what is this "social commentary" element? Fans are always raving about it , but blink and you miss it, well i did i think.
I think at one point one of the characters speculates the zombies have ended up at the mall because we-likes-shopping.
Was that it? is that the great insight into the human condition?
Yeah that's it - zombie consumerism. Ever notice shoppers lumbering around malls like zombies and bumping into each other?
And then there's the survivors left fighting over material scraps during an apocalypse, and the shopping mall becoming a material heaven. Yet the core group of survivors trapped in a shopping mall grow discontented and unfulfilled being stuck in a shopping mall - a metaphor for how isolation and materialism brings boredom and unhappiness.
Excellent response. The "message" in a horror movie doesn't have to be too complex. After all, we're mostly watching these movies to get scared and have a good time (and horror movies, more than any other genre, tend to have one message or another lingering near the surface of the story).
shareThat's what I love about dawn. I was young when I first saw it and didn't see the social commentary because while its hardly subtle its also not in your face and doesn't change the film when its missed.
The end part is important as they could have just left but its the idea we are never happy and always want more than we have.
being part of the status-quo... if you go out of line you're the target
shareOn top of the obvious zombie consumerism thing, there's also satire of the anti-capitalist crowd too. The looters at the very end of the film are obvious socialists ("We don't like people who don't share, you just fucked up real bad" and "Hey, haven't you heard of human rights?"). The woman, Fran, believes their claim that there are only a few of them and is motivated by compassion. Ultimately they prove to be opportunists who destroy their surroundings, steal, wreak havoc, then ride off into the night and in the end prove more destructive than the mindless consumerism ever was.
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