I'm a pompous guy. I can admit that. I'm guilty of believing that my thoughts on film are more nuanced than the average Joe and therefore more worthy of being appreciated and deferred to. I suppose that's why I bother posting on message boards, taking part in internet podcasts and of course... writing a horror film blog. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of stepping back from previously formed opinions and taking stock of how said snobbery has unfairly prejudiced and ignorantly informed them. Case in point, my recent reappraisal of Zach Snyder's seemingly universally liked remake of George A. Romero's universally loved Dawn of the Dead.
I saw the Dawn of the Dead remake 3 times in the theater and loved every minute of it. I adored the slam bang nihilism, the slick, uncluttered photography and the ceaseless instances of zombies being shot in the face. My friends and I, all ardent and longtime fans of the original, were flabbergasted by how not blasphemous the film turned out to be. Then, perhaps due to the glut of mainstream undead films no doubt occasioned by Snyder's success, it faded from memory. I later read a critique of it in Rue Morgue (a beloved bastion of genre snobbery if ever there was one) in which the reviewer said something to the effect that those people who heralded how fantastic it was needed to "turn that noise down". That turn of phrase was instrumental in coloring 5 intervening years worth of distaste. The cynical jerk in me loved how it summarily dismissed a large cross section of enthusiastic fans, succinctly killing their buzz. I read on and found myself suddenly agreeing with the authors central complaint that the film was a pale, soulless imitation of a Romero classic, full of sound and fury, signifying the death of intelligent genre film.
I sort of decided after reading that review that that was how I felt about the film. Surely I was just relieved at the time to get a halfway decent horror flick in theaters, like a dying man in the desert offered an Evian bottle dewy with condensation. I wasn't one of those mouth breathing plebes who got into a movie just because it kicked ass, was I? How gauche!
Well, I recently took in a solo bluray screening of Snyder's testosterone fuelled calling card and suffice to say, I was suitably impressed. The film was every bit as enjoyable and satisfying on the surface as I remembered and a great deal more personal, touching and shot through with reverence for human connections. After watching the action genre devolve into a lazy series of extreme closeups and succumb to shaken camera syndrome over the last decade, Snyder's ability to construct exhilarating sequences of vicious carnage without resorting to the shoddy parlor tricks of his contemporaries is all the more commendable. Plainly stated, the man is THE best action Director working today. He has a signature style that is crisp, instantly identifiable, compulsively watchable and inarguably powerful. Dude knows where to put the camera and more importantly, he knows to step back and let the scene breathe. He knows that for an action scene to truly work, the viewer needs to know what the hell is going on at all times, not simply to feel as if they're getting their ass kicked amidst the scuffle. His ability to give a scene space while still cutting quickly enough to approximate combustibility is a breathtaking tightrope walk to behold and I'm anxiously awaiting every new set piece he stages from here on out.
The thing that really floored me this time though, was how somber and moving he made the Matt Frewer death scene. Ving Rhames stands poised cradling a shotgun, the personification of impersonal eventuality, as Frewer's life force ebbs to nil. "You want every... single... second." he says, and it hits us like a ton of bricks. His gaunt, skeletal visage. His knowing, depressing delivery of the line. It makes you realize, amidst all the gooey fun, that this is most likely how we will go. Slowly wasting away and sadly realizing we are about to lose all we know and love. It's easily the scariest scene of the film. Also of note is how gently he builds the relationship between Sarah Polley and Jake Webber. Their blossoming romance is underplayed so deftly that when they are cruelly separated at the climax and we see him standing there at the end of the dock, gun in hand, left to his own lonely fate, it has weight. That's right. I said it. A romantic relationship in a horror film with weight, meaning and purpose. Outside of Cronenberg in his handling of the Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum coupling in his brilliant Fly remake, I can think of no other genre heavyweight who has pulled off that feat.
To return to my original point, I convinced myself I thought a certain way because I was tired of the consensus opinion trumpeting its cheery approval. I wanted to be above and beyond that supposedly simple assessment and find fault with what others enjoyed. That's what a true critic does, right? I guess I don't know what a true film critic does because I'm not one. I'm just a dude with a high school diploma who is reasonably well read with an unreasonable belief in the majesty and spiritual importance of film. Maybe part of the film critics process should be to re watch a film and write another review one year to the day of the initial screening so as to be made aware of how narrow and short sighted first impressions often are. I'm not advocating endlessly apologizing for every piece of popular tripe to come down the remake pipe, but it might behoove us all to use a little foresight and common sense when we contemplate putting pen to paper and setting the pages ablaze with another reactionary, inflammatory screed.
Doesn't that Elm Street remake look like total dog shit though?
I saw the Dawn of the Dead remake 3 times in the theater and loved every minute of it. I adored the slam bang nihilism, the slick, uncluttered photography and the ceaseless instances of zombies being shot in the face. My friends and I, all ardent and longtime fans of the original, were flabbergasted by how not blasphemous the film turned out to be. Then, perhaps due to the glut of mainstream undead films no doubt occasioned by Snyder's success, it faded from memory. I later read a critique of it in Rue Morgue (a beloved bastion of genre snobbery if ever there was one) in which the reviewer said something to the effect that those people who heralded how fantastic it was needed to "turn that noise down". That turn of phrase was instrumental in coloring 5 intervening years worth of distaste. The cynical jerk in me loved how it summarily dismissed a large cross section of enthusiastic fans, succinctly killing their buzz. I read on and found myself suddenly agreeing with the authors central complaint that the film was a pale, soulless imitation of a Romero classic, full of sound and fury, signifying the death of intelligent genre film.
I sort of decided after reading that review that that was how I felt about the film. Surely I was just relieved at the time to get a halfway decent horror flick in theaters, like a dying man in the desert offered an Evian bottle dewy with condensation. I wasn't one of those mouth breathing plebes who got into a movie just because it kicked ass, was I? How gauche!
Well, I recently took in a solo bluray screening of Snyder's testosterone fuelled calling card and suffice to say, I was suitably impressed. The film was every bit as enjoyable and satisfying on the surface as I remembered and a great deal more personal, touching and shot through with reverence for human connections. After watching the action genre devolve into a lazy series of extreme closeups and succumb to shaken camera syndrome over the last decade, Snyder's ability to construct exhilarating sequences of vicious carnage without resorting to the shoddy parlor tricks of his contemporaries is all the more commendable. Plainly stated, the man is THE best action Director working today. He has a signature style that is crisp, instantly identifiable, compulsively watchable and inarguably powerful. Dude knows where to put the camera and more importantly, he knows to step back and let the scene breathe. He knows that for an action scene to truly work, the viewer needs to know what the hell is going on at all times, not simply to feel as if they're getting their ass kicked amidst the scuffle. His ability to give a scene space while still cutting quickly enough to approximate combustibility is a breathtaking tightrope walk to behold and I'm anxiously awaiting every new set piece he stages from here on out.
The thing that really floored me this time though, was how somber and moving he made the Matt Frewer death scene. Ving Rhames stands poised cradling a shotgun, the personification of impersonal eventuality, as Frewer's life force ebbs to nil. "You want every... single... second." he says, and it hits us like a ton of bricks. His gaunt, skeletal visage. His knowing, depressing delivery of the line. It makes you realize, amidst all the gooey fun, that this is most likely how we will go. Slowly wasting away and sadly realizing we are about to lose all we know and love. It's easily the scariest scene of the film. Also of note is how gently he builds the relationship between Sarah Polley and Jake Webber. Their blossoming romance is underplayed so deftly that when they are cruelly separated at the climax and we see him standing there at the end of the dock, gun in hand, left to his own lonely fate, it has weight. That's right. I said it. A romantic relationship in a horror film with weight, meaning and purpose. Outside of Cronenberg in his handling of the Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum coupling in his brilliant Fly remake, I can think of no other genre heavyweight who has pulled off that feat.
To return to my original point, I convinced myself I thought a certain way because I was tired of the consensus opinion trumpeting its cheery approval. I wanted to be above and beyond that supposedly simple assessment and find fault with what others enjoyed. That's what a true critic does, right? I guess I don't know what a true film critic does because I'm not one. I'm just a dude with a high school diploma who is reasonably well read with an unreasonable belief in the majesty and spiritual importance of film. Maybe part of the film critics process should be to re watch a film and write another review one year to the day of the initial screening so as to be made aware of how narrow and short sighted first impressions often are. I'm not advocating endlessly apologizing for every piece of popular tripe to come down the remake pipe, but it might behoove us all to use a little foresight and common sense when we contemplate putting pen to paper and setting the pages ablaze with another reactionary, inflammatory screed.
Doesn't that Elm Street remake look like total dog shit though?
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