Zombie themes in movies have been around since the 1930s, and people have always been drawn to movies featuring a post-apocalyptic world infested with zombies with a group of people trying to survive and carry on with their lives. Zombie themes in movies have changed and evolved over time, at first, they featured zombies and horror stories, now we have plenty of zombie movies with political and social context, comedies and parodies and even love between zombies and humans as shown in ‘Warm Bodies’.
For this essay, two zombie movies were selected: The Land of the Dead 2005 (further L.O.D), by George A. Romero and The Shaun of the Dead (further Sh.O.D), by Edgar Wright, 2004. Although both movies are dealing with zombies and even the names are alike, the movies are both similar and different in many ways. The essay will attempt to compare and contrast the two movies, find similarities and elucidate on the differences.
L.O.D is a classic Zombie movie by Romero, he started making Zombie movies back in the 1960s, and the L.O.D is his fourth film in the living dead series. The Sh.O.D is a brilliant parody on all Zombie movies with hilarious Simon Pegg.
Before comparing and contrasting the movies, one will need to know what is behind the each of them. L.O.D by Romero, as well as his preceding movies about zombies focus on a group of people who have found ways to survive in a zombie world. Romero puts forward relationships between people as first priority. One might think that in desperate times, people would come together and unite against zombies, but instead they exhibit hostility to each other and aside from fighting zombies, they also need to be on the guard against one another. L.O.D. is an ironic description of today’s world and its values.
The motto ‘get rich or die trying’ is celebrated in the movie and one would be surprised to find out that people living side by side with zombies still need money. It seems absurd, but Romero shows that consumerism is in people’s nature and it’s in their blood. Apart from money, the viewer sees that the class system also survived and the main villain, Kaufman, played by Dennis Hopper uses power to establish an elaborate feudal system where rich and powerful live in castles and ordinary people live in slums.
The political system has survived too and turned into tyranny and one-man-government. The people are not willing to put up with the way things are and apart from fighting zombies engage in riots and protests against the government. It is also worth noting that people still want to be entertained, although in a rather odd way. They even arrange sort of fence-play with zombies as gladiators. These scenes show the cruelty of people who are shooting zombies for fun, although they used to be people just like them, with families, kids and life goals.
Sh.O.D. is primarily a parody, although very well-made. Shaun, the main character is leading a dull and plan life, working a dead-end job. It should be noted that when a zombie apocalypse strikes, it takes time for Shaun to realize what is going on. Clearly, it wasn’t just for the sake of comedy, and there are different layers of meaning to it. By showing how much time it takes for Shaun to start to notice things, the director sends a clear message that people at times are like zombies, too engrossed in themselves to notice the obvious changes around them.
There are some similarities in the two movies which need to be considered. First of all, none of the main characters from the two movies is trying ‘save the world’ or lead others toward salvation. In L.O.D, John is after the money and his interests revolve around revenge and getting the money that the villain owes him. In Sh.O.D., Shaun cares only about himself and his close ones. Both movies are R-rated meaning that there’s plenty of blood and graphic scenes.
Although a parody, the zombie scenes are so well-made in the Sh.O.D with so many elaborate details that if one were to walk in the room in the middle of such a scene, it would be hard to tell that it is, in fact, a parody. Observant viewers would also see that they are in many ways similar to Shaun; many of them have dead-end jobs they hate, dull life where every day seems the same. This is the explanation why Shaun is not at all upset, and when things take an unexpected turn, he sees it as a chance to finally become someone, to stand up for himself and his family perhaps for the first time in his life.
L.O.D cannot be attributed to one genre, it is a horror blended with social drama, thriller and superb action scenes. Sh.O.D is also a mix of comedy, drama and sometimes full-fledged horror.
The two movies, if brought into a sharper focus, reveal apparent disparities. L.O.D touches upon pressing social issues like inequality between people, the gap between the rich and the poor, greed of wealth, corrupted government, low cultural values, etc. Sh.O.D is more of a pop-corn movie that gives less food for thought. It points out all the clichés in zombie movies and has a lot of references to many of them.
There is a yawning gap in the people’s values in the two movies, L.O.D shows a society that has adapted to the new way of life with zombies, however, people’s greed for money is stronger than ever. One will see a consumer society when in Sh.O.D money is the last thing on people’s mind. This might not be a fair comparison, as L.O.D shows the viewer people adapted to living in the zombie world for a long time, whereas in Sh.O.D. we witness the virus outbreak and see the genesis of the zombie apocalypse.
If one was to compare the two movies. Sh.O.D. is better than L.O.D for various reasons. Firstly, L.O.D. claims to be a horror with pressing social issues, however thorough analysis reveals multiple logical flaws in the movie. If the movie is a continuation of the preceding three movies and the society lived isolated for a long time, it would be fair to assume that with time they’d slowly return to the Stone Age, with no electricity, technologies and computers. However, we see people extensively using computers and even GPS technologies. This begs the question how all those technologies remained and even advanced over the years of complete chaos and destruction.
George A. Romero tries to depart from the concept of portraying zombies as mindless pieces of human flesh and infuses them with rudimentary intelligence and even consciousness. The viewer might observe their evolution throughout the movie. The idea of zombie’s intelligence might have been very interesting, but it was underdeveloped in the movie and does not go further than the acquired skill to use weapons. Another thing hard to believe is the main character’s insatiable appetite for money. He is self-centered and works only so that one day he could move in one of the luxury apartment buildings with the upper class.
A zombie movie is supposed to be centered on people vs zombies with people’s relations in the background. Contrary to this concept, Romero overshadows the zombie theme by people’s internal feud and showdowns. Some of the scenes make you forget that you are watching a zombie movie we are shown a developed world with cafes, waiters and things which logically are not possible after so many years of zombie apocalypse. Romero attempts to convey the message that money will rule the world under all circumstances and still the idea of John, the main character, blackmailing the villain for $5 million seems too far-fetched.
Sh.O.D. is a genius parody that skillfully balances between comedy and horror genres, some of the scenes are full of drama, for instance, the one where Shaun’s mother turned into a zombie and he has to make a choice and shoot her. The way they look into each other’s eyes is priceless and could easily be a contender for the best dramatic scene.
The two movies are worthy of the Zombie genre, L.O.D as classic and Sh.O.D as parody. The most valuable about the two movies of course are not zombies devouring humans but the messages that directors attempted to convey and the thoughts and ideas they provoked.