Zombies have really begun to occupy centre stage in a lot of projects at the moment. From The Walking Dead to various interpretations of what a zombie is, like the amazing 28 Days Later, the undead are sure the most popular of the horror bad guys at the moment.
Although zombie films have been around since the early 1930’s, George Romero is often credited with being the director who brought the best depictions of the undead to the screen. Dawn of the Dead became a cult classic, worshipped the world over as one of the greatest horror films ever made, even eventually becoming a pretty successful and critically acclaimed remake.
Despite their cult popularity, zombies rarely managed to make it to mainstream horror culture unless the subject of harmless fun, like Shaun of the Dead. However, the notion of the zombie is perhaps one of the most frightening horror terrors to emerge, they were once human beings, they look like the people you love, but they are devoid of life and humanity, they want your brains… and they move really slowly. Just how do they manage to take over a planet?
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the zombie phenomenon is the tag line which is a variation of a line from the bible “when there’s no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth.” Yes, even the bible knows about the zombies.
World War Z fits perfectly into a tradition that has gone before but taken to another level, a far more serious level. The book is often credited with resurrecting the notion of the zombies, but giving it a far more realistic and frightening edge. The film takes the book as its starting point and works its way from there, taken some of the better ideas, dropping others it thinks won’t work on the big screen.
The result is a pretty interesting exploration of what would happen to the Earth in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, but do not be under any illusion, this is not the book.
Dropping the idea of the interviewer from the book, the film revolves around Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a highly trained UN ambassador who witnesses a zombie attack first hand with his family. In an attempt to get his family to safety, Gerry must agree to help the cause and discover a cure for the zombie pandemic which is sweeping the globe. However, events have spiralled at a much faster speed than the forces that be could have imagined and everywhere Gerry visits, a zombie attack is not far behind. As cities collapse globally, Gerry begins to fear there is not a cure at all.
There are a couple of strange occurrences in the film that zombie fans would perhaps question. These are not the zombies many would care for, they move fast. Really fast. On top of that, they are particularly sensitive to sound, which has nearly always been considered as a sort of given.
Pitt is thoroughly amazing as Gerry Lane, considerate of his family, but entirely clueless as to how he can be any sort of help or positive force. Pitt’s character is a force of good in a world gone entirely mad, but he is no man with a plan, far from it.
Even though the actual attacks are fast moving, there are moments of extreme tension which make the film work as a whole, particularly the cycling in the dark scene; their off-screen presence is perhaps more frightening than on-screen.
Despite its flaws, World War Z is a pretty enjoyable horror film which has done the right thing, they have taken zombies seriously.
