Zack Snyder Promises “Insane Zombie Mayhem” With ‘Army Of The Dead’
Zack Snydermade his feature debut with the surprisingly goodDawn of the Deadremake, and now he’s returning to the world of zombies withArmy of the Dead. StarringDave Bautista,Ella Purnell,Ana de la Reguera,Garret Dillahunt,Raul Castillo,Omari Hardwick,Hiroyuki Sanada,Tig Notaro, andMatthias Schweighöfer, the upcoming film follows a group of mercenaries trying to rob a Las Vegas casino during a zombie outbreak. During a recent interview, Snyder clued fans into what they can expect to see whenArmy of the Deadhits Netflix next year: (mostly) practical effects zombies, and “insane zombie mayhem.”
In the video above, which runs overthree hours, Zack Snyder drops some details regardingArmy of the Dead, his upcoming zombie action movie. Most of what Snyder has to say here is positive, including a promise that the overwhelming majority of the zombies in the film will be created via practical effects. There’s nothing worse than CGI-heavy zombies and/or monsters, really. The best/worst example of this is Will Smith’sI Am Legend, which was much better than I thought it would be but was hampered by some terrible digital-heavy monsters.
“90% of our zombies are completed practical,” Snyder says in the video, going on to talk up the action sequences we’re in store for: “The sort of zombie war, the action sequences and the fighting, my longtime collaborator and friend Damon Caro worked hard to create some insane zombie mayhem on an epic level, with a little splash of Vegas, just to make it cool.”
“Make it cool” is pretty much Snyder’s go-to aesthetic, for better or worse, so none of that is surprising. And what ofArmy of the Dead’s tone? Is it horror-heavy? Action-based? Here’s what Snyder says:
“I’m obsessed with the kind of tone where – I would say this – the movie has fun, but it doesn’t make fun, which is a really fine line. I really wanted to make a no-holds-barred zombie genre insanity. My cohorts over at Netflix really strapped in and went for a ride with me…we nerded out hardcore on our genre tropes, and you will see the tropiest tropification of tropes in the history of troping.”
Look, I don’t want to turn this post into an excuse to bash Zack Snyder, but saying stuff like “the movie has fun, but it doesn’t make fun” and “you will see the tropiest tropification of tropes in the history of troping” doesn’t exactly make me want to putArmy of the Deadon my must-see list.
