The Lucky 13: Our Favorite War Horror Films
by Brutal As Hell staff
intro by Marc Patterson
This week, in honor of Veteran’s Day, we’re looking at our favorite war horror films. In the world of horror the military is often vilified as a large, faceless, corrupt agent of evil; a pure death machine. It’s easy to do so. Nobody likes a war, and no one likes sending their children off to die. But there’s no denying that it is a necessary evil. Rarely do horror filmmakers explore the human side to those who serve, or delve beneath the surface to explore what happens when an organization that is meant to protect us falls apart under global chaos.
While all war is indeed hell and horrific, that does not make all war films horror films. This week we’re taking a look at some of those films that fall distinctly into the category of horror. Whether it’s a post-apocalyptic nightmare or zombie outbreak, these are films that take a look at the military as something more than a simple plot device, making an attempt to say something a little more.
As always, we’re joined in this project by our friends from The Vault of Horror, so when you’re done perusing over our selections, click on over to see what Brian and crew have worked together.
Marc Patterson on 28 Days Later
Bootcamp is effectually a brainwashing cycle. It’s designed to break an individual down and re-train them to think as a part of a unit. You are not your own anymore. You belong to the government. It sounds so inhuman to describe it as such, but it’s very much necessary if you’re going to go onto the field of battle and act as one. You have to learn to live and function as part of a cohesive unit. Believe me, I’ve been through it myself. If you don’t see the man beside you as your brother, you’re as good as dead when you enter the fray. It’s like the line from Blackhawk Down, “When the first bullet flies by you all politics go out the window”.
This is an important lead in to why 28 Days Later is my personal favorite war-torn horror film. 28 Days Later was an amazing film on a lot of levels. It reinvigorated the post-apocalyptic genre and stirred an insane amount of debate over what exactly a zombie is (or isn’t), but the one thing this film did especially well was to examine what happens in a global collapse where the military breaks down and ceases to operate under the command of one central voice. When anarchy becomes the rule is the military a friend or a foe? When you’re trained to act as a unified force, what happens when that unit breaks apart?
In 28 Days Later a small military unit manages to stay intact under the sharp hammer heavy command of Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston). For these soldiers they find order, structure, and normalcy in the everyday task of just being a soldier. Sending out a radio transmission they hope to bring citizen survivors to them in order to find females and begin a re-population project. For them these exercises transcend simple survival. Regimented order is survival. They find purpose in their new mission. A soldier without a mission is a dead one. That said, we witness in abject horror at the manner in which this squad executes their mission. They are inhuman and act on the level of dogs, yet it is their only purpose and to sway from the mission means death. This isn’t completely foreign subject matter. You see war stressed soldiers engaging in torture of prisoners. It’s not like this is a stretch. It’s current affairs.
A lot of people will watch 28 Days Later and see the story centralized on the horror of a nasty viral outbreak, and the plight of a group of citizen survivors as they try to evade both infected as well as this military group that is now more militia than military. I see this as a close character study of what happens when power is corrupted, when good intentions turn out to be evil, and the level to which a fellow human will sink in order to simply survive. I like that this isn’t an anti-military film, but it is a film that takes a close look at the humanity behind the uniform, and for that it is an important part of my essential horror collection.
Annie Riordan on Deathdream
War. Horror. You can’t have one without the other. The only thing I can think of that could possibly be worse than being a soldier on active duty during wartime would be being the loved one of a soldier, waiting helplessly at home for him/her to return, not knowing if they’ll do so on their feet or in a box.
It is exactly this sense of hopelessness and despair that the late Bob Clark (best known for the holiday classic A Christmas Story) captured so perfectly in his 1974 film Deathdream, which was itself based on the short horror story “The Monkey’s Paw” written in 1902. Deathdream, like so many of Clark’s films, is not content to be a mere horror story. In less capable hands, it could have been a simple, straightforward story of a momma’s boy turned zombie who goes on a bloody munchfest through Beaver Cleaverville. But the zombie element is only an allegory for the true horror of this tale. Call it shell shock, combat stress reaction or battle fatigue, the simple fact of the matter is that a hell of a lot of soldiers never came back from their wars. And I’m not talking about the physical dead. I’m talking about the walking dead; the traumatized, hollowed out soldiers who returned from war with their lives intact but their souls irreparably devastated. Somehow, Deathdream’s main character Andy, who amazingly manages to be both the pro and antagonist, also manages to serve as a metaphor for all soldiers: both dead and alive, innocent and corrupt, frightening and forlorn.
Very rarely does one feel any sympathy for the zombies in a zombie film….until someone like Bob Clark comes along and reminds us that the zombies were, and are, us. Perhaps it is true that only the dead have seen the end of war, but Deathdream is a grim reminder that, sometimes, given the right horrific circumstances, war can and will turn you into a zombie long before your body dies.
Ben Bussey on Planet Terror
Quoth Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, 1986: “War is sexy! War is fun! Iron Eagle! Red Dawn!” Quoth Biafra again in 2007, when his former bandmates OK’d the use of Nouvelle Vogue’s cover of Too Drunk To Fuck in Planet Terror: “This goes against everything the Dead Kennedys stands for in spades.” While he was referring specifically to his song being used in an attempted rape scene, it’s probably fair to assume Biafra wouldn’t be a fan of Planet Terror overall. For this is a movie in which war is most definitely sexy and fun, as a top secret biological weapon named DC-2 is unleashed on a small Texas town turning most of the populace into puss-dripping mutants with a taste for human flesh, and the few that are somehow immune band together to fight back.
Whilst Planet Terror is not without its dark and tragic moments, it’s fair to say it does not show the true horror of armed conflict. God no. This is a vision of war that I daresay many of us would happily sign up for: you get big guns, badass vehicles, and fight alongside foxy chicks with exposed midriffs, high heels and short/near enough non-existent skirts. And this isn’t one of those Vietnam or Iraq deals; you don’t need to give a moment’s pause over whether the conflict is morally justified. After all, you’re fighting hideously deformed freaks that ooze blood and slime, and want nothing more than to eat your brains. And possibly gain your knowledge.
Still, the movie does trudge the grey areas of modern warfare, resulting in a complex representation of the US military. On the one hand, the soldiers are the baddies, lead by a Bruce Willis out to get what he wants regardless of the cost, and counting amongst their ranks the would-be rapist scumbags played by Quentin Tarantino and his inordinately buff co-star. But at the same time, the soldiers are the victims, infected with DC-2 by their own superiors in order to cover up the unauthorised execution of America’s Most Wanted… and come on, whatever your stance on the War on Terror, who among us can’t crack a smirk at the thought of Bruce Willis blowing away Bin Laden? I often ponder whether there’s any rivalry between Willis and Eli Roth on the subject; after all, we’re only told that Willis killed Osama, but we all saw Roth turning Hitler’s face into bolognese. Who scores most points in the wasting-enemies-of-the-free-world stakes?
It may have met its share of disdain for not being an accurate reflection of true grindhouse cinema, but I say balls to that. If any purveyors of low-budget exploitation had the means to make an action-horror movie on this kind of scale, with these kind of FX, this many explosions and this much grade-A gore, you know damn well they would’ve. (They probably would’ve squeezed in more actual nudity too.) This ridiculous, genre-mashing, bullet-riddled, blood-soaked spectacle is Robert Rodriguez in his element, and I love it.
Bryce Holland on Day of the Dead
Like any self-respecting horror fan, I love me some zombie movies. The atmosphere of dread and utter annihilation that inhabits a good film about the walking dead just tends to make for an awesome horror film. Plus, the sub-genre is just so damn versatile. You can put zombies in horror comedies, action films, science fiction films, and gothic period pieces and they can easily adapt and fit in the environment. For my money though, the hands down best zombie film, and frankly one of the best horror films of the 80’s, is George A. Romero’s nihilistic gore-fest, Day of the Dead.
To me, this film may very well be the boldest piece of cinema that Romero ever put together. I mean, after the vibrant, almost comic booky feast that was Dawn of the Dead, you’d think that maybe Romero would have continued making more palatable zombie films. Instead, in his next foray into the realm of the undead, he crafts one of the most bleak, depressing, cynical horror films ever made, then he populates the entire script with a cast of some of the most unlikable characters ever written (it says a lot when the most sympathetic and lovable character is actually a zombie), and then, to top it all off, he makes the entire story a pretty scathing indictment of governmental and military abuses of power.
And yet, it all works.
Despite how grim and bleak the film is, it works on almost every level because it feels genuinely honest. It’s a film that seems born of quite a bit of disenchantment with the way the government works, and it doesn’t pull any punches. It’s got a little bit of everything going for it: an amazing setting in a vast, underground military complex, some of best gore and makeup FX ever committed to film, and one of the best villains in all of horror-dom in the form of Joe Pilato as the sadistic and unhinged Captain Rhodes.
Sure, Night of the Living Dead probably has more social relevance, and Dawn of the Dead has a much more likable cast of characters and a better setting, and, really, there is no denying how amazing either of those two films are. But, with its insane amount of blood and guts, biting social commentary, and brutal honesty, Day stands as the king of the festering, corpse strewn hill as far as I’m concerned, and if you disagree, in the words of Captain Rhodes: choke on it!
Prudence J. Figgypudding on Homecoming
As my astute (and admittedly slatternly) affiliate Annie Riordan pre-empted me on this week’s Lucky 13 by choosing Deathdream as her film of preference, I offer as a companion piece to her much lauded choice the 2005 Masters Of Horror episode “Homecoming” directed by my dear friend Joe Dante, whose films I have highly praised in reviews past. Homecoming, though it is a deceptively mere sixty minutes long, is no exception. Inspired by the fierce spin cycle of American politics which erupted in the heated aftermath of the fiercely debated 2004 presidential election, Homecoming takes the tale of The Monkey’s Paw into the 21st century and asks us to consider a new and previously unforeseen threat from the reanimated dead: the right to vote.
Does your right to vote extend beyond the established metaphysical boundaries of this lifetime? Does it expire when your physical being does the same? Should the dead have just as much if not more more say than the living in political matters? And are the fear tactics of the conservative right wing truly effective upon the psyches of those whose neurotransmitters have, for all intents and purposes, stopped responding to external stimuli? Indeed, the popular practice of waterboarding may well have proven itself to be a much more detrimental weapon against the intimidated dead as repeated exposure to a high pressure hose may exacerbate the decomposition process, but Dante only had an hour with which to make his point. Guantanamo Bay has had nearly a decade to accomplish said same and, truth be told, their efforts pale in comparison to both Dante’s MOH contribution and the lyrics of Black Sabbath’s 1970 magnum opus “War Pigs.”
