Posted by
Catmman on Monday, June 22, 2009 11:48:14 AM
First some clairifications need to be made.
1. 28 Days/Weeks Later is NOT a zombie movie. The "monsters" in those movies are not dead, they are simply humans infected with a "rage" virus. Over time the infected in these movies will die, since their only drive is to kill, not do what needs to be done to live.
2. Zombie movies by and large aren't about the zombies eating brains. There are only a few zombie movies, principally the Return of the Living Dead franchise where the zombies go specifically for brains. Zombies typically will conusme ANY human flesh, brains and all.
3. Zombies cannot run! A zombie is a dead body, it must be remembered. The older the corpse, the slower it is necessarily. Some liberties can be made with this as have happened recently, the remake of Dawn of the Dead particularly. But one of the things which makes zombies frightening is the relentless nature of the creature. It doesn't need to move fast, it only needs to move. Sooner or later it will catch up to you. If there is some "mutation" which allows zombies to run or somehow develop other supernatural powers (as in the laughable remake of Day of the Dead) then they aren't truly zombies at all, but just a plain old flesh eating monsters - still scary, but NOT a zombie.
Whew, I feel better.
I'm just about finished reading a book, The Living Dead. A zombie story anthology. It is the worst book I have ever read. Why?
I enjoy zombie stories and most zombie movies. The nature of the monster itself, its relentlessness, single minded purpose and "drive", ultimately the numbers which are seemingly insurmountable, scare the crap out of me. Zombie movies particularly the ROTLD are the only movies to give me nightmares. The movies themselves are cheesy for the most part, but there is an underlying fear which I have every time I see them which just gives me the creeps. But I digress.
The book mentioned above, I almost didn't buy. I shy away from antholgy novels simply because you never know what you are going to get. There are good anthologies out there, don't get me wrong but short stories generally don't appeal to me. The short story though is ideally suited for horror stories. I just like a little more in the books I read. I decided to take a chance on this book though and took the plunge - right off the proverbial cliff.
The book is almost 500 pages in length. There are some good stories, but only about a handful. Surprisingly, a lot of the stories aren't really zombie stories at all. Everyone has a classic idea of a zombie when they hear the term and this is what I was hoping for when I purchased the book. The book does include some of these types of stories, but not enough. What has really got my goat is the politically correct, or liberally slanted nature of some of the stories. Not even in a covert way, but being unabashedly leftist.
How about a zombie story where the dead return to vote in a presidential election? Why did they return to vote? The dead rise, triggered by the accidental shooting of a little girl. Anti-gun message throughout the story.
Or a "green" zombie story. The gist of this story is that if you don't live your life right, meaning if you don't support and live using alternative energy, forgoing fossil fuels, wearing hemp clothing, donating to the right political causes and advocay organizations guess what happens? You get a corpse. A undead shows up and simply shadows you forever. The protagonist in this story spends the entire story wondering what he did or didn't do to receive his corpse. He even thinks of attempting to "bribe" the corpse away by making a rather hefty donation to a "green" group. Also, the president is portrayed as having tens of thousands of corpses around her, ostensibly since she makes the case that wind farms won't supply all the energy needs of the country.
Can there possibly be a pro-abortion zombie story? You bet. The character in this story who gets pregnant and is forced to get an abortion makes the statement, "A fetus isn't human enough to return from the dead. Good. Abortion isn't murder." The antagonist zombies in this story are resurrected abortion protesters whom the woman takes great glee in blasting with a rifle after the abortion is over. I was struck by two things in this story: 1.) The unambiguous destruction of the abortion protesters. In this day and age the murder or assassination of an abortionist makes great print for the left and the point is constantly made about how "violent" abortion protesters are, portraying all of them as on the brink of murder. Yet the "heroine" has no compunction dispatching the protesters in the same way, revelling in the act in fact. They're just zombies after all, right? 2.) How the "heroine" makes a point of saying a fetus isn't human enough to return from the dead, yet her and her party make a point of taking a small box (coffin) to return the fetus to their compound for burial. If the fetus is indeed not human enough to return from the dead, then why is it apparently human enough to receive burial consideration?
A take on the 9/11 attacks. This story is only marginally less offenseive as the attacks themselves. The victims of a massive terror attack (9/11 is not specifically mentioned, but the intenet to parallel is there) are brought back by a politician brings to boost his ratings. The group of zombies parallel the victims of the crash in Shanksville on Flight 93. One of the zombies is compelled to stray from the script he was given by the politician and tells the assembled audience that they (the deceased) are indeed, NOT "heroes" and are simply being exploited by the pols. A terrorist zombie is instructed by the "leader" zombie to be sure to tell the assembled audience he is "sorry".
I was so disgusted with the leftist bent of these stories, I threw one of my own together.
Read it here
What about zombie movies? Hollywood loves politicizing its movies, including zombie flicks.
George Romero is hailed as a horror master and trailblazer of the zombie movie, rightfully so. Night of the Living Dead and the original Dawn of the Dead were chock full of subtle and sometimes not so subtle social commentary from subjects ranging from racism to capitalism. There is a leftist thread though that runs through his other movies. Starting with the movie Day of the Dead, the military are portrayed as brutal, insane thugs bent on wanton destructuion and in some cases rape. This thread runs through all his later movies, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead.
Beginning in Day of the Dead, the zombies (particularly the zombie, Bob) are portrayed as sympathetic, even as they feast on the flesh of the living. In Land of the Dead, the attempt is to actually get you to root for the zombies as they attack and destroy a high-rise full of selfish, self-centered "rich" folks. There is a thread of class warfare rampant through the film. The "poor" live on the street while the "rich" live high on the hog at the expense of the poor, and the dead. At the climax of the movie, the dead feast upon a mostly well-to-do group of people while the "poor" show up to mop up in the aftermath of the attack. The zombies are even spared after chomping on untold numbers of survivors, by the idealist who says something to the affect of "they're just looking for a place too." Yep, the zombies just finished muching on untold numbers of survivors, but they are spared. The meaning being they were just responding to the injustices inflicted upon them by those they consumed. The consumers become the consumed as it were.
28 Days Later, though not a true zombie movie, offers at least some interesting parrallels. The virus which starts the plague is released by animal rights activists who become victims of the virus themselves. Actions have consequneces, even for the altruist. The military though in this movie are portrayed as murdering rapists. Which brings up another interesting point about most zombie movies: a squad of well armed, well trainined, disciplined soldiers has no chance aganst the zombies, but two or three dope smoking, anarchist teenagers seems to be able to survive.
When you can't read a horror story or watch a horror movie without being bombarded by leftist propaganda, it is proof positive which backs up the assertion that leftism permeates almost every aspect of popular culture. For more on this subject read the following posts
here and
here.
I say bring back Zombie Reagan.
Just keep him well fed. We do have plenty of leftists afterall...