Day of the Dead vs. Wag the Dog

KinnikuKaiju

on 3/15/2014

Oh wow, little bit of a tough choice here. The lesser of the original Romero' ...of the Dead"trilogy, though still great in its own ways, or this really astute, scarily realistic political satire by David Mamet? Has to be the latter just based on the significance, but I want to note what makes this a really interesting comparison is the fact that of the two, the one that isn't billed as a horror is the one that ends up being the most terrifying, because despite what seems like a seemingly far-fetched idea at first - a president staging a war using hollywood film people to manipulate the populace through televised media in order to be reelected after a nasty scandal - comes off as something that seems all too possible. Both films are social criticisms, but where Romero's governmental criticisms are staged from within a highly fantastical and unbelievable setting, Wag the Dog makes us think about illusions and reality on a level that directly impacts us, from a vantage point we can relate to, challenging our role as a viewer.