Photo by nocklebeast, some rights reserved
Brad Pitt’s zombie movie epic World War Z will see the walking dead sport roller-skates for the first time in a major Hollywood horror movie.
At a press conference to publicise the release of his big budget version of Max Brooks’ novel, Pitt revealed that his army of the undead will all be on wheels.
“We’ve had George A Romero’s walking dead which were terrifying in their day,” said Pitt. “Then we had zombies running in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead which took the zombie franchise to a whole new level. Now we’ve gone one better.
“I mean, what could be more scary than zombies on roller-skates? It’s the stuff of nightmares.”
Critics have given the new development in this zombie genre a lukewarm reception. Comic actor Simon Pegg, a Romero fan and zombie traditionalist, was particularly scathing.
He said: “My expectations were high, and I sat down to watch a movie that proved smart, inventive and enjoyable, but for one key detail: ZOMBIES DON’T ROLLER-SKATE!
“Zombies are meant to personify our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.
“The absence of rage or aggression in slow zombies makes them oddly sympathetic, a detail that enabled Romero to project depth on to their blankness, to create tragic anti-heroes; his were figures to be pitied, empathised with, even rooted for.
“The moment they appear skating down the high street they cease to possess any ambiguity. They are simply mean.”
A defiant Pitt, 46, hit back at the critics. “They can say what they want,” he said, “but this is a natural progression. Just as vampires went from Transylvanian counts to high school drop outs, so the shambling zombies of doom can become the skaterboy anti-heroes of today.”
Shooting has already begun on a follow up to World War Z. Pitt told reporters that Night of the Living Dead on Stilts will be in cinemas by the end of 2012.
>> Photo by nocklebeast, some rights reserved
