes difficult to believe they would be in any way threatening without their weapons- which is of course the whole point, as they discover they have unwittingly dumped several of their hit victims in The Forest Of Resurrection, which turns them into vengeful zombies (of course) and the “girl” they have kidnapped is a spirit older than time itself who has come to lead them to their destiny. One of them wears designer sweaters and leather trousers, is about three feet tall, and spends most of the 120-minute run time going completely postal, shitting himself and screaming like a girl. One of them (Kazuhito Ohba) has long floppy hair and Lennon specs, and has blood all over his face for much of his screen duration. One looks like a Karate transvestite. And their leader (Kenji Matsura), who ends up as the most super-animated, gibbering, comedic high-speed zombie of all time, dresses like Peter Wyngarde. There’s also a girl with red hair who revitalises and turns into an armour-plated lunatic when ‘The Man’ drinks blood from her neck, and two comedy cops/prison guards (searching for our hero, who is on the run at the commencement of proceedings) with a line in totally Roger Irrelevant- style jokes about Mike Tyson. Again, like Wild Zero, you just have to remember that it’s a Japanese film, and run with it. Any attempt at applying logic to the proceedings will only result in disappointment. I sat glued to my seat, despite a complete lack of sleep the previous evening, right until the last 15 minutes- a protracted and waaaaaaaaaay overloooooooooong fight sequence which is the film’s only downfall, followed by a pointless epilogue that was presumably supposed to lead to several sequels prior to its director ‘going Hollywood’ on us just like his obvious primary influence John Woo.
And then, all of a sudden (after thinking the final reel might NEVER end),
the credits roll and it’s all over. And so, sadly, was the festival.
Although the Barbican’s polished corridors and overpriced bars lent
a distinctly anaemic flavour to the proceedings, and it in no way reflected
the atmosphere of a real film festival ala Manchester’s Festival
Of Fantastic Films (the same people hardly attended from night to night,
for one thing) it was a pleasant way to spend a week (especially after
what has been, for me, a rather shit year) and went a long way to displaying
the sheer breadth and depth of not only the zombie subgenre but horror
itself. Maybe a new kind of universal language? Possibly. It was all down
to one man, though- Max Brooks, self confessed zombie addict and bestselling
author, and the fact that he could be bothered to come to the UK to put
on this event (which surely didn’t make as much money for either
him or Duckworth Books as it did for the Barbican) as almost a labour
of love (not that he’s short of money with his family background,
but you get the drift) is quite inspiring, really. If only there were
more people out there prepared to do it in the UK- or let others do it-
maybe we horror lovers might get somewhere.
We could learn a lot from a genuine enthusiast like Max Brooks. Now all
I have to do is actually read his novels…..oops, was I not supposed
to say that?
D. R. SHIMON