Undead or Alive (2007) is a genre blending RomZomCom along the lines of Shaun of the Dead – a romantic zombie comedy for those who liked
All the western clichés are present – from the frontier
women in long cotton skirts baking pies in wood burning stoves, to the corrupt
and mustachioed sheriff, the saloon girls, horses, and six-guns. These common
western tropes are combined with recognizable zombie movie chestnuts like the
shambling rotting corpse eating the brains of his wife and daughter. It’s
not, by any means, a great movie, but it does deliver all that it
promises: Cowboys and Zombies and not a
few laughs.
But, I should say, my enjoyment of this lighthearted movie
was very qualified.
Zombie movies can generally be divided into two kinds based
on their explanation for the origin of the zombies. One says that the dead are reanimated by some
sort of bacteria or virus, that is to say, a scientific and natural explanation
(however un-scientific it might be). The
other kind of zombie movie suggests that Zombies are the result of a
supernatural curse. Undead or Alive
is one of the latter.
The movie’s prologue tells us that the legendary warrior and
medicine-man Geronimo, “renowned for bravery in the face of overwhelming
odds…was credited with supernatural powers.”
After many years of guerrilla war against the U.S. Army, Geronimo was
finally cornered and his final act was to make “the secret medicine known as
the White Man’s Curse.” This curse is what causes the white-men to become
zombies.
And this is where part of me started to object.
If the curse of the film were cast by any unidentified Apache warrior / medicine man, I could have watched the movie without struggling to maintain my suspension of disbelief. But crediting it to the famous and historically important Geronimo causes several problems.
Geronimo was indeed renowned for his raids against Mexican provinces and later against US territories. After a lengthy pursuit, he finally surrendered to US forces in 1886. He was taken as a prisoner of war and lived for many years and became something of a celebrity. He also became a Christian and urged his people
If the curse of the film were cast by any unidentified Apache warrior / medicine man, I could have watched the movie without struggling to maintain my suspension of disbelief. But crediting it to the famous and historically important Geronimo causes several problems.
Geronimo was indeed renowned for his raids against Mexican provinces and later against US territories. After a lengthy pursuit, he finally surrendered to US forces in 1886. He was taken as a prisoner of war and lived for many years and became something of a celebrity. He also became a Christian and urged his people
“..to study that religion, because it seems to me the best religion in enabling one to live right.” [i]
He didn’t die until 1909 - from complications from pneumonia. So the history and characterization of Geronimo is far from accurate. And he’s hardly a character in the movie anyway. We see him only briefly during the prologue and in a few very short flashes as the curse is passed from victim to victim, so I’m not sure why the filmmakers thought it necessary to attach Geronimo’s name.
But then again, having all but cleansed the old west of authentic “Indian” characters in real-life, why should we expect our films to portray them accurately. Why bother when we can pit cowboys verses zombies or cowboys verses aliens?
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