Tomb

It’s becoming increasingly rare for movie audiences to be given the chance to feel pity for zombies. The majority of modern zombie films present their undead antagonists as targets in a shooting gallery, and the heroes are free to exterminate them without a twinge of sorrow. A much more rare approach is to remind the audience that these creatures were recently human and that their current state is a tragic occurrence that might soon befall the protagonists. One might destroy these zombies out of necessity or mercy, but to derive any satisfaction from the killing would be borderline psychotic. This approach was introduced (and perfected) by the great granddaddy of the genre, Night of the Living Dead (1968), and is also used to devastating effect in Jean Rollin's moody French horror film, The Grapes of Death (Les Raisins De La Mort) (1978).

While not strictly a zombie film, The Grapes of Death has the tension and mood of the genre down pat, and as British writer Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw has pointed out, once you've replicated the essential details of a zombie film, you can replace all of the zombies with, say, koalas and it will still feel like a zombie film. Here we have infected people standing in for the standard zoms, just as they did in 28 Days Later (2002). Tainted wine is the source of the outbreak, the result of an experimental pesticide misted over the vineyards. The mysterious infection causes oozing lesions on the face and body, and gradually drives the afflicted violently insane. Symptoms vary among individuals. Some become like wild animals, while others are capable of speech, rational thought and even strategic deception. One thing they all have in common is that they retain awareness and emotion, and this is what makes the film so tragic: The victims seem fully aware of what's happening to them and are anguished by it. We'll see an infected villager break down in tears after killing somebody. Another might plead with the heroine to end his miserable life.

The gory makeup effects are cheap but effective and the acting is unexpectedly poignant for such a low-budget production. There's little dialogue, so much of the emotional weight comes from the tear-soaked faces of the performers. Also, French porn star Brigitte Lahaie shows up long enough to smile and get naked, which is always a plus.

Another faux zombie flick guaranteed to leave you with a lump in your throat is George Romero's original The Crazies (a.k.a. Code Name Trixie) (1973). As in The Grapes of Death, a toxin causes the inhabitants of a town to lose their minds and begin murdering one another. Again, the symptoms range from berserk rage to eerie serenity. The government tries to contain the outbreak with squads of haz-mat-suited soldiers while searching for a cure and keeping the “bomb-everybody” button close by as a last resort. The gas-masked soldiers brutally round up survivors, shooting anybody who resists, and for a time it seems as though they will fulfil the role of official villain in this picture, giving the audience a faceless menace to be destroyed in place of the pitiable infected. But no, Romero has another cruel trick in store for the audience. In one scene, a handful of anonymous special ops soldiers finally remove their gas masks and speak to one another about the tragedy of the situation. We begin to see them as decent human beings, just in time for the “good guys” to break down the door and kill them all.

A remake of The Crazies hits theatres on Friday, February 26, but the devastatingly downbeat original is well worth tracking down on DVD. Check it out.