so you're doing homework...for fun?!? [img]confused.gif[/img] [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/whatever.gif[/img]
I just finished a rough, rough draft of a paper called, "The Dead Quadrilogy- Ripped to Pieces" if anyone would like to read it.
It's my thoughts on Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead.
A paper I'd write just for run; it's about 1,300 words.
Mind find it interesting, even if you could give a shit about the subject matter.
so you're doing homework...for fun?!? [img]confused.gif[/img] [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/whatever.gif[/img]
I don't know....sounds like a "dead" subject [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Peeker- an essay on a topic like this IS fun for me. Although don't make the mistake of thinking I'm like with the rest of my schoolwork, because I'm not. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Here it is. I would've put it in a spoiler to conserve space, but I couldn't. [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]
The document I have saved on Word is is much better form than this; all the paragraphs are indented, titles italicized, etc.
Hopefully it's not too biased...
THE DEAD QUADRILOGY
-RIPPED TO PIECES-
If it were not for director George Romero’s 1968 masterpiece Night of the Living Dead, zombies in film would still remain a joke as releases like The Rocky Horror Picture Show made them out to be. Ridiculous living dead stereotypes like “rising from the grave” and the infamous groan, “Braaaaainnnnnns…” would still plague the genre.
In Night, Romero made his undead a force to be reckoned with; a power that uses sheer numbers to overpower, consume, infect, and bring about the end of the human race and is almost impossible to stop. The film depicts the very beginning of the phenomenon, and wisely offers no reason as to why the dead are walking and devouring the living. A diverse band of people take shelter in an abandoned farmhouse, while the scratching and clawing of the undead at the doors and windows becomes ever louder. It was a milestone for its genre. No one had ever seen a film like this at the time and it shocked audiences over and over. Today it remains one of the most influential and important films of its kind.
It took ten years for Romero and his crew to produce a sequel that will be the one and only image of true, horrifying zombie carnage that quickly overtakes our modern society as we know it.
In 1978, perhaps the most disturbingly graphic and shocking motion picture of that era was released. Taking place just hours after the bleak ending of Night of the Living, DAWN OF THE DEAD will infamously be remembered as arguably the best zombie apocalypse film ever made. In the film, the chaos and confusion brought on by the ongoing occurrence has reached boiling point. Broadcasting news studios are shutting down and set-up rescue centers are being ripped to shreds by the walking corpses. The story follows four desperate survivors who just barely escaped from zombie-filled Pittsburgh. They flee in a helicopter and, low on fuel, land on top of a gargantuan shopping mall. Risking their lives to rid the shopping center of the undead, they are able to seal it off, hoping to survive there on the vast wealth of food, clothing, and everything else they could possibly need. While the number of zombies rises just outside the mall doors, the survivors try to go on with life with what they can. But just like the world outside the mall, the one inside is deteriorating, as well. Dawn of the Dead is not just a breakthrough horror film, but also a scathing satire on modern materialism and consumerism. It also touches upon group dynamics (although not nearly as much as its sequel, Day of the Dead) and how the survivors truly need to rely on each other to survive a world which is quickly dissolving and being overrun by the undead. This aspect in itself is fascinating. This time, the audience gets an idea of what possibly could be causing this occurrence; as one character bleakly states, “When there is no more room in Hell, the dead shall walk the Earth.”
Dawn was an astounding success; appraised by both fans and critics – something never before seen with a film like this. It truly put an end to the belief that a zombie movie couldn’t be something worthwhile. Many consider it to be the best of Romero’s four zombie films.
With the hype for Dawn still raging, Day of the Dead was introduced to the world in 1985. Initial box office results were less that satisfactory and people who had hoped for another Dawn were disappointed. There are films that have failed at the beginning of their release, but find a respected spot in cult horror and attain higher respect ten or even fifteen years down the road. Day of the Dead is one of these. The perspective on this film has almost completely turned around, and even George Romero has stated that he considers Day to be his best work.
The film is more talkative and not as violent and fast-paced as Dawn, but that only adds to its own unique beauty. The ones who were originally disappointed only took the film at face value; the group dynamics and powerful military and political undertones weren’t looked into.
Taking place a year or two after the initial outbreak in Night of the Living Dead, Day is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the zombies have completely overrun the living (by about 400,000 to 1, according to a main character in the film). This has forced what little humans remain to find refuge wherever they can. A small group of Army soldiers and government scientists are sheltered in a subterranean bunker in Florida while the dead ominously roam the land above them, seeking warm flesh.
Communications within the base fail to raise anyone else, leaving the survivors to believe they truly are the only ones left alive. There is a fragile relationship between the soldiers and scientists… and the tension between the two groups has just about hit the fan – the scientists feel compelled to find a reason why the dead are walking, and to see if they can somehow being to ‘control’ the situation by performing experiments on captured zombie specimens.
Head of the scientists is Dr. Logan, perhaps the most interesting character in the film. It seems as long as he can provide some results to the soldiers, that fine line between the two will not be broken. But growing ever frustrated, the soldiers just want to survive by, “blowing the piss” out of Logan’s specimens and getting out of there.
“Where will you go?” says Logan. “You can kill my specimens, but what about the millions more just waiting for you outside? Do you really think you can just, ‘blow the piss’ out of them? All of them? No, you have to give us more time…” It is truly a mesmerizing study between the two groups, from the already delicate connection between soldier and scientist, to the finale of the film, where it snaps and all hell truly breaks loose. That being and contrary to popular belief, the zombies in these films are not the main picture, but rather the survivors themselves… and it asks the question: Is surviving this thing really better than becoming one of the undead?
20 years later would come the fourth and final installation of the epic Romero quadrilogy – Land of the Dead. Although not as thought provoking nor analytical as the previous three, Land is an exceptionally dark vision of what Earth and its few human inhabitants would be like about a quarter century after Night of the Living Dead. Human population has dwindled even further, while the other side only continues to grow.
Survivors have set up their own personal city, called Fiddler’s Green… a makeshift civilization surrounded on three sides by a river and one fortified defensive standpoint guarded day and night by heavily armed militia on lookout for any zombie that may try to wander into the city. Inside the city gates, a feudal society is alive… the rich and powerful living in a high-rise building, while the poor and less-fortunate fight it out at ground level. Not with zombies, however… but with members of their own “caste”. The aristocrats in the skyscraper have financed (the street-level people building, of course) an armored tank-like vehicle (dubbed Dead Reckoning) with tremendous firepower to go out of the city and ransack the neighboring towns and cities for food and supplies.
But unbeknownst to those inside Fiddler’s Green, the dead outside the city walls are evolving into something more dangerous than just a mindless, instinctive zombie… they are beginning to show basic logic and strategic skills of their own, while fixing their attention on the light coming from the only skyscraper in Fiddler’s Green.
Over the course of nearly 40 years, George A. Romero has delivered some of the most shocking, visceral and unmistakably brutal films in history, while at the same time making them intellectual and something that can be looked back on and studied for years to come.
<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ August 29, 2005 08:33 PM: Message edited by: Dajistano the Undead ]</font>
yeah um... I dunno.... [img]graemlins/thinking.gif[/img] [img]wink.gif[/img]
love the "dead" stuff...... hate the "daj" stuff.... Im conflicted, plus I have ashitty attention span! [img]wink.gif[/img]
I'll have to tackle it tomorrow when I'm not so tired
*shits*
*giggles*
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]Originally posted by RipperBendix:
*shits*
*giggles*
...Daj, I've got a splitting headache and there is no way I am reading all that. Sorry, kid. I will try to catch it later.
I read your essay and some may read it as biased, but I'll say that your passion for the work is very evident and shines through.
I've seen alot of movies and don't necessarily remember them by title. I looked up the Ebert reviews of each (the originals and the remakes) to refresh my memory.
I do remember the B&W Original of Night of the Living Dead as being really good. The claustripobia of most of the movie being in the farm house to the stunning twist at the end. Great movie. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
I don't recall if it's the original or the remake of Dawn of the Dead that I've seen, but I'm assumimg it was the original because I don't recall Ving Rhames, but I do remember the mall with the zombies and them having to get to the roof. Seem to remember it being entertaining but didn't stick with me.
Day of the Dead. Yeah... saw it. [img]graemlins/whatever.gif[/img] Hated it. It wasn't bad enough to be campy entertainment but wasn't well made enough to be entertaining.
Land of the Dead I have not seen. Given what I've read here as well as the Ebert review, I'll have to give that a rent sometime soon. Sounds intriguing.
Maybe this is blasphemy to a Romero fan, but my most entertaining Zombie-ish movie that comes to mind is 28 Days Later. A plausible explanation as to the outbreak is given... they're zombie-ish without being reanimated flesh... the tension, fear, and dynamics are all there between the survivors... the militaristic swing comes into place.... I was fully expecting those airplanes to mow down the people at the end of the movie. [img]smile.gif[/img]
<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ August 30, 2005 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Axis Bold as B?im?n ]</font>
Thank you, Baimun. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I love 28 Days Later, as well. One of the most distintively haunting and bleak movies in... well, a long time.
<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ August 30, 2005 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Dajistano the Undead ]</font>
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