Vampires vs. zombies
Funny observations brought to you post GenCon. During the 90's, vampires were hot. We had vampire movies, vampire books, and Vampire: The Masquerade took over the gaming world.
This year, the post-con report says that the Vampire players have all but vanished from the halls. And whitefjords mentioned a new game that he is excited about to me today: ( Read more... )
This year, the post-con report says that the Vampire players have all but vanished from the halls. And whitefjords mentioned a new game that he is excited about to me today: ( Read more... )
Vampires tend to make sexier characters in movies-- they look cool, they represent excess, decadence, sexual debauchery and all its pitfalls (STDs), substance abuse, etc. They can be good guys or bad, and are often morally ambiguous.
Zombie movies generally have a more complex and ominous tone. Often even if the good guys survive they end up dead at the hand of humanity. Almost always characters fight with other people as much as they do the zombies because they can't agree on how to manage their escape (like some model UN in hell), or certain groups decide to take advantage of the zombies and deny people basic human rights. Also, zombie movies tend to be about the inner working of a society rather than excess-- zombies often are a class (typically working or bourgeois), and can represent the need for undesirables to assimilate. Obvious examples would be Night of the Living Dead, which touches on issues of race and how thinking different can save you (at least for a little while...) or Dawn of the Dead, which takes place in the heart of capitalism (aka the Mall-- you can only find safety in the Mall for so long!).
I've also read some fascinating essays about how Western society fears masses and stresses the importance of individualism. Zombie movies reflect this fear-- of simply being a cog in the big machine. Which makes me wonder if there are zombie movies in communist societies, and how those differ than Western flicks.
Why now: Perhaps filmmakers are reflecting on our current society sucking. Or you know, perhaps vampire movies aren't being made because they made a ton in the 90s and they stopped making much money and flicks like 25 Days Later and Shawn of the Dead have been hits.
Right now I can only think of sort-of zombie books: Pet Cemetery. Frankenstein. The Re-animator. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
In conclusion: Vampire movies are pretty but dumb. Zombie movies are the ugly sister that makes better conversation. Both have their own appeal...
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Maybe everyone did just get sick of vampires--but I want to read reasons into 28 days later, Shawn of the Dead, etc becoming hits. It just seems like zombies are a strong social trend right now (see also recent JCPenney's add with zombie clothing attacking children and giving them back to school fashion!).
In some ways, they are two sides of the same coin. Zombies are the fear--being a cog in the machine. Vampires are the escape fantasy--the glamorous ultimate individuals.
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I think, from an industry stand point, the way they handle trends is pretty lame. For exmaple, someone will make an innovative film that is a new take on a classic genre. It makes money. The suits notice. That film is then remade a million times by a million different artists and hacks. Eventually, it becomes cliche, and becomes parody. Movies like it start to bomb. The suits no longer see films of that style as "bankable." So, they often won't touch anything even resembling the subject. Then step one starts over again.
I always sort of thought that the reason why certain films become a trend is random-- some really talented person makes the standard-bearer, and they set the tone for the trend. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Alien more or less set the tone for horror films in the 80s and are really the earliest examples of what is referred to as "the Final Girl" (1970s flick Peepin' Tom aside...). Scream set the tone for 90s meta-horror films. A lot of horror flicks from the 70s resemble Stanley Kubrick's style (the Shining, Clockwork Orange), and many films from the 60s look like Psycho (or Alfred Hitchcock's style in general) or Night of the Living Dead. Though I don't think it was much of a financial success, for some reason Bram Stoker's Dracula (perhaps because people respect Coppola) was how vampire flicks were supposed to look like for a good decade (which I loved because it was such a pretty film)...
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1) that there are a whole lot of vampire, and especially zombie movies out there.
2) Vampire movies aren't necessarily dead, although they do not seem to be water cooler conversation as often.
3) There are enough movies that one could really run some numbers over time if one WANTED to. And didn't want to work on one's dissertation. Hmmm...
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90s = decadence & individuality.
00s= mindless patriotism/unity/political machine. Apathy... and fear of being overcome by masses of 1) illegal immigrants, 2) terrorists, 3) brainless idiots (read: youth like Britney and Paris).
Sheeple. There's even an ad for scion about sheeple. That clothes ad creeps me out. "Wear what we tell you... be the zombie...zombies are good and fashionable."
btw...I was noticing a trend of zombies lately too. So you aren't entirely full of shit. Or at least, not the only one.
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I like the parallel to the fear of immigrants. Though I also think it's interesting that zombies are generally portrayed as white and middle class. Which would sugges that the underlying message of zombie flicks are subversive. Race and gender is often a factor in zombie flicks though-- a large percentage of zombie movies feature a lead who is not white (28 Days Later, Dead Alive, Dawn of the Dead)... though they might survive the zombies humans sometimes kill them at the end anyway (Night of the Living Dead).
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I think it can be looked at in a number of ways.
1) zombies are the immigrants (or terrorists, etc)
2) Americans are the zombies blindly going about consuming. (paris & Britney)
3) Americans are the zombies/sheeple attacking anything not like them.
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So category 2 is clearly backed up by the JCPenny ad that is out there. I swear that there was a really stupid movie that involved paris and nicole zombies - I obviously didn't see that, but maybe I'm dreaming.
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> curious, because I can only think of ones that work for 3. I don't know that I've ever
> seen a zombie movie where the zombies weren't mostly white and mostly of the nationality
> that the film is being made in...
Did you see Day of the Dead? That really was about working class rising up and kicking the ass of the bourgeois all living in a "tower". The zombies were of mixed race, many of them lower class (there's a classic scene with a gas attendant zombie killing the main bad human). They're distracted by fireworks - that's what keeps them under control for quite a while until they learn to work together.
28 days...seems like it's about our internal violent animal that is in danger of breaking loose. Interesting to see especially in the sequel how even those who _aren't_ infected end up turning into despicable characters when put in the worst situations.
Now, how come no one's mentioned Bad Taste? Naw, I don't want to even try to analyze that. Any movie that has a humongous monster mother sticking her 30 year old son back in her womb is probably more about the director than any sort of social commentary.
In terms of why zombies instead of vampires, if I had to guess it's just a general gestalt of being afraid of the many instead of afraid of the few. Maybe it's not one issue but just the idea that the people who are out to get us could be all around us and we may not even notice - those are the best scenes in zombie movies, when the zombies are walking around and no one notices - done best in Shaun of the Dead.
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By Bad Taste do you mean dead alive? Bad taste is the one about aliens that come to earth and eat a small town.
What scares me personally about zombie movies is that I can see the humanity in the zombie. Like, often the costume will give clues as to who the person was before they became the walking dead. That always bothers me. It's almost like the same emotion I think I would feel if I found a body in the woods or something. I love vampires, but zombies always scare me. My first nightmare when I was 4 years old was about zombies, and to this day my nightmares are almost always about zombies. WTF? They freak me out... though that doesn't stop me from watching them onscreen.
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Zombies don't freak me out, but I can understand why they would. They are easy to empathize with. It's your friends and neighbors, who happen to have joined a brain eating cult, and now they can't get out. They didn't watch the news carefully enough and happened to miss the detail of the spreading virus and now they're on the wrong side of the all-important brain eating issue. And now the country's going to hell. Wait, when did I start talking about republicans?
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The republican corralaries are just too easy, aren't they?
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Land of the Dead. Zombies are over-running over a fortified "perfect" city (walls and fences). Government corruptions ruins the city and the zombies enter.
Also works on the Terrorist side as there are people who are trying to destroy the city. Quote "We will not negotiate with Terrorists!"
May be the same as Day of the Dead. Not sure. I vaguely remember seeing this movie.
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I think I'm with ntorioushamstr here--I really like the idea that the national fear of being overrun by terrorists/illegal immigrants is being played out as zombies--but I'm not sure it is supported? It seems like the (very few) movies I've seen have dealt a lot more with zombies that are just like us, and are more about trying to escape from being a zombie yourself.
Of course, cynic that I am, I might read "zealots and religious fundamentalists" into category 3 as well. I fear being overrun by those. (
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