March 15, 2007

• I liked it. Good read.
• Yes. Read good.
• Hi Fes!
• Man, you just don't want me to get anything done today. Okay, points: In a later reappraisal, a Village Voice critic explained that “the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam.” Wrong, wrong, OH MY GOD WRONG. NotLD is a movie about the civil rights struggle in the US in the 1960s. The only thing you have to be to catch that is awake. Grr. RRRRRR BRAINS. ...Homecoming (in which dead Iraq war veterans return from the grave to vote against the war)... God, that was terrible. I mean, so much potential totally squandered. So bad, I wouldn't eat the director's brains. The politics tend to lean left... Overall maybe true, but debatable. Zombies and zombie-like creatures have also been used to stand in for the Red Menace and the dangers of sexual promiscuity. GOD DAMN IT ALL I LOVE ZOMBIES. George Romero, a Pittsburgh-based director of TV commercials and occasional segments for Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood... Holy. Shit. The unloved 1985 Day of the Dead dispensed with the satire, making shrieking villains out of military types who were still holding out against the undead. I actually liked Day a little better than Dawn. If only for the line "I'm runnin' this monkey farm now, Frankenstein!" It was the best film interpretation of Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation ever. No zombie discussion would be complete without orotund socio-political theory, so here’s mine: By foregrounding the question of how much dignity there can be in death and dying, the era of physician-assisted suicide and Terri Schiavo has spurred the recent revival of the zombie film. An interesting theory, but none of that was really in the news when Danny Boyle released 28 Days, which pretty much kicked off the genre's revival. Kevorkian was old news, and Schiavo wouldn't be around for years. Personally, I find it more indicative of a culture that is in many ways eating itself, a growing awareness of the ever-widening rift between the rich and poor, and an era of unprecedented war and natural disaster. Turbulent times lead to these kinds of expression. SEND. MORE. POLICE.
• I prefer paramedics myself.
• “offers us a glimpse of a universe in which all spiritual values have been replaced by our awareness of the material realities of the corporeal and consumerism.” Although it may not be strictly considered part of the Zombie canon, Shawn of the Dead added to this by showing the reverse -- how unaware we are of those realities in our day to day lives. Before SotD, consumerism was symbolically represented by the zombies themselves, and indirectly, by the hoarding and self-preservation of the living. Shawn added a different view, as in the first part of the film, Shawn IS the zombie, going through his life oblivious to his surroundings, mindlessly serving as a tool of Capitalism, and as long as he gets his little rewards of video games and trips to the pub, he is content to exist within the Capitalist model. In the drudgery of Shawn's daily life, the dead had become the living, and the living the dead -- bringing zombies as an analogy of consumerist culture full circle. If zombie films before had shown the violence and inequites inherent in Capitalism, SotD showed its weighing monotony and omnipresence. Of course, it could be said that element was always there in the zombie symbol itself, but it was the self-identification with Shawn that made it more obvious than before.
• CHUT UP!
• Never thought of it that way. You're right, though, the zombies are often reflections of what's wrong with us -- though I think they're most powerfully used when they push the living characters to reveal their own ugliness, as in the fight with the bikers in Dawn or the battle against the military in 28 Days. The real point of the zombie film isn't what we do to them or they do to us, but what we do to ourselves once they show up and start snacking. Day of the Dead and later Land showed the zombies in a more positive light, but I think you're right, Shaun may be the first time that they are actually the means of the hero's salvation. Only by destroying his life and taking away nearly everything that he holds dear do they spur him to wake up and begin valuing what's truly important in life. Kind of like Fight Club, only this time Tyler Durden smells really bad and eats your mom. Shaun is the zombie. Huh.
• See, now all I want to do is get me a Netflix account and start checking titles out.
• Oh wait, I thought of another example -- the IMHO unjustly-maligned remake of Night. Barbara's liberation is a direct result of the zombie horde trying to get in the house, and you could only argue it's complete after she's forced to kill Ben.
• s/b "you could argue it's only complete..."
• They're us, man. THEY'RE US.
• I can't help but wonder if the attraction/repulsion of the zombie isn't more visceral than mere contemporary politics. Sure, Romero (and others) have dicsussed ad infinitum the themes BUT I think we are affected at a deeper, almost alligator level. There is, on one hand, the taboos on proximity to corpses; the anathema against being eaten; further taboos on cannabalism; and the ancient and unknowable question of "what comes after"? The internal charting that each of us does as to what constitutes a good death versus a bad death? (example: fire = bad, drowning = fast, probably relatively good. Falling, especially from very high = bad; eaten by the animated corpses of your family and neighbors = very bad indeed). You've a LOT of socio-cultural baggage coming together in one rotty package, here - a whole host of reactionary touchpoints that the genre bangs on like Jamaican steel drummers. We can certainly overlay a political framework over the details of the expression, but strip that off and I think you've got a lot of megalodona swimming around just out of sight.
• We hide the sick and dying away in hospitals and nursing homes. We remove the recently dead to tastefully decorated suburban buildings where they're de-stinkified and painted up to look like they're alive. We bury them in subterranean concrete vaults beneath a field far away from residential districts, where the stones are all flat and unobtrusive for mowing ease. Our dead soldiers are sneaked home under cover of night. Anyone who can afford to hides in suburbs or gated communitites where they don't have to see the annoying poor with their dirt and untreated illnesses. You can only repress that shit for so long before it starts to seep out into the collective unconscious in the form of zombie movies.
• I think there's that added bit of horror, too, when it's a loved one -- hence the ubiquitous I-have-to-shoot-my-mom/sister/dog/whatever scene. The idea that any of us is corruptible, that we can lose our precious control, or see our friends and family turned to monsters. All monsters are reflections of ourselves, but here we can't pretend that it's just a beast. Here we see ourselves. The linked article also makes a point about beauty as well -- it's even more terrible when it's, for instance, a little girl. I think innocence plays in that, too. Like the zombie baby scene in the remake of Dawn, which was one of the few really gripping things about the film. That scene disturbed the hell out of me, seeing that baby corrupted before it had even been born. Our ideas of innocence and "age of accountability" go flying out the windows when we see that baby. Even our infants can be damned.
• that we can lose our precious control There is a fairly famous anecdote, in which several horror movie directors were asked what scares them the most. You got the usual subject - rats, the dark, the unknown - but John Carpenter is famously supposed to have said "Loss of Control." (I think Stephen King writes about this in Danse Macabre, which is imo a very insightful non-fiction look at both horror fiction and the underpinnings of what constitutes human fear by a master). John Carpenter is, as a director, a little too eager to schlock, but I think that quote is very telling.
• seeing that baby corrupted before it had even been born There's a LOT going on in that series of scenes :) You have the foreboding of the continuing separation of Mekhi Phifer's wife from the rest of the group (off screen), and the fact that he increasingly separates himself from the group as well as she grows closer to zombification. The strangely gentle tones in which he speaks to his wife, who's obviously a very dangerous creature now. The baby is almost an afterthought, wrapped in those blankets and then - gah! Original sin strikes again. AND that sarah polley, the female lead who has since the start of the movie represented all things maternal (she's a nurse, she knows and is friendly with the neighborhood kids, she's the moral compass) is the one to step up and do the dirty work.
• Personally, I find it more indicative of a culture that is in many ways eating itself, a growing awareness of the ever-widening rift between the rich and poor, and an era of unprecedented war and natural disaster. Turbulent times lead to these kinds of expression. There is also the simplifying element - against our dead selves, we are all united (or SHOULD be). The zombification process is a cleansing process borne to us on a rotting corpse. Against the zombies, our thoughts and actions are stripped to the barest essentials - kill, eat, run, gather, survive. There is a real sense of clarity that takes place about a third of the way through a zombie movie, when the characters (and ourselves, by proxy) strip away the detritus of life and revert back to the essentials.
• In other words, Vanitas, Vanitas, Vanitas. IN Victorian literary terms, the zombie is the tragic double of the ass-kicking hero; a symbol of what he will become if he is unable to conquer the challenges ahead of him. The needto destroy the zombie's brain is the modern need to avoid thinking about death and decay.
• The thing is, it's pretty much impossible to make a zombie film without making a political statement, and/or espousing a philosophy. Zombies will always end up being a metaphor for something. There's many different ways to make your zombies act (Brain-eating or flesh-eating, shuffling or quick-acting, mindless or something left, etc...) and many different causes your can have for their existence (e.i. military, big business, a comet, etc...) and many different ways to resolve your movie. Bundled all together, you always have some kind of metaphor, whether you intend one or not. Not only do I think it's impossible to avoid making some kind of political statement with a zombie movie, I have a theory that it's possible to make ANY political statement with a zombie movie, using those three things I mentioned (cause of zombies, behavior of zombies, and solution of zombies). I can think of zombie movie plots about civil rights, environment, gun control, abortion, drug war, big government, humanitarian aid, war, pre-emptive war, consumerism, capitalism, space exploration, whatever else, and any of these plots can be for or against any of these topics. I can make a zombie movie plot that supports any political view that I am familiar enough with.
• Gentlemen, I believe we have a dare.
• Well, that feller in Fiddler on the Roof said that everything's political if you look at it the right way. I can't wait to see Mr. K's zombie movie! Storyboards will do.
• A recent book that pretty much tried to fit all the zombie tropes into one package. Succeeded in some more than others, and was a good read. Reviewed on my blog here. And I'd be remiss not to mention an unusual and essential entry in the zombie-movie genre that has just come out on dvd. Oh, and "brains."
• Well, that feller in Fiddler on the Roof said that everything's political if you look at it the right way. He also said that God must love zombies, for why else would he have made so many of them? Clawing at the window shutters, flailing at the siding, battering doors down with the stumps of their own broken limbs... yes, love is the answer.
• One aspect that strikes me after reading the above posts is the contrast between vampires and zombies. Vampires have this weird gothic appeal - you can be undead and never age and always wear great clothes and so on. Zombies, on the other hand, are rotting, putrescent, decomposing, etc. The crime of both is quite similar - they're undead, they're preying upon and eating the living - but vampires are chic in a way that zombies will never be. I guess this is something to do with the vampire as lone ranger, masterful and commanding, versus the zombie as automaton, almost without free will.
• There is a real sense of clarity that takes place about a third of the way through a zombie movie, when the characters (and ourselves, by proxy) strip away the detritus of life and revert back to the essentials. Corollary: I think we find this attractive. I don't think this element of it is horror so much as fantasy. Sort of like Independence Day or The Stand, when the vast majority of civilization is destroyed. Suddenly so many things that ruled your life -- mortgage, credit rating, health insurance, consumer culture, job -- all that gets taken away, and we're stripped down to our essentials. Provided you survive the horror, you then have the infinite promise of rebuilding, and more to the point building a more liveable life. So the end of Land: Let's just take whatever we need to survive, fill up our psycho RV with weapons and supplies, and let's go "North" (i.e., to an undiscovered country where we can begin again, and pray to God we've learned from the mistakes of the past). It's a very romantic and attractive idea. On preview: A recent book that pretty much tried to fit all the zombie tropes into one package. I really, really want to read that. And I'd be remiss not to mention an unusual and essential entry in the zombie-movie genre that has just come out on dvd. TP already knows my feelings about that one. So much fun, so deliciously 80s it makes me want to turn up the collar of my Izod shirt and blast "Take On Me" on my boombox.
• *contemplates eating Fes' brain*
• roryk: there is also the essential sense of sexuality that vampires have (see the numbingly luscious Kate Beckinsale for a very pleasant to look at example) that simply doesn't exist for zombies. The transition from human to vampire is one of liberation, albeit with a monstrous (and therefore cautionary) cost; the transition from human to zombie is a failure, a disease, the result of a mistake, but more so a capturing, of you by whatever zombification vector is employed.
• *awaits Huron Bob to chime in* Here I sit A vampire at my piano The flames burn glaringly higher And the eyes that stare through the darkness Though they have no form There's no need for alarm...
• I was just thinking about this the other day (although not quite in terms of zombie vs. vampire). I don't know if this is universal, but it's not really death itself I fear. It's decay in several forms: The decay of the body that happens before death, the loss of control (over both the body and the circumstances of life) that comes with illness and aging, the decay of my surroundings in the form of losing things and people dear and familiar to me. The zombie represents all of that. The modern vampire cheats his way out of most of it. Pre-Stoker, vampire lore wasn't actually that different from what's in a zombie movie. The vampire was more of a mindless, repulsive, gravedirt-crusted revenant. On reflection, I think that Mr. L's movie should be "Zombies vs. Vampires." The head vampire will be played by a digitized recreation of Vincent Price, while the head zombie will be played by that digitized recreation of Orville Reddenbacher from the TV ads.
• Or if Mr. L isn't free, Mr. K can do the movie.
• > the essential sense of sexuality that vampires have Yes, that's an important difference. Neck biting is a whole lot more erotic than skull chomping, at least for most people. Also, vampires are aristocrats, zombies are hoi polloi.
• I don't know WHO's going to do my proofreading and HTML tags. Cheap zombie labor, probably. Outsourcing to the netherworld.
• > The modern vampire cheats his way out of most of it. Even regains some youthful aspect - Lucy Westenra looks better in the crypt than she had in her last days alive.
• MonkeyFilter: Cheap zombie labor, probably.
• musical Zombie interview.
• Actually, even in Stoker the vampire was pretty repulsive. Read the description of Dracula from the text. His attacks in the book, his tainting of the blood, his forcefulness and hypnotic power--all these are threatening, not seductive, and his attacks are less like seductions and more like rapes. And in the book Lucy isn't going around seducing folks after she's a vampire--she's eating babies, children. But we digress. For whatever reason (some say it's Byron's fault, at least by proxy) the vamp is not teh sexhay. And you just can't make a zombie sexy. Though some have tried.
• No zombie thread would be complete without revisiting roryk's splendid Zombie Vilanelle.
• Are we discussing a voodoo zombie or a 'true' zombie? Because there's a difference. Also, isn't the basis for zombies a fear of being buried alive?
• What about the Oedipal nightmare which is Brain Dead?
• This post truly establishes Fes as the comeback kid.
• I had truly frightening dreams of zombies through about half of my pregnancy. What the hell is *that* supposed to mean?! I had something else to say, but I got distracted by work and forgot it. Dammit!
• Are we discussing a voodoo zombie or a 'true' zombie? One could argue that voodoo zombies are the 'true' zombies, because they came first. But your point's well taken -- voodoo zombie films and stories carry a different sort of psychological baggage from the Romero-era undead stories. The movies I've seen from the voodoo era -- White Zombie and I Walked With a Zombie, both of which are highly recommended viewing -- were in large part about racial/sexual fear, IMO, the fear of the black man "stealing away" the white woman, etc. They are tales of enslavement.
• By the way, say what you will of Romero, but when you manage to define an entire genre of storytelling with a single goddamn low-budget movie, you have done something with your life. I envy the man.
• White Zombie could have been a reflection of the world's growing dissatisfaction with colonialism. Or just an excuse for Bela to break out his most elaborate fake eyebrows.
• They were indeed something special.
• wow...what an interesting conversation...you folks are amazing at times. Now, if we could take this intelligence and focus it on something like world peace, I think we could solve it!
• And then there's Fido
• I don't know so much about the voodoo zombies as a "WHERE DA WHITE WOMEN AT?" fear basis. I was thinking more along the lines of slavery, where the Africans in the fields worried that, even in death, they would not be free of the thankless, meaningless, unceasing toil that was their whole experience in life. Which is pretty depressing. But yeah, I Walked With a Zombie is required viewing. And White Zombie is actually one of my favorite Bela Lugosi performances, as he nails the voodoo master with the greatest name ever in cinema, Murder Legendre. I mean, seriously.
• WRT thankless, repetitive, unrewarding toil, how long until we get the CUBICLE ZOMBIES? Undead labor, working as contractors, no need for health care costs or vacation time, plenty of unpaid overtime...holy shit! Quick, I need a Hollywood type to pitch to, stat!
• I don't know so much about the voodoo zombies as a "WHERE DA WHITE WOMEN AT?" fear basis. Not talking about the voodoo origins themselves, but the use of voodoo zombism in film. Consider the two flicks I mentioned above. Wouldn't the main characters who are zombified in both films be...WHITE WOMEN?!?!?!? Who are effectively ripped from polite white society and are cast into the same crowd as the LARGE, POWERFUL BLACK FIELD HANDS, NEVER TO RETURN TO THE SANCTITY OF THEIR LILY-WHITE PARLORS?!?!?!? Isn't the zombie woman in IWWaZ locked in a HIGH TOWER beyond the reach of the rest of the world...TO PROTECT HER?!?!?!? Ha, I have you, TenaciousPettle, or should I say, SUGAR PLANTATION OWNER HORATIO "ZOMBIEMASTER" ALGERNON?
• !?!?!?
• !?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• .

• Actually, even in Stoker the vampire was pretty repulsive. Read the description of Dracula from the text. His attacks in the book, his tainting of the blood, his forcefulness and hypnotic power--all these are threatening, not seductive, and his attacks are less like seductions and more like rapes.

  I think Stoker depicts vampires as both repulsive and attractive. The three women Jonathan Harker meets almost bewitch him - he only escapes because the Count has other plans for him. Similarly, Dracula draws Lucy to him - she can't help herself. From an objective point of view, Stoker's vampires might be repulsive, but from the standpoint of the (potential) victim, they are bewitchingly attractive.
• And White Zombie is actually one of my favorite Bela Lugosi performances, as he nails the voodoo master with the greatest name ever in cinema, Murder Legendre. The scene where he carves the candle into a voodoo doll is pure magic.
• Jeez, MCT--SPOILER MUCH? Christ, why don't you just tell everyone that Bruce Willis is really dead, huh? And if I'm anybody, I'm totally Murder Legendre. The sooner you deal with that fact, the better off we'll all be. In the meantime, everyboyd should BUY THIS. Not only do you get one of the most beautifully-made zombie movies EVAR, but you also get a criminally unknown Robert Louis Stevenson adaptating starring Boris Karloff in one of his greatest performances ever, AND YES I'M INCLUDING "BRIDE." There's really no excuse not to have it.
• adapting s/b adaptation. MCT's insensitivity hath made me MAD.
• Hmm... From the "quotes" section of White Zombie on imdb: Neil Parker: Surely you don't think she's alive, in the hands of natives. Oh no! Better dead than that. *begrudgingly allows MCT's point, waits pouting for pants dance*
• *offers TP a beer not full of zombie potion, eyebrow wax*
• starring Boris Karloff in one of his greatest performances ever I concur! It's really quite riveting.
• The worker zombie shuffles to his desk, Rotting tissue dripping from his frame. Punching in, he settles to his task, Every day of afterlife the same. Six feet of grave dirt couldn’t keep him down, But now he’s being kept down by The Man. He wishes he had just stayed underground; The Corpse Revolt did not go quite as planned. His undead brethren will reclaim the world! The day will come when, lurching through the streets, They’ll overthrow their living overlords, And feast upon the matter gray and sweet. One short sleep past, they wake eternally, Death, be proud! The world belongs to thee!
• Greek Zombies.
• The best thing about zombies for me is the word itself. "Zombies", isn't it great?
• roryk, I always found what the vampire did to Lucy (turning her into a willing vampire, then dying, leaving her to her new evilness by herself (sorry I'm shaky on the details; it's been years since I saw the film)) to be a horrible cruelty.
• The best thing about zombies for me is the word itself. "Zombies", isn't it great? These guys thought so.
• minda25--in the novel, and pretty much in every film version I've seen where she's not written out, Lucy dies before the Count. ↑↑↑ Oops! Spoilers! ↑↑↑ And if any of you watch the BBC or PBS's Masterpiece theatere, you may have seen this somewhat excellent adaptation, which I reviewed at great length here. ↑↑↑ Oops! Self-link! ↑↑↑ Now, back to the ZOMBABES! ↑↑↑ Oops! Possibly NSFW ↑↑↑
• I want to eat your brain. Is that so wrong? Or so surprising, given what I am? You'd not begrudge the wolf a leg of lamb, and my innate hunger is just as strong; You think it's fun to be the walking dead? To have your flesh and limbs drop off this way? We did not choose our state, nor you for prey-- so be a sport: give us a little head. Civilization's grinding to a halt; our hordes like locusts overrun the earth! Those not yet dead already curse their birth. The end is here--but that's none of my fault. I'm only trying to spare you needless pain. So stop being stubborn. Give me your braaaaaaaaaaain!
• WRT thankless, repetitive, unrewarding toil, how long until we get the CUBICLE ZOMBIES? Re: Your Brains (Don't miss the mp3 link)
• WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?!? You people. I swear...
• *sobs at his work computer which won't let him play the trailer*
• Your link killed my doodz, Capt!
• YouTubey
• George Romero talk about social commentary, the Information Age, and Diary of the Dead.