Zack Snyder, the director of the new Netflix zombie film Army of the Dead, has revealed that he included an anti-border wall message in the film, stating that the symbolism was necessary to “hold up a mirror to ourselves.” Zack Snyder explained the film’s political overtones in an interview with the Associated Press, which reportedly depicts the construction of a wall to contain people, as well as scenes of detention camps and the quarantining of people suspected of carrying the zombie virus.

“We were building a wall. We were creating these refugee camps,” Snyder says. “We needed to kind of use those things to hold up a mirror to ourselves. Once you erect a massive wall around a city, you really find yourself referencing all kinds of laws that have been created for all kinds of reasons,” he added. And I believe your awareness of those things is critical. Once you erect a giant wall around a city, you really find yourself referencing all kinds of laws that have been created for all different reasons. And I think your awareness of those things really is important.”

Army of the Dead, which premieres on Friday, is set in a future where Las Vegas has been walled off due to a zombie virus epidemic. Dave Bautista plays a former war hero who accepts a job to retrieve $200 million from a casino vault before the city is destroyed. German actor Matthias Schweighofer, who co-stars in the film, went so far as to suggest that the world should have no boundaries at all.

“I was born behind a wall in the east of Germany and the wall came down and I always thought as I traveled through the world, ‘I don’t want a wall back in my life. I don’t want any borders back,’” Schweighofer told the AP.

For years, Zack Snyder avoided talking about politics with the media, sparking rumors that he was a right-winger due to his action-packed films such as 300 and Watchmen, as well as a proposed adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. However, the Justice League director recently shared his left-wing views in an interview with The Guardian.

“I vote Democrat!”