If you found it odd to read in this forum some weeks back a positive assessment of the zombie flick World War Z, prepare to be perplexed again. Stephen Daisley offers a kind assessment of the Brad Pitt film in the latest Commentary magazine.
World War Z is by far the most interesting genre film of the year. It is, and this really does have to be seen to be believed, a right-wing zombie-disaster flick in which our hero is an advocate of UN reform, the U.S. military is noble and selfless, the threat spreads because of lax airport security, and the security policies of the state of Israel are held up as the model for saving the world. …
… World War Z reconnects with the inherent conservatism of the zombie myth, which has always channeled a deep, unspoken fear, not of the undead but of the living, not of brain-devouring ghouls but of the potential for ghoulish behavior inside ourselves. This critique of human fallibility, unusually fuddy-duddy for Hollywood, is the root of conservatism: Liberty without order is license, and license will eventually destroy liberty as surely as it vanquished order.
