Dawn of the Dead, 2004: what was your interpretation of the last scene with Andy?

Question

The character Andy, who was trapped on top of the gun store, would always write messages on a large board to the survivors on top of the shopping mall. At the end of the movie, Andy is turning into a zombie. When the people on top of the shopping mall roof last see him, he writes one final message, which is just smeared lines.

This scene was absolutely chilling. I thought Andy was trying to lure them to the gun store. I thought it was a sign that the zombies had some remnant of human intellect left. He was trying to trick them into making a rescue attempt. He had some memory that writing on the board would make the people come, so he was trying it.

However, other people didn't agree that his last attempt at a message meant what I thought. They said he just turned into a zombie while writing the message. However, didn't it always take a few minutes after the person died for that to happen?

What do you think?

I am very impressed with the answers I'm getting so far. I thought my interpretation was right, but after seeing the movie, two friends said they didn't even notice that scene, and thought I was reading too much into the movie.

The first three answers are all excellent. "influencefree" has an interesting and very plausible perspective. I have to mull it over. I thought that Andy was trying to lure them intentionally. To me, this was the highlight of the movie: I thought it was brilliant that the Andy character was doing this. I would be disappointed to discover the writers didn't even envision this.

Maybe I should watch the movie again! (good excuse to watch it, eh?)

Answer 1

I think you are correct in your interpretation. I thought Andy wasn't completely a zombie but was starting to get that good ol' zombie flesh crave and knew that help would arrive if he called. But, since he was on the brink of death, he couldn't control his body and the connection between body and mind was breaking down. That's why it appeared as only smeared lines.

Answer 2

let me start by saying i love this movie and watch it every time it comes on the movie channels, that said i though this scene in particular was an error, the zombies follow hunger and only hunger, when Andy showed the sign and was a zombie my first thought was bad consistency, hes a zombie and shouldn't be doing this at all, but i think the director wanted to make the loss of Andy more dramatic so they gave you the hope that everything was ok when you see him writing on the sign, which only makes the loss harder when we see what his last message is

Answer 3

Your interpretation though insightful, I don't think that was the meaning of that. Basically, all of the zombies in the movie acted out a rough outline of their daily lives. They didn't do it on a conscious level because they no longer had higher brain functions. But on the primal level, they kind of remember going to certain places and performing certain activities. For Andy, he was trapped on that roof for more than a few days before his "death", and for days he would write on that board to communicate with the other survivors on the other side. Once he "died" he returned to the last activity his brain could think of in it's limited capacity. Which was writing on that board. By the time Andy made it to the roof, he was already dead. He wasn't trying to lure them, being dead he could no longer think on that level, he was just performing the last activity that had meaning for him before his death. Like all the dead who flocked to the mall, they didn't go there because they knew survivors were there, they went because it was the last activity that had meaning for them that their brains could remember.

Answer 4

OMG.This is funny.My interpretation is : Andy had turned into a Zombie and Zombies can't write.

Answer 5

Because it was smeared, I thought it was just the zombie doing a learned behavior, but not knowing how to spell, so it was smearing the marker all over the board.

My take.