As the title suggests, zombie movies were born with a strong moral message. And it all starts with the father of the subgenre: George Romero. Romero is famous not only for its zombies, but also for tackling important social or moral issues. For example, the second of his zombie films, Dawn of the Dead (1978), shows zombies mindlessly walking through a mall. Greater socioeconomic symbol, impossible.
In addition to this wink, we repeatedly see in his “Walking Dead” films the inability of people to work together to solve problems that go beyond the normal. Besides, I can’t get it out of my head anymore day of the Dead (1985) is like a tragedy about the lack of human communication, which leads to an abysmal collapse even in a small part of society.
It seems that Romero’s films do not take seriously the danger of people who are truly 100% human. They seem depressed by the threat, ignore it and are irrational. And no one benefits from ignoring it. The measures necessary to solve the zombie problem are simple: raise awareness, confront the problem, shoot in the head. It’s just stupid not to join the fight against the zombie apocalypse.
Zombie films convey a message by telling a story that contains supernatural elements but is recognizable as real situations. By placing the story in an unreal context, the narrator creates a critical distance between the audience and these situations. If all goes well, people will learn about the characters’ behavior through the story and then notice that real people behave the same way. In fact, horror films with a socio-moral message hold up a mirror: the image may be distorted, but if you look closely, you will recognize yourself in it.
A mirror image can distort an image (think of the mirrors that make you fat, thin, etc.), but it cannot distort it. For a story to teach a lesson, the circumstances its characters face must be similar to those we face in reality. If this is not the case, the narrator has two options: he can have the characters behave in a way that makes sense in the context, or he can have the characters behave in a way that makes his point but does not make sense in the context the context. Story. In either case, the story’s ability to convey a moral message is compromised. This is what happens in zombie movies: people face real existential threats, but zombies pose no such threat except in very special circumstances; Either the threat is overcome or it is not overcome due to the unrealistically selfish behavior of the characters. Be that as it may, neither option is satisfactory for the company as a union.
It’s difficult to tell a cautionary tale, even more so when the plot involves zombies. There may be lessons to be learned from the undead, but they must be compatible with the slow, laborious, and even stupid nature of the zombies themselves.
