Dawn of the Dead and Religion



"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

It's interesting to contemplate where some films, especially ones in the horror genre, stand on religion and a belief in God. All it takes is one line of dialogue, referencing a theistic element, to stir up the quandary. I'm not really sure what that one phrase from Dawn of the Dead implicates the film into saying about faith-based beliefs. It's important to note that even though a film isn't necessarily about religion, it can still yield a pious reading. I'm going to have to re-watch this film and think about this more deeply before offering an opinion.

Okay, here I am a couple days later. I thought about the clip and the movie as a whole, and want to simplify the analysis. I think it would be more useful, right now, to discuss the clip by itself, as if it were the entire movie.

When one says, "when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth," what exactly does this mean?

First off, it must be noted, that Peter was relaying what his grandfather had told him. However, by the way he says it, the confidence and enthusiasm in his tone, suggests he believes that this line of thinking is an adequate explanation for the raging zombies.

So, let's assume Peter more or less agrees with his granddad, and believes that there is in fact no more room in hell. Peter quotes voodoo as the source faith, religion, superstition, whatever you want to call it, that provided the means for his grandfather to believe in this logic. This implies Peter thinks voodoo has some truth in the world, and can explain something.

Voodoo is essentially the same as other absurd superstitions in the world, such as Christianity, Islam, the tooth fairy, etc.,  in that all rely on beliefs that lack evidence and defy commonsense experiences in the natural world.

When Peter recites his line, it seems to be met by skepticism from Stephen. Now either Stephen is a rationalist, freethinker, secularist, etc., or he has a different religious belief, which he perceives to be greatly different than voodoo.  Either way, he doubts the concept of there being no more room in hell as a viable explanation for their present situation. It doesn't chime in with his logic or his faith-based beliefs. Also, the difference in race between these two characters might hint at their theistic incompatibility.

Nonetheless, Peter is not challenged. No alternative explanation is offered. This seems eerily similar to the real world tendency of people, when science has not advanced far enough or had the major break through to explain a natural phenomena, to turn to religion or the concept of a designer, or cosmic entity, to explain something.

Anyways, lets dissect his famous line from this scene. First off, he is implying that there is a hell. Even though this is apparently a voodoo saying, I am going to tackle this from a Christian perspective, since the majority of viewers of this film are and were undoubtedly Christian. Saying that there is a hell also means that there is a heaven. The existence of a heaven and hell implies the presence of a higher power, a god.

Also by advancing this line of thinking, the line implies that god sends people to hell, and evidently a vast number to this place of eternal damnation. Not only does god send loads and loads of his children to this furnace, but it is possible for hell to be over crowded. I guess this makes sense if you assume it wasn't god who designed hell, because surely if he did the place would never become cramped. However, god is all powerful and will happily send people to hell, so why would he allow the oven to be finite in space? If hell has a maximum capacity, why doesn't heaven as well? It would be reasonable to assume that heaven as an occupancy limit too.

Okay, so from this line we get that god is sinister enough to allow the existence of a hell, and is fine with what seems like the majority of his creation going to this place. Wait, this isn't all. Not only does god punish those who didn't please him while they were alive, he is wicked enough to let those who he judged to be deserving of eternal torture to come back to the Earth and terrorize the very people that still have a chance to make it to heaven. What is god saying? It is reasonable to assume that heaven is also full, that everyone on Earth, alive or acting as zombies, is meaningless to the everlasting love of god. What an asshole this god is.

It is amazing how one line of dialogue can wreck havoc on faith-based beliefs. I think this one scene can offer a compelling atheistic viewing on the whole film.
Posted by Panic Picture at 8/1/2010 11:45 PM
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Hell Religion Dawn of the Dead
 

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