World War Z (film)

[JDFP]

Eh, I can understand some of the arguments about "No, it wouldn't do the story justice without lots of blood and gore from the Battle of Yonkers, etc.!" to an extent, but how much blood and gore is really needed? You can get some blood and gore from a PG-13 rating -- just nothing over the top. And who cares? If all you're interested in watching is blood and gore from people being torn apart from zombies there are TONS of shitty no-plot no-meaning zombie films that are pure shit story-wise but have plenty of it. Or, you could always just go back and watch a Fulci flick for this purpose. I don't know, I just don't get all the bitching. It's about characters and the story. A good story and characters could be told without needing to add a single bit of blood in my opinion. I'm not saying it should be without some blood and guts (a little doesn't hurt) but there seems to be a fairly common line that blood and guts (and tits and ass too) are often overused to substitute for characters and story. I'd rather have characters and story as opposed to the former. If it can be told well -- well, that's what matters. And face it, most "blood and guts" stuff is trashed by shitty CGI these days anyway. If you could get Nicotero or Savini to perhaps do the make-up and give them free reign it's one thing, but chances are they'll opt for a "Big Flashy Hollywood CGI gore!!!" attack which will look like absolute shit (FUCK CGI! -- there I said it). Honestly, most CGI is just an automatic turn-off for me anyway. I think the overuse of CGI completely ruins most films -- one of the reasons I could hardly get through the steaming pile known as "Avatar" that had a stupid one-dimensional story with overexposure to "pretty and cool looking things!". Anyway, I prefer a good independent or foreign film most days of the week anyway. The majority of big Hollywood blockbusters are absolute shit that I just don't have any interest in really. But I'm a cantankerous bastard sick of CGI, blood and guts, and tits and ass (I'll make an exception to "Piranha 3D" because it was just funny as hell and the satire of the WAY over the top blood and guts and tits and ass and bad CGI was the very point of it -- I'd almost say the filmmaker of "Piranha 3D" was satirizing modern society and contemporary films in an almost brilliant way now that I think about it) are shit and should be done away with in telling a good story. j.p.

[shootemindehead]

You're making the classic mistake of thinking that people looking to have gory effects in a movie, are ONLY looking for that. It's not the case. But frankly, in a horror movie about dead people who want to rip apart live people and eat them, a lack of gore is really short changing the viewer. Sure, there are tons of low budget gore flicks out there and yes, most of them are terrible. But, that doesn't mean that a good solid production should avoid putting it on screen. It is, after all, the primary threat that the living dead have and without showing it, you end up with a rather bland result. As I've said before, 'Day of the Dead' would be half the film without the spectacular and terrifying gore scenes from Savini. I cannot imagine loving it as much as I do with the chomping scenes. Rickles' horrible death is worth the price of admission alone. Those gory scenes stay with a first time viewer for quite some time. I've seen that in effect numerous times. They make you fully realise that if YOU were in the situation presented in the story, that you really do not want to be caught by the living dead. Romero had the...er..."guts" to show the victims awful fate and it enhanced the film a great deal. Also, it doesn't HAVE to be an "either, or" type of scenario. "Gore" doesn't automatically eliminate "good story and characters", nor vice versa. That equation doesn't exist. Both can happilly thrive in a well made film, as in 'Day of the Dead', which is THE benchmark for all zombie films and that includes its spectacular and horrific use of gore scenes. I agree with you on the use of CGI though. It's overused and it's just "not there" yet. CGI should be a subtle, background, addition and used mostly for vehicles and hardware. Not front and centre. However, CGI does automatically make a crap film. The 'Star Wars' prequels, or 'Avatar' weren't rubbish because they had an overabunance of CGI in them. The were rubbish because the story and characters were badly written, badly acted and badly directed. CGI didn't make Hayden Christensen shite. He just IS shite.

[blind2d]

I agrees with da shootem. Story and characters above all, but a zombie film without gore is like a skateboard movie without tricks. Can be done, but really, would you still want to watch it?

[MoonSylver]

You're making the classic mistake of thinking that people looking to have gory effects in a movie, are ONLY looking for that. It's not the case. But frankly, in a horror movie about dead people who want to rip apart live people and eat them, a lack of gore is really short changing the viewer. Agreed. Exapmle: "Night of the Living Dead" (1990). Great movie, focused on the story & characters, no gore, & felt like it was lacking "bite" (pardon the pun) as a result. If they wern't forced to hold back, it would have been even BETTER. Yeah, the end result WORKED, but it was lacking in that regard.

[ProfessorChaos]

^. This x10. Great example, Moon. I can almost guarantee that I'll sit WWZ out in theaters if it's watered down to PG-13 and especially if it's marketed at all towards drawing more teeny-boppers in.

[bassman]

I'm a bit 50/50 on the issue. I love me some gore, but it is definitely possible to make a great zombie film without buckets of blood and guts. It's an added bonus, don't get me wrong, but the gore isn't what makes or breaks the film, imo. And you've also got to consider whats allowed in a PG13 rating these days. They can get away with quite a bit. Many people seem to think that horror films MUST have the R rating, but I strongly disagree. There are many films with a younger rating that have been frightening. Jaws, Poltergeist, Tremors, The Twilight Zone, etc. These aren't zombie films, but I believe the same could be accomplished for the genre. It's not about what you see, but what you feel...

[shootemindehead]

I'm a bit 50/50 on the issue. I love me some gore, but it is definitely possible to make a great zombie film without buckets of blood and guts. It's an added bonus, don't get me wrong, but the gore isn't what makes or breaks the film, imo. And you've also got to consider whats allowed in a PG13 rating these days. They can get away with quite a bit. Many people seem to think that horror films MUST have the R rating, but I strongly disagree. There are many films with a younger rating that have been frightening. Jaws, Poltergeist, Tremors, The Twilight Zone, etc. These aren't zombie films, but I believe the same could be accomplished for the genre. It's not about what you see, but what you feel... Zannuck and Brown were astonished that 'Jaws' managed to get a PG rating. Frankly, so was I. 'Jaws' remains one of the more disturbing horror films I've seen and it is a horror film. With terrifying effects that stay long after the film is over. From my childhood, I clearly recall iconic "gore" moments as "Chrissie Watkins remains", "The head in the boat", "The leg falling to the bottom of the water" and "Quint getting munched". All rendered with a completely straight face and some of the most realistic blood ever committed to celuloid. The fact is that if 'Jaws' was made tomorrow wouldn't get a PG rating. Now, imagine 'Jaws' without all those scenes above. It's half the film.

[bassman]

Now, imagine 'Jaws' without all those scenes above. It's half the film. I disagree. The few blood scenes in Jaws do not make the film what it is. In fact, there are very few scenes that inculde bloodshed. The tension and fear is created through the threat that is constantly lurking around the corner. The threat is the fear of the unknown. While this exact formula might not work for a zombie film, the same effect could easily be achieved with a capable director in the hands of a PG13 zombie film. That's just my opinion, anyway. While I love the visual effects in a "how'd they do it?" kind of way for Day, that's not what originally attracted me to the series. It's all in the story.

[Wyldwraith]

There's a problem with the "no blood/guts, strong story" hopes for WWZ, It's easy to overlook in the book, because there are far more good sections, but WWZ has several emo-angst interviews that the wrong kind of scriptwriter might want to make much of. An example I already gave, the cancer-ridden emaciated astronaut who stayed on the I.S.S, the chick who sees the souls of the people they used to be still attached to their undead bodies....this kind of stuff, if done the wrong way and with a de-emphasis on violence & gore could end up turning this into a Melodrama With Zombies. Also as I said before, even if you strip as much gore out as possible, how do you even NARRATE some of the stories from WWZ on a PG-13 rating? How precisely are you going to film 250,000 people being rounded up in the next best thing to a concentration camp, and then abandoned to the encroaching hordes who swamp them from all sides like locusts on a farm, while the "important people" are being evacuated? Or again, Yonker, or the first battle after the military re-adjusts/re-trains to fight the undead and begins the push to the East from the Rockies? I mean honestly, does anyone here want a dry recitation of the cool stories...some melodramatic speeches about retaking the country so our descendants don't have to do it, and listening to how the blind Chinese or Japanese (I forget) guy had such a suck-ass life before the zombie outbreak, and went off to wait to die in the wilderness, except he had this major philosophical epiphany and ended up becoming the founder of Anti-Zombie martial arts? Hell, you couldn't even show his original awkward battle with the first zombie he encountered on PG-13.....dropping a body onto sharp rocks from 15 stories up will make a mess that PG-13 won't allow.....unless you cop out and just show the body drop into darkness below. And that's the point...if the scriptwriter and directors are forced to labor under PG-13...then that's what it'll feel like. Something forced to fit a mold too small for it. Of course that's just my opinion, but at least that's based on experience with numerous Hollywood cop-outs. Of course you can always go with blind optimism, which has its place...such as when a loved one is terminally ill and beyond medical assistance...but IMHO not a good trait when it comes to trying to engineer a viewing public that will finally hit Hollywood where it counts so they stop feeling like cranking out derivative remakes, re-adaptions, Tween-broadened (neutered) subject matter, and flashy effects (the newest being the most recent iteration of 3-D...oh wooo, wow ::rolls eyes).... Can argue whatever else you want, but I don't see how one can argue that Hollywood hasn't fallen into a "Let's make Sure Things, and not provide anything but shoestring budgets to anything that hasn't already been done before successfully in a different medium, so we know we have that Sacred Sure Thing" mindset. If we don't ever vote by keeping our wallets closed, what's going to stop this B.S from going on forever?

[MinionZombie]

My take is - the only way to kill a zombie, is shoot the fucker in the head - how are you going to manage that, one of the most basic and necessary elements of the zombie genre, with a PG-13 rating? Plus the fact that zombies like to eat people ... and that they're rotting corpses walking around. Vampires just get frozen in the time at which they were bitten, so you can easily make them look like Ashley Greene (meow! ), but zombies are so not that kind of movie monster that can be prettied up. If you try to put some lipstick and eyeliner on a zombie they'll either bite your hand off, or their eyes and lips will fall off.

[Danny]

world war z could, bar the many beheadings by the blind monk character, be pretty damn gore free. Look at the biggest battle portion of yonkers. For the most part its a story of human failure, the zombies are barely hit or fazed by our weapons, shit goes down like choppers crashing, flashbangs etc. it could be shot like the d day landing in saving private ryan, its such a shit storm you barely see the gore because everything is going so crazy for the todd character. Now that i think about it the most violent parts of the film are human conflicts from the assault on the celebrity holdout at long island to the conflicts in the middle east its all human violence that, for the most part is the same as any war film.

[MoonSylver]

but zombies are so not that kind of movie monster that can be prettied up. If you try to put some lipstick and eyeliner on a zombie they'll either bite your hand off, or their eyes and lips will fall off.

[MinionZombie]

Well that looks creepy. Making a PG-13 zombie flick is as weird to me as making an erotic thriller without the erotic parts, or an action movie where not an awful lot explodes, or a romantic comedy where everybody is a c*nt who you hate, or a comedy that isn't funny (but then they do still somehow manage to keep turding out those dreadful 'vague genre movies' like Meet The Spartans), or a musical where nobody really bothers to sing.

[Danny]

Making a PG-13 zombie flick is as weird to me as making an erotic thriller without the erotic parts that seems creepily worded, or is that just me?

[shootemindehead]

I disagree. The few blood scenes in Jaws do not make the film what it is. In fact, there are very few scenes that inculde bloodshed. The tension and fear is created through the threat that is constantly lurking around the corner. The threat is the fear of the unknown. While this exact formula might not work for a zombie film, the same effect could easily be achieved with a capable director in the hands of a PG13 zombie film. That's just my opinion, anyway. While I love the visual effects in a "how'd they do it?" kind of way for Day, that's not what originally attracted me to the series. It's all in the story. You're free to disagree, of course, but the tension and fear would have been nothing without the payoff and that payoff is Quint going down the shark's gob. THAT scene is the money shot. Let's be honest, people went to see 'Jaws' first, because of the promise of people getting eaten by a 25ft shark. That was the basic premise of the film. They weren't to be disappointed with the "Quint" scene and it was all rendered OUT of the water too. Speilberg quite rightly changed the script to include the "Quint vs Shark" scene, because he knew that that scene would be the talking point of the film. He was correct. Quint's original death was rather tame. Speilberg included that famous scene because it was the logical conclusion to the fear that was built up by the shark. It was THE reason why people fear the shark. The threat is not fear of the unknown, it's the fear of being lunch. People feared the shark, because it was going to eat you. The same roughly applies with the living dead. BTW, I've just watched 'Jaws' recently and it's more bloody than you think and Quint's death has lost none of the power that it had in the 70's.