There was more to it than just the song’s title.
Before he made his name as a director of huge budget comic book and graphic novel adaptations, Zack Snyder’s first ever movie was a risky remake of a beloved zombie classic.
However, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead proved to be a massive critical and commercial success, pumping new blood into the dead(ish) horror subgenre. Since then, with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League, he has almost exclusively made big action flicks, but his new movie sees him return to his zombie roots.
Army of the Dead is set within a cordoned-off Las Vegas, where a group of mercenaries have been hired to plunder an abandoned casino’s still-full vault. But, of course, there are thousands upon thousands of evolved zombies between them and their prize.
Ahead of the release of the movie, we were lucky enough to chat to Zack – and many of the movie’s stars, and all of this interviews will be arriving on The Big Reviewski this week – and you can check out that full interview right here:
Army of the Dead also sees Snyder’s passion for using popular songs in unique settings in his movies, from Johnny Cash’s ‘The Man Comes Around’ in Dawn of the Dead to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ ‘There Is A Kingdom’ in his extended cut of Justice League.
That carries over into his new movie, which features none other than The Cranberries’ famous hit song ‘Zombie’. Aside from the obvious titular reasons, we wanted to know what it was about this song that made Snyder put it in his movie.
Synder told us: “Yeah, I did it because it was literally the first song that I had on my playlist when I was writing the script. I would just listen to it and I just felt like because the movie is self aware and ironic and it kind of understands what it is, I really love that song because of its politics and its importance.
“There is a sort of deconstructive element in the way that I approached the whole movie, and I just felt that song – which has always been a favourite of mine – really is a serious song, it is an important song, and I didn’t want to undercut it, so much as use that song to reflect back on the movie.
“That song breaks the movie, more than the movie breaks the song, and that’s what I liked.”
Army of the Dead arrives on Netflix on Friday, 21 May.
Clip via Netflix
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