Zombies On A Plane. It WILL Happen.

It certainly can’t have escaped anybody’s attention that zombies are popping up in every medium not just as the stars of their own vehicles (such as the term star can apply) but also in places we never expected. The Bennets have a spot of bother with the undead in the Pride And Prejudice And Zombies series (film to be expected in 2013 at this point), the pesky varmints show up in the video game Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare and even Call Of Duty has them marching along in Call Of Duty: World At War: Zombies.

The video game industry seems to be prevalent with zombie games and add-ons. Series like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising give you more zombies than you ever thought you could imagine and the newly released Dead Island is only adding to the trend (though it can be argued, as it can for 28 Days Later and its sequel, that these aren’t zombies in the traditional sense but that’s for another time).

Comic books love to throw zombies into the mix, most likely because it allows heroes and villains alike to use their powers, weapons and abilities at full force without worrying about the consequences because hey, the dead don’t have rights! Marvel Zombies, The Walking Dead (though not a superhero comic, they are the focal point here), even DC’s crossover event comic Blackest Night offered something similar to zombies.

And movies, well, there are that many films starting with the word zombie they’re almost as overpowering and numerous as the creatures themselves. In 2010, over 40 films about, or featuring, zombies were made and this doesn’t include short films. Granted, a lot of those come from countries where English is not the first language so not many people overseas will know those films but they still count. Arguably, the most well known releases of last year were the latest of George A. Romero’s own zombie series, Survival Of The Dead and Resident Evil: Afterlife
And this is a trend that does not look like it’s dying (no pun intended) down anytime soon. The latest Pirates Of The Carribbean movie features zombies (and apparently vampire mermaids. I haven’t seen it yet so I don’t know if they pull it off well); The [Rec] series, which inspired the Quarantine series (first was a remake but it is now going down an original path), is getting another sequel; the aforementioned Pride And Prejudice And Zombie; World War Z is due next year and there’s even a romantic zombie movie on the way (more on that later)

Yet despite what some might see as an overcrowding of zombie related media, the question is, why is it still so popular?

I have a theory as to why (though I acknowledge that others have probably reached the same conclusion). Part of this theory actually involves a comparison to vampires, so I’ll keep it as short as I can.

Vampires over the years have gone through several interpretations and concepts. Different writers pick and choose parts of vampire lore they want to use and want to ignore.
In the 30‘s and beyond, Dracula was pretty much the first thing that came to mind when talking about vampires. Back then, vampires were usually treated as creatures of olden times, with olden ways and as figures of mystery, though justifiably so.
The Hammer films of the 50‘s and similar productions went with the idea of vampires as seductive creatures, usually not in subtle ways and usually with a female vampire and a female victim. Though it may have boosted some of Hammer’s vampire films into cult status, it may also have inadvertently planted the idea that being a vampire was desirable. Like the other Dracula films, the standard methods for disposing of a vampire were in place (stake to the heart, decapitation, fire).
Others have taken the approach that can be summed up thusly: “Duuuuuuude, being a vampire is awesome! You can stay up all night, do whatever you want and you’ll be young and pretty forever!” (The Lost Boys ran on this)
Some movies involve vampires either running the world and becoming the dominant race and not unlike humans other than bloodlust (Daybreakers), others involve them being societies that move amongst humans or outnumber them but go through power struggles and wars with other supernatural beings (the Underworld series, the Blade series)

However, the most common depiction these days is perhaps the idea that some vampires are tortured, lonely immortals who go through Peter Parker-style wangst at their abilities at being both a gift and a curse. Anne Rice’s vampires ran on the idea that they were somewhat sexy, desirable and even somewhat charming. Some were caught up in the ramifications of their immortality and lifestyle and often wondered if they were dooming others. However, they are also portrayed as hedonistic, vain, self-serving and somewhat oblivious to the needs of others. Now, which part do you think most people attach themselves to, hmm?

And now we get to how vampires are mostly seen today: as the first half of what I described of the Rice style vampires, only usually younger, “good” vampires who like humans and fall in love at first sight (a ridiculous concept) with teenagers. Of course, I refer to Twilight. Since it’s still a hotly debated topic, I will refrain from airing my personal views here, except for this: I don’t care what people decide to ignore or add to vampires, they don’t sparkle and they can’t give birth (and don’t tell me about Darla from Angel, everyone on the show noted it was impossible and that’s why it worked there!)

Though, speaking of Angel, the vampires of the Buffyverse are probably my favourite portrayals of vampires so far, going in-depth on the history of vampires, how they work and such. In a nutshell, the demon infects the body to an extent but its also influenced by who you were before you died. Or, to look at it another way, vampires are some humans with their conscience and inhibitions switched off. Then you have your souled vampires, like Angel himself, who are still vampires they just feel horribly guilty of what they’ve done (usually, anyway).

All sorts of aspects of vampires get thrown out and exchanged and swapped around, from the effects of sunlight, to the weirder aspects like “vampires cannot cross running water”, “throwing salt or seeds over a vampire’s shoulder will cause the vampire to count each individual grain of salt or seed” (incidentally, this is thought to be the basis for the concept of Count Von Count from Sesame Street) and of course, what a vampire can transform to (if they can at all). These forms are most commonly bats or wolves but can include a form of mist (I wish I saw that more often)

So, for those of you who haven’t fallen asleep at this point, you may be asking “I thought this blog was about zombies, what’s this got to do with it?”
Well, the answer is this: zombies have worked so far because no one’s changed the fundamentals. Vampires undergo so many changes over the years, from vicious monsters lacking souls to tortured, innocent immortals to single minded feeding machines (30 Days Of Night displays that kind of vampire).
But zombies? Pretty much the same. In zombie games, to paraphrase Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, this is the basic format: “Zombies over there, kill they ass”
About the only aspects that become altered throughout the mediums are whether or not they can talk (and if they can, whether or not they maintain full vocabularies or just go with “BRRRRAAAIIINS!”) or whether running zombies count as zombies at all (28 Days Later sparked that particular debate). Although some debate still rages about whether or not all flesh obsessed shamblers are zombies or just infected people who resemble zombies.

In any case, because the formula’s remained relatively unchanged, zombies have carried on doing what they do and we keep lapping it up. No tortured Romeo and Juliet style romances (yet) about zombies and the humans who love them (now that would make for a really cool talk show episode). No zombie version of The Road where a zombie and his zombie son roam the post-zombie apocalyptic Earth looking for fresh meat (or, for a twist, one of them is not a zombie and the zombie’s memory makes them resist biting the other though the temptation is there)
Nope, zombies= evil and humans have to fight or flee. That’s how its been since the beginning and that’s how it’ll be for years to come.

Or will it?

Though the title has not yet been decided upon (at least to my knowledge), there actually IS a rom-zom-com in development. I don’t know whether to praise it for trying to shake things up or be wary that the gimmick will be stretched out. It’s one thing to have something different, it’s another to explore what this idea can do. Merely being different doesn’t mean anything if your entire message is “I’m different! Look at me!”
Shaun Of The Dead might be one of the better ideas of shaking things up a little. It accomplishes this not by radically altering the genre but by injecting humour into it, almost deconstructing it and lampshading it. It’s serious in places but still humorous enough to stand out from the crowd and be remembered not just as “that funny film about zombies” but as something inspiring since it tried something different and worked. Part of that is because rather than go “these types of films are rubbish and here’s why” it’s an affectionate funny film featuring zombies. And those are the ones that work best, the ones that satire films or genres but make it clear all throughout that they respect the work and love the concepts.
I mean, it was enough to get Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright cameos for George A. Romero’s Land Of The Dead (I believe they were even offered meatier roles but they chose to cameo out of respect for the works. Also, you get to be a zombie for the man considered to be the father of the zombie. Unless you count that Smurf story where they turn purple after being bitten but that’s yet another debate)

Maybe the zombie craze is already dying down. All good things have to come to an end. Are we getting sick of zombies yet?