10 - Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction of the Dead

The Absence of Newton’s Third Law of Motion in Horrible Situations
One would assume that if a horrible supernatural crisis fell upon the world today one thing we could rely on is that the physics of the world would stay intact and sound. I’d say that most people know the name Sir Isaac Newton the profound mathematician, astronomer and physicist needs little introduction because his expansive discoveries in many fields of science and math. Newton’s famous laws of motion have been a crucial and very elementary staple of humans understanding the physical world around them since the laws were first introduced by Newton in 1687. So it goes without saying that we can assume that in the very miniscule, tiny odd chance that the world was struck by some horrible event like a zombie invasion or the fact that vampires secretly existed alongside us, these horrible supernatural creatures would be as prone to the laws of motion as everything else in this world is. That being said though, for whatever reason Hollywood filmmakers love to bend or all together omit these rules whenever it’s the slightest bit convenient for them in their movies. In this essay I will provide an in-depth analysis of specifically Newton’s third law of motion being broken in one scene each of the horror movies of Planet Terror, John Carpenter’s Vampires, and Shaun of the Dead.
Newton’s third law of motion states that whenever a first body exerts a force (F) on a second body, the second body exerts another force (-F) on the first body. The two forces (F and –F) are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. Simply put in more average human terms for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
John Carpenter is an academy award winning director known for many of his very famous movies in the 70’s and 80’s including Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween. Although he has dabbled in many different genres of film, one looking at his career would have no problem saying that his specialty is that of films in the ‘action’ and ‘horror’ genres. Unfortunately John Carpenter’s infamous fame has dwindled significantly in recent years and the 1990’s were less than kind to him. His film Vampires seems right up his alley combining both action and horror the movie unfortunately was created past his prime and falls in that terrible 90’s streak of films of his but fortunately is a prime example to start on as a great example of horrible movie physics.
The film Vampires revolves around James Wood’s character, Jack Crow who is a leader of a badass group of the worlds best vampire hunters, the movie starts with his crew cleaning out a huge “hive” of vampires in an abandoned farmhouse in the desert somewhere just another day for the world’s best vampire hunters (hopefully this captures some small degree of how cheesy and ‘realistic’ this movie is…) The scene I’ve chosen is the scene immediately following where the vampire hunters are spending the evening celebrating the days vampire killings how else but by a party involving lots of topless women with bad hair, blaring bad music and tons of very cheap beer, (only the finest for the world best vampire hunters!) when Valek the master vampire of the hive they just cleaned out and missed decides to show up at their door and get some revenge by killing everyone of them each in a ridiculously easy and simple way.
When Valek rings the doorbell (like all good vampires should) the obese and comical vampire hunter gets up to answer the door only to find his mistake when the vampire Valek stabs him with his hand and then proceeds to rip the man in half in a very simple upward action with apparently no effort or physical force opposing him! As everyone soon is alerted to Valek’s presence he then spends the next few minutes walking around stabbing and ripping the heads off and killing hookers and vampire slayers in seconds each. Once the more sober vampire hunters (including the amazing Jack Crow) realize what’s going on they decide to open fire on the looming Valek and to their surprise (and any physicist’s also) he doesn’t even react to the amount of lead being pumped into him and infact his clothes barely even move which should be rapidly shredding being in direct line of a line the rain of bullets the hunters are unleashing on him I think my favorite part is when Jack Crow decides that the handgun he is firing would me more affective if he jumped into the air parallel to the vampire whilst firing on him and flying completely across the room (very immune to the physics of reality) and landing on a dresser looking very surprised that the whole action did not affect the vampire any more than just standing and shooting at him. I think part of the reason that directors like John Carpenter use scenes like this in their movie is an attempt to make specific characters (like the master vampire Valek) seem all powerful and awesome which may work to an extent but what they didn’t realize at the time is that you can over do the effect to the point where the movie ends up being ridiculous all around and not believable at all this is also why I believe the movie was a complete flop and only still survives as a sort of cult classic in some circles of horror movie fans.
Planet Terror is one of those movies where a modern director tries to create an homage or tribute to an older now almost extinct kind of film making. Robert Rodriguez wanted to create a throw back to old grid-house type films and all the unnecessarily intense gore sex and violence that come with such an approach to filmmaking (not to mention horrible physics!)
Needless to say there were plenty of scenes in this film for me to chose from to write about but the one I chose was the beginning of the main action sequence of the film when the main character Cherry, who now has a huge automatic rifle and grenade launcher combo attached to her stump to replace her missing leg, uses her new found equipment to launch herself into the air by firing downwards and somehow stays upright the entire time to land over the wall the main characters need to cross and while she’s slowly falling down on the other side of the wall she shoots a grenade at a bunch of zombified soldiers (in mid air) and still continues to fall safely downwards instead of flying backwards as she should have based on the physics of the recoil or blast force showcased by the grenade launcher attached to her leg only seconds previously (the reason she was in the air at all!) and when she lands she then slides into a spinning stripper-like dance rotating her entire body around on the ground shooting the rifle at enemy soldiers (who apparently didn’t just get blown away as shown) now all around and the powerful blast of the rifle has no affect on the perfect spin she does while its force apparently has the unequal effect of knocking down the soldiers all around her. Boy aren’t physics fun?
Ironically of all the movies that I looked at the physics in, the one that contains the most realistic physics in it is one is the British comedy Shaun of the Dead, both an parody of and an homage to not only zombie movies in general but specifically George A. Romero’s films like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. I find it ridiculous that the one movie that I looked at that is of the ‘comedy’ genre and takes itself the least serious is the movie that displays the best portrayal of physics on screen. I don’t know if it is possibly because it’s a comedy movie and because of that it needs a more realistic basis in life for an audience to even sit through it or if its simply because the movie is the only one that was not made in Hollywood and the more realistic approach is that of the British film studios or directors taste, but for whatever the reason this movie bends the laws of physics least. That being said though the movie still takes advantage of a bit of movie magic here and there so for the purpose of this essay the scene I chose to analyze is that of the climax of the film when all the main characters, Shaun and his friends are hiding out in the local pub the Winchester and tension between them over what to do in the ever increasing danger of the sudden zombie outbreak reaches its peak. All the characters are at each other’s necks at this point and the scene reaches its breaking point when Shaun’s friend David decides he can’t take anymore and decides to leave the safety of the pub and venture out on his own. Shaun and his friends successfully coax David into not leaving the pub but it’s too late as the window that David is standing next to, which has held up fine the whole second half of the movie even with a mob of zombies constantly banging it and trying to make their way through, suddenly (and conveniently) shatters and David is grabbed by the horde of zombies and pulled outside the pub. As Shaun and his friends quickly grab David’s legs and try to save him it is useless because the zombie mob very simply reaches through the flesh of David’s midsection and proceeds to pull out (and eat) his insides and (not very anatomical) intestines as if it was easier than digging in sand. Now I think most people realize how much force it would take to dig into and pass through the very thick layer of the average person’s skin in their midsection. David is then much less of an annoying character as the zombies and Shaun and his friends end the tug of war over him when each of his limbs and head very easily pop off the torso. Now Shaun and David’s girlfriend have (all though weaker than I would expect) a somewhat realistic reaction to this as when they each pull a limb free (on accident of course) they fall over as a result of the force expelled on the body finally coming free, the two zombies pulling off the arms however simply raise their hands holding David’s arms as the arms are released from the mass of the torso and don’t even step backward or show any physical strain on them of the amount of pressure required to pull a human limb off of a body making it look even more less realistic to a viewer than the idea already does, if you stop and think about it the entire action seems rather ridiculous but it happens so fast that the average viewer doesn’t get time to think twice about it. Now this lack of reality is also done in a way that is rather humorous, the scene looks so ridiculous that the viewer who does catch it as it quickly passes and realizes that it doesn’t work that way gets a laugh at how unrealistic it is, yet another innovative tool the director uses to get a laugh.
So there you have three awesome cases of the world’s people or situations throwing all of Newton’s hard work right out the window just because it was convenient for a film in John Carpenter’s Vampires, Planet Terror and Shaun of the Dead. I didn’t realize that the movie physics showcased in all three of my film selections produced a humorous affect on the viewer until after I wrote this entire paper. In the second two I believe this was the intention but also in the first two films they used it with the intention of making it the film seem “cooler” offering a Steven Segal effect to a situation which would have been pretty normal with out it, however I think that most people though pick out even the slightest misuse or ill-portrayal of physics and the effect is that of laughter or humor sometimes backfiring on the director who is supposed to have the most control over the film than anyone.