The best of the awful films

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 11

The best of the awful films

at the cinema

hons petrovic

ZOMBIES, DAWN OF THE DEAD Directed and written by George A. Romero Without doubt, “Zombies, Dawn of the Dead” (Avon) would be the most incredibly horrible film I have, ever seen — it’s so bad that it's good. Indeed, if you can stomach it and sit through the whole show, you may even decide that it is very good. This certainly seems to be the time for excesses at the cinemas: after describing “Chariots of Fire” last week as one of the best “good news” films I can remember, this week I will have to call "Dawn of the Dead” about the best awful film I have seen.

How is this possible? Don’t ask me, but the writer, director and general perpetrator, George A. Romero, has managed to conjure up every grissly image conceivable,

gather them together on two hours of film and thrown them in the faces of the audience.

The plot is simple and requires only endless extrapolation and exploitation of a sick idea: what would happen if the dead came back and started eating the living? Most of humanity is stricken by an inexplicable plague. That not being bad enough, they decide to reawaken and eat the few remaining living people. Four of these escape by helicopter to the top of a huge supermarket building in which they seek refuge, but the dead keep battering at the doors as if unaware that the shop is closed for the duration.

Another problem is how to kill the dead. The answer seems to be to blast their heads apart, like shattering a pumpkin, and if that doesn’t stop them, nothing will. -

One of the most terrifying things about this surrealistic exercise in horror is that it often hits close to the not-so-funny bone. Those zombies, or un-dead, are very similar to the hippie types in the recent “Quatermass” series on television; they are also like some of the people you choose not to notice in your local supermarket or even in the Square.

Where does the horror end and the allegories and satire of modern-day life begin?

That is one question that Romero never makes clear, and probably does not care about either. His best line is: “when there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” This haunting line will stay in mind as long as some of the more gruesome scenes, although these may start to fester and putrefy. Basically, “Dawn of the Dead” is an up-dated version of Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” which was first released in 1968. That became something of a cult film in spite of initial hostility from the reviewers.

“Newsweek” called the original effort “a step beyond in gore.” While feasting on the film’s entrails, “Variety” said that it raised doubts “about the moral health of film-goers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism,” adding that “the

picture’s basic premise is repellent” In fact, “Variety” like most of the detractors of the first version, over-reacted — just as the film’s many proponents were to over-react in praising it far beyond its actual value.

I have not yet read any other reviews of “Zombies, Dawn of the Dead,” but I feel the reaction will be much the same, and that this much more polished version will become the kind of cult movie to be screened at the Academy once a year on Halloween night. Both films have given Romero the opportunity to insert as many scenes of gore and horror as he could, sparing nothing in his depiction of the activities of the zombies.

For the first film, Romero took advantage of a local butcher in Pittsburg, where the movie was shot, who

supplied the entrails for the cannibalistic scenes.

In defence, Romero said: “we felt that films aren’t usually made this graphic. But, why not? Why cut away when you know exactly what’s going on? We got the intestines and we showed the ghouls going at them.”

He does the same this time — in full colour. This is not a movie that I would take my partner, her son or hardly anyone else to see; instead, they should see the funny horror of “Alligator” at the Carlton. But I must confess again that it is the best awful film I think I have ever seen.