Anatomy of the Living Dead

I was bound to address it sometime, so here goes. What in the hell is it with people and zombies, man? For real! What was once a laughed-at sub-genre of obscure films is now as mainstream as apple pie. Each year there are numerous movies released and each year this number seems to grow. Mainstream books are being written (World War Z, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies...and next up, Abraham Lincoln: Zombie Hunter), video games are sprouting up everywhere (Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead), there are even annual 'zombie walks' where folks raise money for a good cause by...dressing up as zombies and...walking? And at the Fringe Theatre Festival here this season there are two plays centred on the eaters of flesh. Heck, it seems that every freshman filmmaker has to make a low-budg, indie zombie shocker at some point in their career.

Okay, so I admit to being a bit of a snob here. I've been watching and loving zombie movies since i was a kid. I was a zombie more times for Halloween before 15 than most are in their lives. It's admittedly heart-warming to see those flesh-eaters getting so much acclaim as of late, but...why? See, I get the allure of other undead folks, like Vampires. They seem pretty fun and glamorous and stuff. And angsty, too, i guess. And they always seem to have such good skin. But zombies are the exact opposite, save the whole being dead thing.

Experts postulate some theories. Zombies may be a 'mascot' for the global recession and a world threatened by terrorism. In film (and recently in book form), the living dead have always been utilized to lampoon society - the most popular example, Romero's Living Dead Trilogy, is at it's very heart an exercise in social commentary. So it makes some sense that we would understand a zombie outbreak in terms of our own society going to shit. Or, well...I can at least understand that idea. I don't really know if I myself equate the undead with sky-rocketing unemployment and the tanking of the auto industry, but i digress...

For me, I suppose, there is just something inherently zany and plain fun with zombies. There are infinite types and shapes of zombies, and their mindless need for flesh makes for some amazing leaps in special effects make-up and prosthetics. Plus, they represent that quintessential underlying threat of being cornered. Housed in. Every zombie scenario inevitably involves humans holing up somewhere, with undead hands tearing and ripping at their fortifications.

So deep down we're all frightened of dying alone? Is this an indictment of our essential need for freedom? I am not sure, but if this growing genre of pop culture means George Romero will keep making Living Dead films, then count me among the flesh-eating, mindless hordes.


Here's my self-indulgent, personal 'essentials' zombie movie list, in case you wanted to really explore the genre:

• Romero's Dead Trilogy (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead)
• Zombie (aka Zombi 2)
• Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore)
  
• Re-Animator
• Dead Alive
• The Return of the Living Dead
• Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
• Shaun of the Dead
• Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror
• White Zombie
  
• I Walked With a Zombie
• The Serpent & the Rainbow
• Night of the Creeps
• Tombs of the Blind Dead