Zombies: Beating The Undead Horse

I want to talk to you about something that is probably very near and dear to all of us.  We fantasize about it frequently, we discuss it with friends, we secretly plan for it, we involve ourselves in movies, games and media that feature this…

I want to talk about zombies.

But I don’t want to talk about how subjectively awesome they are, or the difference between a true zombie and just an infected person.  I want to talk about how damn tired I am of seeing them everywhere.  I suppose it’s appropriate—Zombies started out as a shambling, inescapable mass of lifeless persons, and now it’s an inescapable mass of media and merchandise.  Some people theorize that zombies started out as a veiled comparison to the Red Threat after World War 2, since communists were demonized, hunted down, blacklisted, jailed, whatever.  But the real terrifying thing about communism was the fact that they looked just like us God-fearing capitalists—they could have been anyone.  They could convert anyone.  The same could probably be applied to the last 10 years fighting the “War on Terror”.  But now it seems that zombies are more appropriately applied to American consumerism, and the sudden need for everyone to call themselves a “geek” for no other reason than the fact that it’s now (ironically) the cool thing to be.  Typing “zombie” into a google shopping search gives you every result from t-shirts to figures to books that teach you how to “speak” zombie.  People are posting ideas for survival kits online, and some genius decided to start selling a $24,000 kit for when the zombie apocalypse “eventually” comes along.  And let’s not forget the shopping mall in the UK where you can live out your Dawn of the Dead fantasies.

What once was a genre that was littered with occasional, campy (and usually terrible) films and a video game once in a while is now saturated to death with just about anything anyone can imagine, and quite frankly, I’m tired of seeing it.  And especially now that we seem to be smack dab in the middle of a “let’s make dark, gritty, realistic versions of everything” phase in TV and movies, I have to admit that I’m downright bored with the genre as a whole.

And really, I don’t really know what launched us into this whole obsession with the undead.  Zombie movies have always been hellishly cheap to make, so the opportunity for this level of explosion of zombie exposure in pop culture has always been there.  I think Shawn of the Dead paved the way for domesticating zombies, since it was one of the few movies at the time to actually treat the zombie infestation with a sense of humor rather than “let’s get twelve more poorly lit shots of our bloodied protagonists before someone gets bit again and we spend ten minutes crying and waiting to shoot him”.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a fun book (with a terrible sequel) that helped tempt the classic literature crowd into the zombie hoard.  Fido is another fun movie about zombies that actually takes place well into the apocalypse after the threat has died down, rather than being another movie that only wants to establish an apocalypse situation before letting the heroes retreat into a situation with temporary safety.

But the reason why that book and those movies really stand out in my mind as opposed to something like The Walking Dead TV show (I haven’t involved myself in the comics) or even some of the classics is because they actually bother to break the mold (and aren’t so damn serious about everything).  We have seen the beginning of a zombie apocalypse time after time after time.  And we have had the discussions about the “perfect zombie plan” time after time after time.  Manufacturers now think that creating a character with a greenish tint to their skin or slapping the word “zombie” and attempting to make a pun on a shirt will create an instant seller.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lamenting about “the good old days” where only “real” nerds liked zombie movies and now all these normies are getting up on my zombie junk.  I’m actually fairly new when it comes to the zombie genre, though I have seen more than my fair share of films from it.  But all I know is what used to be an occasional, cute nod to a classic “movie monster” has now turned into something we’re exposed to every day.  Bombarded with, even.  Can’t we just… calm down a little bit?

While I’m ranting, vampires can fuck off, too.  But they can stay fucked off.  Zombies are allowed to come back after we take our break and see different people.

I will say that the zombie genre has paved the way for some really great games and films, amongst all the shit that floats around them.  The Left 4 Dead series, Dead Rising, Resident Evil all have really helped define the genre even more, and The Last of Us (though Naughty Dog claims it isn’t a zombie game) looks to be another winner to many people.  Ironically, what I’ve seen of the Walking Dead videogame looks to be pretty interesting, even though what I’ve seen of the show bores me to tears.

But while I love zombies and I love the books, games and movies that have bothered to think outside the box with a very tired concept, I know I wouldn’t exactly be complaining if we re-buried zombies for a bit and just let them rest for a while…