
When Zach Snyder debuted in the feature film world, it was with his 2004 remake of Dawn of The Dead. It was a smart, exciting, and overall interesting take on George A Romero’s classic zombie story; taking the basic set-up and social themes, then working in some new flourishes to keep the audience guessing. The movie had something to say, it knew how to do that in a visually and emotionally satisfying way, and whilst it played with themes of inertia and boredom it did so without frustrating the audience. It was an explosive, captivating film, from a director with everything to prove. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: May 2021
Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)

Horror movies have always traded on two key things; novelty and transgression. They’ve also always held a dark secret; the more “high concept” those two are, the more likely it is that a film will try to trade on those elements alone and not bother to actually be any good in and of itself. So, it’s with great joy and relief that I can confirm that this zombie musical coming-of-age Christmas movie is also a great movie. Well, assuming that you like the idea of multiple song-and-dance numbers mixed with blood-soaked scenes of walking dead induced slaughter.
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Mulberry Street (2006)
A regular criticism I hear about zombie movies is that “no one does anything different with them”. This annoys me for three main reasons; firstly, that there could be anything wrong with the classic plot of “people fine, zombies turn up, zombies eat people”. Secondly, because there is a massive difference between plot and story and it’s pointlessly reductive to confuse them (“pe
rson commits crime, they think they go away with it, turns out they didn’t”, I’ve saved you watching everything from Hound of the Baskervilles to Wolf of Wall Street), And thirdly because it’s so ignorant of all the amazing work that’s been done in the genre, even within the “confines” of it’s three-act framework.
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