creepy AND cerebral.

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2007)

blockbusters usually don't do it for me, and the same goes for zombies (though, these critters weren't exactly zombies...more like hairless mutants w/more brains than they're given credit for, which of course, leads to trouble). but this is a digression...
it goes w/out saying that the setting of manhattan, so utterly sunken and desolate, was amazing. it's hard to imagine that people could view this and not be transfixed, or at least, a bit taken aback. what made it so fantastic was that this post apocalyptic vision wasn't portrayed in some over the top tableaux, because what we're seeing could possibly happen if circumstances did indeed wipe out the population. but even for its possible realism, there was nothing benign about it, either.
but what I found most unsettling (and well done) was how the film didn't allow its bits of comic relief to provide said relief for longer than a minute. case in point: Neville is chatting w/his dog, Sam, about a possible party she may be throwing for him. it's funny, it's a will smith moment. but just as we're feeling that touch of lightheartedness, BAM, there's Fred the mannequin, not at all where he should be. the effect was beyond disturbing; it just wrecked me. and I liked it.