Bill Sherman, one of my most very favoritest pop-culture bloggers in the world, has finally succumbed to the plague and seen Zak Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead; his astute-as-always take on the film can be found here. Bill’s review reminds me of one of the film’s great strengths: I think the beauty of the political undertones in this film is that they tap into paranoia period, rather than paranoia of a particular partisan stripe. The televangelist, Sheriff Savini, and the head security guard who says “What did I tell ya–America always sorts its shit out” are figures of fun-slash-fear for the blue-state audience, while the impotent news media, the once-a-criminal-always-a-criminal character, and the prominent presence of Islam in the opening credit sequence under Johnny Cash’s Christian armageddonmongering are triggers for the conservatively inclined. And I think that even on a more general level, the metaphor of hordes of zombie attackers can appeal to you whether you think the biggest threat to this country is the Bush Junta or the Islamofascists. As I’ve said before, the threat of violence from people who were once your neighbors cuts both ways.
I’ll be curious to see what political messages Romero puts into his own zombie movie next week…