Zack Snyder Promises "Insane Zombie Mayhem" With 'Army Of The Dead'

Zack Snyder made his feature debut with the surprisingly good Dawn of the Dead remake, and now he's returning to the world of zombies with Army of the Dead. Starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Garret Dillahunt, Raul Castillo, Omari Hardwick, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, and Matthias Schweighöfer, the upcoming film follows a group of mercenaries trying to rob a Las Vegas casino during a zombie outbreak. During a recent interview, Snyder clued fans into what they can expect to see when Army of the Dead hits Netflix next year: (mostly) practical effects zombies, and "insane zombie mayhem."

In the video above, which runs over three hours, Zack Snyder drops some details regarding Army of the Dead, his upcoming zombie action movie. Most of what Snyder has to say here is positive, including a promise that the overwhelming majority of the zombies in the film will be created via practical effects. There's nothing worse than CGI-heavy zombies and/or monsters, really. The best/worst example of this is Will Smith's I Am Legend, which was much better than I thought it would be but was hampered by some terrible digital-heavy monsters.

"90% of our zombies are completed practical," Snyder says in the video, going on to talk up the action sequences we're in store for: "The sort of zombie war, the action sequences and the fighting, my longtime collaborator and friend Damon Caro worked hard to create some insane zombie mayhem on an epic level, with a little splash of Vegas, just to make it cool."

"Make it cool" is pretty much Snyder's go-to aesthetic, for better or worse, so none of that is surprising. And what of Army of the Dead's tone? Is it horror-heavy? Action-based? Here's what Snyder says:

"I'm obsessed with the kind of tone where – I would say this – the movie has fun, but it doesn't make fun, which is a really fine line. I really wanted to make a no-holds-barred zombie genre insanity. My cohorts over at Netflix really strapped in and went for a ride with me...we nerded out hardcore on our genre tropes, and you will see the tropiest tropification of tropes in the history of troping."

Look, I don't want to turn this post into an excuse to bash Zack Snyder, but saying stuff like "the movie has fun, but it doesn't make fun" and "you will see the tropiest tropification of tropes in the history of troping" doesn't exactly make me want to put Army of the Dead on my must-see list. 

Army of the Dead will hit Netflix sometime in 2021.