Commentary: Zombies…what’s the big deal?
Everybody loves zombies.
That seems to be an axiom for fans of the horror genre. Recent history would seem to bear that out. For most of this decade, zombies have enjoyed their spot in the horror limelight with everything from video games, books, hit movies, low-budget movies, “zombie walks“, comics … you name it, zombies have devoured it. Over on our message board, a discussion has sprung up about how to classify different types of our undead friends and what classifes a zombie as, well, a zombie. Zombies are everywhere
I don’t understand the big deal. Honestly, I don’t.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not some unabashed zombie hater. I love the original Night of the Living Dead, dig the gore fx from the 70’s and 80’s, I’m one of the biggest Resident Evil fans out there (when it comes to the games, not the shitty films), and…well, that’s about it. I’ve mentioned this before, but when I look on my shelf I find it seriously lacking in modern zombie cinema. If someone asks me to name drop a top 50 favorite horror films list, 9 times out of 10, only NotLD will appear. And ironically, the zombies in that film are one of the least interesting aspects of it for me. So when Fake Larry brought up the topic of zombies I got to thinking “Why do people like them so much?”
For me anyway, zombies are one of the least interesting monsters. Dead people brought back to life to eat you? Wow (did you pick up on that sarcasm?). See, to me, zombies have never been cool monsters so much as they have been cool vehicles for FX artists. It seems to me that people today are still trying to outdo Tom Savini, that is, the connection to any “human” element of the monsters is primarily secondary to how good the makeup artist made his or her head explode. Now I’m not arguing that there is anything inherently wrong in enjoying that kind of thing. I love seeing zombie heads explode as much as the next horror fan. I’m just trying to understand the “Zombies are awesome” sentiment that so many people have. Why are they awesome? What is it specifically that makes this particular horror monster so appealing to everybody?
It can’t be because there are tons of awesome zombie movies out there. I find Dawn of the Dead to be incredibly overrated, not that it isn’t a good movie, just that the fanboy slobbering over it is a bit gonzo. Day of the Dead is good. Return of the Living Dead is good. The Italian Z flicks are garbage. Sorry, but Fulci’s film sucks. It has some impressive gore and camp value (a zombie fighting a shark? That’s just stupid. I don’t care how lovable it has become), but again, these films are known primarily for their FX work. A lot of people seem to enjoy the Dawn remake, I think they were just so desperate for a zombie film that they latched on to the first thing with production value. Which also explains the eye-popping popularity of the Resident Evil films which aren’t even as cinematically awesome as the games themselves. Romero’s 2 latest films, Land and Diary, suck. To show you how shallow the quality zombie film pool is, you have to have people argue that the infected, living people in 28 Days/Weeks Later are zombies. I hear the inevitable “Shaun of the Dead!!!” example coming. Setting aside the fact that I didn’t find it funny, the same people who love the self-aware Shaun are the same people who think something like Scream sucks. That doesn’t make much sense to me. You know what the best zombie movie in the past 25 years has been? Serpent and the Rainbow, and that doesn’t even involve any “dead” zombies.
Jeff was mentioning on the latest cast that he never really got into werewolves because the stories were pretty much predictable and he knew exactly what was going to happen in them. Although I don’t agree with that statement, I’m sure it could be argued logically somehow. But then how would one defend zombies? This is a sub-genre whose great innovations have been “Let’s make them learn stuff like living people” and “Let’s make them run fast”. And it took 30 years to get to that point.
I firmly believe that part of what makes a memorable monster is the emotional, human element involved. In just about every other major type of horror monster (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, etc.) there is something tangible that a viewer can grasp onto and identify with. The Mummy is searching for his lost love. The Monster is trying to come to grips with his new, frightening humanity. Vampires appeal to what people would love to have (ever lasting life) and the addiction that comes with it (having to kill). The archetypal werewolf character must deal with guilt and suicidal thoughts. Ghosts involve anger at being wronged and a search for justice. What do zombies appeal to? Fear that there is no afterlife, maybe? The unconcsious taboo of cannibalism? A return to the reptile mindset where everything is chaos and that we have no control?
It’s important to remember that the zombie genre is more than just George Romero. I think too many people fall back on the traditional arguments of things like consumerism run amok, government incompetence and religious paranoia. Those are Romerian attributes. If these were the fundamental things that drive the popularity of zombies then these monsters would not be as popular as they are worldwide. The films that highlight these issues in an engaging way are certainly to be commended. In fact, I fully believe that maybe the ultimate point of zombie films are to give people an outlet for their anger, suspicion, and mistrust of organized religion, government, and predatory capitalism. Kim Paffenroth certainly argues as such in a book that I recommend. It is certainly arguable that the other horror monsters do no such thing, so maybe zombies fill this niche? But how would that explain the popularity of zombies worldwide? Specifically in countries that aren’t as anti-government, pro-consumerism and religious as the United States is.
I see a zombie film and go “eh, whatever”. To me, there is nothing interesting about zombies in the modern “reanimated corpse that wants to eat you” sense. On the other hand, I find the voodoo inspired stories much more engaging and interesting. When I see zombies getting their heads blown off, I certainly say “That’s cool”, but I’m totally disconnected to it. There is no personal investment in what I’m seeing. A zombie doesn’t have to deal with the consquences of anything, afterall, it’s dead. For example, if I died and came back as a zombie, who cares? If I died and came back as a vampire, that’s some serious shit I’d have to deal with on a nightly basis. If I was a werewolf and ripped my girlfriend to shreds I’d probably have some pretty substantial issues that a therapist just couldn’t fix. When I see zombie films attempt to “humanize” the corpses, my immediate reaction is “What else can they do with these movies?” It doesn’t feel like a natural progression so much as it does an inevitable one, which is one of the biggest reasons Romero’s latest films suck…he forces change when it has stalled.
Ultimately, the power of a zombie film lies not in the monsters, but the living, breathing people trying to escape from them. One thing that zombie films excel at, by and large, is forcing the viewer to identify with those being threatened. The little girl zombie in Romero’s original film is not what hits hard. It’s the mother’s reaction. You feel for the mother while the girl has simply become the vehicle for the mother’s death. I can get that. I can relate to that on some level. The zombies themselves, no.
But therein lies the ultimate problem with the zombie genre. It has become one that folds the pair of aces in favor of the 7/2 offsuit (analogy for Jeremy). Filmmakers today give priority to the zombies. Through years of growing up on Savini homages, they mistakenly believe that the zombie is what audiences identify with, so they put all their energy and focus into the monsters. And because they have shifted so dramatically to the wrong direction, literally thousands of zombie movies that have been released are utter dreck. Why has this occurred? Jeff put it best on a Splattercast episode: Because Romero did everything that could be done. His genius was not in showing blood and gore, but rather hitting all of the notes that needed to be hit on the human level. Frankly, he built the zombie coffin and then nailed it shut. What more can you really do? Well, you can make zombies run faster…
In conclusion I want to make it clear that I’m not dogging on zombies. I’m just indifferent towards them. I don’t find anything particularly special about them and the glut of films that have been released post-Romero (of which you could probably count the top-quality ones on a single hand) are repetitious imitations that are so watered down at this point that they are, no pun intended, soulless. So do I know why zombies are so popular; why people are willing to dress themselves up as living dead and wander around streets in large packs? I think I know why, I just don’t fully understand it. Zombies are cool in the sense that you have variety, cool makeup and FX work, and they provide a never ending supply of exploding heads. But as monsters, I think they rank well short of being anything more than eye-candy.
So…why do you like zombies?
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