Day of the Dead 2008

I’ve just had the opportunity to screen the new Day of the Dead, and with the aid of some alcohol, it proved to be fairly entertaining. Not so much in its portrayal of a believable zombie apocalypse scenario, but in its ample helping of cheesy B movie hilarity. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed. With Ving Rhames headlining this film, I was hoping that we might see something a little closer to the caliber of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, but this wasn’t even remotely close. It would be fair to say that Day of the Dead 2008 was above average for a B movie, but I really couldn’t rate it much higher than that. However, if some of you out there are interested, but can’t quite decide whether to invest the time or not, I’ll let one small spoiler slip: you get to see Ving eat his own eyeball! It was hilarious, and made the whole film worth watching.

*Warning* Spoilers

[SOURCE OF THE OUTBREAK]

Moving on to an analysis of this scenario, I’d like to begin by discussing how the outbreak was initiated and spread. As we learn towards the end of the film, this scenario is the result of yet another instance of laboratory research gone all to hell. Specifically it was an attempt by a military organization to develop a biological weapon that would paralyze enemy troops. As is to be expected in this film formula, the agent mutates, quarantine is breached, and pretty soon there is an army of undead ravaging the civilian populace.

Honestly, I’m a little skeptical about the possibility of a virus mutating from one that paralyzes to one that reanimates the dead. That seems like a pretty phenomenal leap. It even lends a little credence to the shady CDC character’s assertions that they have no reason to believe that this outbreak has anything to do with their military research. However, we are quickly informed by a research station (that looks oddly similar to the Hive) scientist, this outbreak is the direct result of their research mutating and escaping containment. Oh well, I suppose it is possible. I just don’t think that evolutionary leaps are generally that radical.

[ZOMBIE PHYSIOLOGY]

The spread of this contagion was particularly interesting because it initially took on the outward appearance of the flu or a bad cold. It also appeared to be airborne - somewhat. Some rather cheesy camera work during the film’s opening credits suggested that this contagion could move through the air, and the CDC doctor explicitly said that it was airborne. However, none of the film’s main characters succumbed to infection via airborne transmission, and they were surrounded by infected for the majority of the film. So I’m not really sure how the logic behind that worked. Perhaps it was only airborne across short, almost direct contact, distances. Say, being coughed on by someone infected, which is plausible.

The rapid spread of this mysterious flu-like sickness also brings to attention the issue of avoiding places like hospitals (and police stations) during the initial stages of an outbreak. As the film accurately portrayed, medical centers will draws large numbers of sick people, suffering varying stages of infection. The large groups of people and their close proximity will compound the lethality of this hot zone, and will quickly bring about the destruction of a city’s medical infrastructure and personnel.

The following stages of the infection are where this films begins to deviate and completely abandon reasonable plausibility. First, the sick begin to suffer severe nose bleeds - OK, still reasonable. Next, after a variable period of time, their eyes glaze over, they slip into a state of non-responsiveness, and they die - OK, still fair enough. Then after another period of time (varying from a few second to perhaps several minutes) their facial tissue suffers some oddly rapid deterioration, they reanimate, and they launch themselves at the first person they see - uh, what happened to their faces?

These zombies are also damn fast. Some aren’t very coordinated, moving at what looks like a twitchy drunken gallop. Other, however, look like they spent time with Morpheus in the Matrix’s training simulator. Leaping down from buildings, nimbly jumping over obstacles, and acrobatic launching off of walls were the norm for these undead bastards. Yeah. Not sure what to make of that.

[ZOMBIE INTELLIGENCE]

Perhaps as an homage to Bub, in the original, the zombies in Day of the Dead 2008 also exhibited remarkable intelligence. The characters theorized that perhaps the undead retained a little of their original memory, but it was far more than that. One zombie hid bodies in a closet, and laid a trap by pretending to be fully dead. Others set up an ambush by luring a soldier into an alley, and then executed a coordinated attack. The main characters’ mother (now a zombie) was able to recognize her son’s voice over the radio, and navigated her way to the radio station to find him. We even saw a crowd of undead soldiers still using their rifles, though admittedly their marksmanship skills seem to have deteriorated.

Yeah, I’m not to sure what to make of this. I’m still committed to the belief that the undead will exhibit no more than an absolutely basic level of intelligence (identifying prey, and pursuing it), but I have to admit that we really just don’t know what will happen. Perhaps they will retain a level of intelligence that enables coordinated activity, perhaps they will simply be mindless hordes. For the sake of humanity’s survival, let us hope that they are dumb as rocks.

Regardless of the plausibility of zombie intelligence, human intelligence definitely comes into question when you’re riding around in your truck with a zombie seat-belted into the back seat. Yes, I can see why you might want to let your friend live out his last few hours. Perhaps the bleach they dumped on his bite wound might have killed the virus before it had a chance to spread. But once he’s fully turned into a zombie, do the right thing and finish him off. Don’t squeeze him in the middle seat, right between two still living survivors. The story sinks to even further depths of ridiculousness when this zombie retains its feelings of friendship for the survivors, doesn’t attack them because he was a vegetarian, and has the humanity to draw other zombies away from his friends, and sacrifice his undead self so that the others could escape. Wow, yeah. If you watched this film, I hope you did as I did and partook in alcohol. A few drinks made this stretch of the film pretty damn hilarious.

[NON-CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS]

The last topic I’ll mention were a couple uses of some non-conventional weapons. The first and most entertaining was a device that consisted of a pole (perhaps a coat rack - I’m not sure) with a surgical saw affixed to one end. It made for a pretty sweet halberd, and was dicing up zombie heads like tomatoes. However, I do have to admit that I’m not really sure how this soldier came to have this rather archaic combat skill, nor am I very optimistic about this McGyver weapons construction job holding up in actual combat. Eh, whatever. It was fun to watch.

The second instance I wanted to mention was the use of molotov cocktails. As you all should know, this is generally a huge mistake. The fire will likely succeed in blinding the undead, but it may take quite a while before it puts them down permanently. In the mean time, this flaming torch will be stumbling around, igniting everything it bumps into, and probably barbecuing you and your fellow survivors alive. However, in this film, fire seemed to have the odd property of vaporizing zombies into dust. It was pretty similar to how a lot of films have vampires burning away to ash and dust when exposed to sunlight. Yeah, I couldn’t even begin to come up with a theory as to how that could be possible, so don’t count on the same happening when it’s your turn to battle the undead.

Well, there were other points of interest that I could address, but I don’t think I can really put any more effort into discussing this film. The scenario was a far stretch from what I think is likely, but it was still entertaining. If you spot any errors in my recounting of the facts of the film, my apologies, and please let me know. I doubt that I will be watching it again any time soon.