World War Z: Inter-faith religious celebration will kill us all

There’s an infamous scene in the zombie flick World War Z where the zombies are so numerous and rabid that they inadvertently create a human ladder to scale the walls of Jerusalem.

Previously the wall had worked well. Individual zombies attacked but were unable to scale or breach. It was only when the refugees begin singing (and one fateful woman grabs a squeaky microphone) that the zombies become so enraged that their localized, simultaneous attack creates a human ladder capable of scaling the wall.

So what are the refugees — presumably terrified at having seen their friends and family recently turned into flesh eating zombies but thankful to have seemingly escaped — singing about? An inter-faith song to praise God.

We see Muslims, Jews, and presumably a Christian or two praying together (or if not together, at least in proximity) and then a song begins. As members of the crowd join in, someone grabs a microphone. With the collective voices and one squeaky microphone, there is a brief moment of joy and unity.

That is of course until the zombies scale the previously impenetrable wall and quickly devour the innocent masses. And while there are badass Israeli soldiers with guns ready to shoot, the zombies best weapon is the “viral-ity” of their disease.

While a soldier can kill one to many zombies, each zombie bite creates a new zombie (with the unfortunate twist in WWZ being that the conversion happens nearly instantly). Thus every bite means not just one less soldier to fight but one more enemy that needs to be killed. Essentially, the zombies scale faster than the humans: the more soldiers one loses the more enemies one has to kill and thus all the harder the fight becomes.

So what are we to take from this? Jerusalem — the site of religious wars from time immemorial to the present day has finally found inter-faith peace. With the threat of zombies, the people are finally able to come together for perhaps the first time in the city’s history. And what comes of this moment of peace and unity? Total destruction precipitated by the very act of shared celebration and love.

I’d love to find a less bleak view of this scene. And any reason is a good one to watch it again.