Dark Dreams 2.0 - Psychological History Of Modern Horror Film by Charles Derry

Author:Charles Derry [Derry, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-05-30T00:24:44+00:00

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PART TWO : MILLENNIAL NIGHTMARES (2009)

well-documented suppression of material by George W. Bush’s administration in order to build support for the War in Iraq and discourage any belief that Bush incompetence contributed to 9/11. Director Steven Okazaki suggested as much in an August 1, 2007, internet interview at twitchfilm.net where he said that “Had we made the film and released it earlier, we perhaps would have had more of the reaction of people just reflecting back. Certainly with the war we’re in now and the insecurity of potential nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea or Mideast terrorists and with 9/11, people will look at the film very differently and connect it to the future. 9/11 certainly gives the film a different read and unfortunately, yeah, while we were making the film there seemed to be a story every other week in the paper connecting to some aspect of it.” In other words, 9/11 made old apocalypse new again.

Other films influenced by the geo-political aftermath of 9/11 were decidedly fictional, particularly those films which show death and the dead proliferating as the world is attacked by zombies ( 28 Days Later... , Shaun of the Dead, and Land of the Dead ) or by aliens from other planets ( The Forgotten and War of the Worlds). 28 Days Later... , directed by Trainspotting’s Danny Boyle and released in the United States in 2003, starts with news footage of war and atrocities being broadcast on monitors in front of a shackled, laboratory ape. Other apes undergoing their own ordeals are in cages. When animal rights activists break into the facility, they ignore the implications of freeing the animals, which have been infected with a virus called “Rage” that is now deadly for humans as well. With a shocking suddenness, the released chimps attack; immediately, there is pandemonium, blood everywhere, ape-to-human transmission of virus, and human beings who are now monsters, out of control and infected with “Rage.” Before we have the chance to take stock of everything that’s happening, a title card reveals that it is “28 days later...”— and we are thrust into an apocalyptic world where almost all human beings have

already died horribly. Of course it is ironic

1

that the progressive, radical politics of the

activists should be responsible for bringing

Homo sapien s to near extinction. Inciden-

tally, the “Rage” virus clearly seems an (even

more virulent) evocation of the AIDS virus

(HIV), which had its own probable roots in

simian virus that mutated efficiently to

attack its millions of human targets.

2

3

Images of apocalypse in 28 Days Later: (1) a discarded newspaper announcing disaster; (2) silhouetted figures in the darkness (refugees? looters? survivors? mutants?); and (3) distorted reflections of catastrophe, surreally suggesting confusion and dislocation.

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