I still haven’t seen the remake, and probably won’t now until it’s been long available on DVD, but I really don’t think it’s in with a chance of rivalling this original for me. The effects may be better and the zombies more “realistic” (why do some people really think they know what “real” monsters look like, lol?), but the thing is, the whole soul of this movie is in the look. That’s why it originally scared the hell out of me. The zombies are so obviously just people covered in blue paint, and the ketchup so obviously red paint, and the colour film stock does the whole combo no favours, but it’s enough to be completely terrifying somehow.

I’m sure this is a cut I haven’t seen before of the movie. I never so so much violence in the movie. Plenty enough, yes, but not as much as in this cut. And I’m sure I’d never seen kids being shot in it. These moments add so much to the horrific atmosphere and the obvious ‘Nam/ American Nightmare allegory.

This movie for me is a classic for one simple concept it came up with – zombies in a mall. It just says everything about not just American society but all of Western civilisation.

And the muzak rocks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2004 at 11:11 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as horror, mall, sequel, zombies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.