I RETRACT MY RECOMMENDATION FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF MY RECONSIDERED OPINION ON PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, WHICH WAS MENTIONED IN MY ARTICLE “IT’S NOT THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE”

See this is what I get for recommending a movie before I finish watching the whole thing.

Not to take away any of the good things I said about the movie in my post “It’s Not the Zombie Apocalypse”. It is witty, stylish and probably the most entertaining version of P&P I’ve ever seen. Instead of falling asleep wondering idly if Darcy and Elizabeth will EVER get over their socially refined, ever so civil misunderstandings during a ball room dance (*snore*), we watch with bated breath to see if the social gathering will be disrupted by a zombie horde. We anticipate watching them yank out swords and go to town on the undead. Makes for FAR more interesting Austin.

BUT – I can not dismiss one very egregious scene. There are, at least for a while, a community of “civilized” zombies who manage to forestall the full-on mode zombie status by eating pig brains instead of human ones. OK Fine and good.

Elizabeth then witnesses the distribution of said pig brains in a perverse and blasphemous desecration of a Eucharistic ceremony!!! WITHOUT criticism!!!

This was totally unnecessary and offensive in the extreme, as well as either an obvious, or grotesquely clueless, dig at Christian beliefs in general and/or Catholic theology in particular. There was no need either logically or for the plot to include such a Satanic-imaged scene.

Had Elizabeth had, at least recoiled in horror at the sacreligious event, I might have a different opinion, but she takes it in stride, justifying it as part of the zombies’ attempt at staying human-ish.

As far as I can tell, from reading the book synopsis, this scene was not lifted from the source material. Had it been that would not have made the scene less offensive. But the fact it was NOT in the book (let me know if I’m wrong, just for accuracy’s sake) but gratuitously added to the movie makes it even worse.

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade one of my favorite scenes includes a blasphemy spoken by Indiana (Harrison Ford) followed by a slap in the face from his father (Sean Connery) with an explanation: “THAT’S for blasphemy.” Were the sacriligious scene in P&P&Z evaluated with a similar response by the purportedly other Christian humans, I could have understood its inclusion to underline the evil of the organizing bad guy behind the “civilized” zombies.

But there was no such criticism of this blatant affront to Christian imagery, theology, beliefs or practice. It’s a real shame too, because other than this scene, it’s a unique, classy, and engaging outing.

So, unfortunately, for this reason I RETRACT MY RECOMMENDATION FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES – I RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE BE BOYCOTTED UNTIL AND UNLESS THIS BLASPHEMOUS SCENE IS REMOVED.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *