Zombie movies, at least modern zombie movies (since
Night of the Living Dead), are allegories for the heart-wrenching task of saying a final goodbye to a loved one. Every zombie movie has that scene when the hero confronts the zombie version of their friend, lover, or family member and must quickly burn through the five stages of grief before they are attacked. Acceptance is symbolized with a shotgun blast to a zombie head. I love zombie movies. They are generally cheap to make (pancake makeup, a couple fake arms, squibs), and that has two results I'd like to mention. One, filmmakers with limited budgets are often forced to be very creative with their storytelling. And two, and this is the point I'm really getting at, everything you are looking at is actually
a thing. Actual actors in makeup. Actual sets and locations. Puppetry.
I know this is a generational thing. My nieces and nephews never talk about how "special effects" are done, like I did when I was a kid. They talk about how the "animation" is done. As a kid, I loved finding out about the little clay Indiana Jones in the mine car sequence, the paint dumped into a pool to make Close Encounters clouds, the horrible arduous process to make a Tie Fighter fly (you kids wouldn't believe it). But now special effects are mostly created in computers with mo-cap and wireframes and skins and stuff and nothing is real and no objects are actually bouncing real light into a camera lens. It often looks great, but it still doesn't look real!
Think about Godzilla. Those movies are so much fun. You know that those are actors in bad costumes, and that they are stomping on HO scale Tokyo buildings. It's obvious. But you can't help wanting to be the guy in the Godzilla suit stomping on those buildings. It's crappy, but you know that it's real stuff.
So now we come to I am Legend. Terrible. Here's why. Our hero Will Smith doesn't know any of the zombies in this movie personally. In fact, all the zombies are computer generated. Allow me to repeat that. Zombies, which are scary because they are so similar to us, and because we can become them so easily, are not even played by actors in this movie.
What's the point? This movie is creepy here and there, but it just isn't any fun. For a better time, see any other zombie movie ever made.
That's all for now. Until next time, I'll see you Down In Front™!
Happy Halloween, people! This is one of my favorite holidays! Above is a costume I made many years ago. I was Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes. I tore the fur off a werewolf mask, and sculpted a muzzle out of an oil-based clay, and then painted over it with layers of acrylic paint until the paint was thick enough to peel off the clay and hold its shape. I'm telling you all this lest you think I'm some sort of lazy person who just went out and bought a Halloween costume. Below is a look at the "tunic" and fingernails and stuff. Are you doing anything for Halloween tonight?
Hey everybody! Here's a brand new feature on the blog of really old stuff! 
