Filmmakers keen on re-envisioning a classic are also aware that the semi-dead of three decades ago would hardly be considered as menacingly adversarial today. With new times come new zombies. And just as Snyder approached this Dawn in a “fresh, new way,” he and Gunn imagined their post-plague world with zombies that “needed to be a real threat—you just can’t walk right by them. When our dead walk, you run.”
In 2004, zombies are quick and supernaturally strong, with the single-minded killing drive of a shark that smells blood in the water. And once a human is bitten and dies, the transformation into one is nearly instantaneous with death. So the numbers grow exponentially as more humans succumb.
“Zombies are cool, and our zombies are really cool,” continues Snyder. “They act like a pack—very wolf-like, which is important in order for the audience to buy this ride. They have to believe the zombie threat is real—that if you confront a zombie oneon- one, you may be able to escape, but against more than one, you’d better run. There’s never really a chance of winning…if you’re lucky you’ll get away in one piece.”
To create the look of this new zombie breed, filmmakers turned to two-time Academy Award®-winning special effects makeup designer David LeRoy Anderson.
The director reasons, “I didn’t want this film to be a CGI freakout. From the beginning, I saw this as a makeup effects movie.”
After filmmaker meetings, Anderson had the relatively brief span of four weeks to put together his designs and his team. “There are fanatics about this particular genre in my industry and I knew I would have no problem pulling together a team,” says Anderson.
In his designs, Anderson lifted both from nature (he and his team scoured forensic books and crime scene photos) and traditional zombie mythology (primarily from African and Latin American lore) to create an appearance of death and decay. The goal for all was the replication of what actually happens to the human body the days/weeks/months following death—whether animated or not. “We wanted to create zombies based on absolute reality—the color schemes are real, the look of decomposition is real—it was all about keeping it real.”
It was decided that a zombie’s deterioration would progress over the weeks of the mall siege, with the legions becoming more and more decomposed over time. For makeup and continuity purposes, Anderson broke decomposition’s degrees of decay down into three stages.
Anderson explains, “The first stage looks like someone who was just in the ER— pale, with lots of fresh blood. The second stage has moist wounds but the skin is beginning to break down. There is a lot of discoloration and mottling, mostly blues and greens. The third stage is the most intense, with the skeletal form coming through. The wounds are dried-up, the skin is sloughing off and colors are oily blacks.”
When it came to creating this frightening look, Anderson and his crew used all the tricks of the trade. “Since the original film, the industry has obviously developed a lot of new techniques and materials…and we are using a lot of them. However, it is still the same fear factor as before, it is just that now, we are able to make things that look more real—like something out of a morgue or a huge, possibly wartime disaster.”
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