JP Nunez
Admittedly, I’m not the biggest zombie fan in the world. Sure, I love the classics like Dawn of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead, but I think way too many zombie movies today follow the same worn-out template that George Romero perfected multiple times. They don’t do anything to set themselves apart from the rest of the undead horde so they’re basically just boring retreads of better films. But every once in a while a diamond in the rough comes along—a movie that breathes a bit of fresh air into this stale subgenre—and Army of the Dead looks like it just might be one of those gems.
It’s set in a world where Las Vegas is overrun by zombies and quarantined off from the rest of the country, and a group of mercenaries break into the city to retrieve a large sum of money that’s just sitting in a vault underneath the Strip. They expect the job to be a breeze, but when they arrive, they find that the zombies have evolved way beyond anything they could’ve imagined, and what they thought would be an easy heist ends up being a fight for their very lives.
Every time I watch this trailer, two things really jump out at me. Most obviously, the zombies are more than just your stereotypical Romero rip-offs. They’re fast, they’re smart, and they’re organized, making them much more dangerous than just about any other iteration of the living dead we’ve ever seen. There’s even a shot where Dave Bautista’s character is fighting one of them, and it’s dodging his knife attacks like an undead Anderson Silva.
I find this intelligence super intriguing because if Army of the Dead is great, it could set off a tectonic shift in the subgenre. Sure, smart zombies have been done before, but they’ve never really taken off. The vast majority of us still think of zombies as nothing more than mindless wanderers, but that could change if this movie really hits it out of the park.
Secondly, and equally importantly, the human characters in this film look really cool too. The trailer doesn’t tell us much about them, but from the little bit we do get, it seems like they’re going to be a fun group to follow. They feel like a modern version of the team from the original Predator, and if they’re even half as cool as those guys, this movie is sure to be one hell of a ride.
Army of the Dead hits Netflix and select theaters on May 21, so we’re only about a month away from finding out if this really is the next great zombie movie.
So what do you think of the trailer for Army of the Dead? Do you agree with JP that it features cool human characters and intriguing zombies? Let us know in the comments!
