First 48 Filmography
Here are some case studies about the first 48 hours of a zombie outbreak:
Night
of the Living Dead
Classic negative example. Not
understanding the nature of the threat, they all hole up in the same farmhouse
and practically end up killing each other before the zombies even get to them. Rookie
mistake.
LESSON: Don’t fortify unless you
possess the resources and resolve to withstand a zombie siege.
Dawn
of the Dead (original and remake)
They try to fortify a mall, which
is one of the least defensible places on the planet. Death wish. Malls are
designed to let in as many people as possible, stupid!
LESSON: People in glass houses
will be eaten first.
Day
of the Dead
Civvie Scientists shack up with
military wackoes who take over and cast out anyone who opposes their rule.
LESSON: Guys with guns are useful
when zombies attack, but represent a whole other threat in their absence.
Return
of the Living Dead
Hoping to be rescued, they call
for help and the military nukes the town. Points for understanding the scope of
the problem, but getting out of town would have been better.
LESSON: Do not trust authority.
At best they will defend the greater good and at worst they’ll want to kill all
witnesses.
Resident
Evil
Realizing that they’ve released
the zombie plague into their lab, they seal the building off and try to kill
everyone in it.
LESSON: Corporate interests will
take priority over rescue operations, but that doesn’t matter because containment
is always impossible.
Rec
(and Quarantine)
A camera isn’t kryptonite to
something that wants to eat you. In Rec (and
its American counterpart Quarantine)
the film crew shows up for something else and ends up being the first
responders to an outbreak of demon rabies.
This happens in Diary of the Dead too (which is just Romero’s
pass at the POV filmmaking style): The first to die is a news cameraman.
This is the containment rule as
it pertains to authority again. The government will either want to harness the
virus to weaponize it or they’ll want to eradicate it for the public good. In
either case they just kill everyone.
LESSON: Curiosity kills. The best
defense is to not be there when the outbreak happens.
House
of the Dead
24 hour party people get into a
gun shipment and go John Woo on the lumbering dead, but eventually they get surrounded
and have to hole up in a mausoleum.
Making a stand never ends well;
eventually you’re just going to end up in a zombie pirate sword fight. Might
sound like fun, but it’s actually just really really stupid.
LESSON: All video game movies
suck. There will never be an exception to this rule. Also, all Uwe Boll movies
suck. Unless they have Dolph Lundgren in them. He makes everything awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment