9 Reasons to Watch Zombie Films
This is an old picspam I made back in March, but I'm trying to consolidate all of my picspams/movie-related things in my journals.
Hello, all! I'm sure if you've clicked here you're already pretty interested in the living dead, but I hope some curious outsiders have wandered in. HAVE NO FEAR! I shall do my best to properly pimp this amazing horror sub-genre. I've devoted the past two years to an honors thesis that explores the socio-political commentary in zombie films, so I feel like I'm something of an expert on the subject of the undead. I classify any film with zombie-like creatures/characters in them as a zombie film, including 28 Days Later and Black Sheep. If you're a classic purist and only consider the risen dead as zombies, then apologies if I annoy with my broad classification.
Well, enough of the rambling! ONTO THE LIST! Ahead is plenty of humor, carnage, and some serious opinions...
o9. Zombie films can help you with your diet.
Trying to lose weight? Having a hard time sticking to your diet? Find yourself getting up at all hours of the night in search of braiiiinsa late night snack? Just pop in any number of zombie films, and be amazed at how quickly your appetite fades away! Really, any zombie film will do the trick, but if you're in serious need of appetite-loss, I whole-heartedly recommend Peter Jackson's Braindead (also known as Dead Alive!). It's guaranteed to make you queasy, especially the last half-hour, which is a no-holds-barred sequence of mass carnage involving a lawn mower, a blender, and attacking intestines. FUN!
o8. When you're in a bad mood, gore can be cathartic.
Sometimes, you have a shitty day. A mondo-shitty day. The most fucktastic day ever. And you want to scream or punch something or maybe drive over somebody with a truck. Those are the days when you need to live vicariously through some ass-kickin' zombie hunters. Pop in a few zombie films, sit back, and feel all of your anger and violent tendencies drain away as you watch the heroes enact righteous justice against the undead threat -- or get eaten and dismembered in the process, but, HEY, what's not to love about great special effects and weapons?
o7. Sometimes, you just need to be scared.
Most of us live fairly mundane lives. Often times, the scariest thing we encounter is an unbalanced check book. But science has proven that we need to be scared every so often; our bodies need the flood of adrenaline and hormones, that sense of fight-or-flight, to make us feel really alive. While watching a zombie film, we typically are on edge and nervous, with nerves so tightly wound we're about to snap. The two hours we spend in the world of the film is often excrutiating. But afterwards we feel a great weight off our shoulders, a wonderful sense of relief -- and isn't that a wonderful feeling?
o6. Watch zombie films TO PREPARE.
While I'm not a complete nutter who just assumes the zombie apocalypse is on the near horizon, watching zombie films is a sort of safeguard against the potentiality. Should the undead ever arise to plague the earth, it's nice to know that I'll know how to aim for the head, where a good defensible position will be, and to head north with canned foods and weapons that won't need to be reloaded.
o5. Who doesn't like to root for the underdog?
In a world where the living are the minority, just about every hero/heroine in a zombie film is an underdog. There are those that are fighting not only to avoid being eaten, but to avoid the tyranny of the military (Jim in 28 Days Later, the civilians Sarah, John, and McDermott in Day of the Dead); those who are trying to avoid lawless bikers (Peter, Roger, Stephen and Fran in Dawn of the Dead); genetically engineered superhumans (Alice in the Resident Evil movies); the luckless slackers (Shaun and Ed in Shaun of the Dead); and the racially divided survivors in Night of the Living Dead. And, as has become increasingly common, sometimes the zombies themselves become heroes: Bub in Day of the Dead, Big Daddy in Land of the Dead and Fido in Fido.
o4. Zombies (and zombie films) are oft times hilarious.
The original Dawn of the Dead alone has plenty of hilarity: zombies on escalators, zombie pie fights, a Hare Krishna!zombie! Then there's the out-and-out comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Fido. But in just about every zombie film there's a moment of either purposeful or unintentional humor. These are monsters who are falling to bits as they stagger after you, who aren't exactly all there in the brain department. Of course they're going to be a bit ridiculous!
o3. They remind you what's truly important in life.
Sometimes we get too focused on the useless things in life, too hung up on things that don't really mean anything in the long run. In zombie films, people have to face facts: things they once thought were so important are now meaningless, and it's the real things that are worth hanging onto. Love, life, hope, creativity, all of the things that make humans different from their undead attackers. Humanity is a fragile thing, and the best zombie films show how important it is to fight for that.
o2. In the best zombie films, there's always an underlying message.
I could go on at some length about the underlying socio-political commentaries in most zombie films, but I'll be brief: the good zombie films show us something about ourselves. They highlight the issues of dehumanization, Othering, and prejudice. They expose the problems in society, and sometimes advocate a destruction of the old order to make way for a better new world. Next time you watch a film about zombies, pay more attention to the subtext. What is the film saying about consumerism, about communication, about militarization and biological warfare, and about treating a reviled group or minority badly? George Romero's zombie series is full of such commentary, and modern-day films like 28 Days Later, Fido, and Shaun of the Dead have followed in his pioneering, shambling footsteps.
o1. Some zombie films are just plain good.
People can look down their noses at zombie movies all they want, but they should at least give the genre a chance before they mock it. While a large percentage of zombie films are pretty darn gratuitous, with very little in the way of acting, good scriptwriting, or plot, there are still those gems that are really worth polishing. Plenty of critically acclaimed directors (Peter Jackson experimented with zombies and splatterstick before helming the LOTR series, and Danny Boyle directed 28 Days Later before he won his Oscar) and actors (Cillian Murphy, Simon Pegg, Naomie Harris) have worked in the bloody industry, and George Romero has become a role model and horror god with his "...of the Dead" series. And besides that, zombie films helped pioneer new special effects technology, which led to more realistic war and sci-fi films, and some of the most haunting cinematography can be found in low-budget undead flicks, such as Val Lewton's classic I Walked With a Zombie and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later.
So I guess what I'm saying with all of this is: GIVE THE MESSY UNDEAD A CHANCE, PEOPLE! X^D
Hello, all! I'm sure if you've clicked here you're already pretty interested in the living dead, but I hope some curious outsiders have wandered in. HAVE NO FEAR! I shall do my best to properly pimp this amazing horror sub-genre. I've devoted the past two years to an honors thesis that explores the socio-political commentary in zombie films, so I feel like I'm something of an expert on the subject of the undead. I classify any film with zombie-like creatures/characters in them as a zombie film, including 28 Days Later and Black Sheep. If you're a classic purist and only consider the risen dead as zombies, then apologies if I annoy with my broad classification.
Well, enough of the rambling! ONTO THE LIST! Ahead is plenty of humor, carnage, and some serious opinions...
o9. Zombie films can help you with your diet.
Trying to lose weight? Having a hard time sticking to your diet? Find yourself getting up at all hours of the night in search of braiiiinsa late night snack? Just pop in any number of zombie films, and be amazed at how quickly your appetite fades away! Really, any zombie film will do the trick, but if you're in serious need of appetite-loss, I whole-heartedly recommend Peter Jackson's Braindead (also known as Dead Alive!). It's guaranteed to make you queasy, especially the last half-hour, which is a no-holds-barred sequence of mass carnage involving a lawn mower, a blender, and attacking intestines. FUN!
o8. When you're in a bad mood, gore can be cathartic.
Sometimes, you have a shitty day. A mondo-shitty day. The most fucktastic day ever. And you want to scream or punch something or maybe drive over somebody with a truck. Those are the days when you need to live vicariously through some ass-kickin' zombie hunters. Pop in a few zombie films, sit back, and feel all of your anger and violent tendencies drain away as you watch the heroes enact righteous justice against the undead threat -- or get eaten and dismembered in the process, but, HEY, what's not to love about great special effects and weapons?
o7. Sometimes, you just need to be scared.
Most of us live fairly mundane lives. Often times, the scariest thing we encounter is an unbalanced check book. But science has proven that we need to be scared every so often; our bodies need the flood of adrenaline and hormones, that sense of fight-or-flight, to make us feel really alive. While watching a zombie film, we typically are on edge and nervous, with nerves so tightly wound we're about to snap. The two hours we spend in the world of the film is often excrutiating. But afterwards we feel a great weight off our shoulders, a wonderful sense of relief -- and isn't that a wonderful feeling?
o6. Watch zombie films TO PREPARE.
While I'm not a complete nutter who just assumes the zombie apocalypse is on the near horizon, watching zombie films is a sort of safeguard against the potentiality. Should the undead ever arise to plague the earth, it's nice to know that I'll know how to aim for the head, where a good defensible position will be, and to head north with canned foods and weapons that won't need to be reloaded.
o5. Who doesn't like to root for the underdog?
In a world where the living are the minority, just about every hero/heroine in a zombie film is an underdog. There are those that are fighting not only to avoid being eaten, but to avoid the tyranny of the military (Jim in 28 Days Later, the civilians Sarah, John, and McDermott in Day of the Dead); those who are trying to avoid lawless bikers (Peter, Roger, Stephen and Fran in Dawn of the Dead); genetically engineered superhumans (Alice in the Resident Evil movies); the luckless slackers (Shaun and Ed in Shaun of the Dead); and the racially divided survivors in Night of the Living Dead. And, as has become increasingly common, sometimes the zombies themselves become heroes: Bub in Day of the Dead, Big Daddy in Land of the Dead and Fido in Fido.
o4. Zombies (and zombie films) are oft times hilarious.
The original Dawn of the Dead alone has plenty of hilarity: zombies on escalators, zombie pie fights, a Hare Krishna!zombie! Then there's the out-and-out comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Fido. But in just about every zombie film there's a moment of either purposeful or unintentional humor. These are monsters who are falling to bits as they stagger after you, who aren't exactly all there in the brain department. Of course they're going to be a bit ridiculous!
o3. They remind you what's truly important in life.
Sometimes we get too focused on the useless things in life, too hung up on things that don't really mean anything in the long run. In zombie films, people have to face facts: things they once thought were so important are now meaningless, and it's the real things that are worth hanging onto. Love, life, hope, creativity, all of the things that make humans different from their undead attackers. Humanity is a fragile thing, and the best zombie films show how important it is to fight for that.
o2. In the best zombie films, there's always an underlying message.
I could go on at some length about the underlying socio-political commentaries in most zombie films, but I'll be brief: the good zombie films show us something about ourselves. They highlight the issues of dehumanization, Othering, and prejudice. They expose the problems in society, and sometimes advocate a destruction of the old order to make way for a better new world. Next time you watch a film about zombies, pay more attention to the subtext. What is the film saying about consumerism, about communication, about militarization and biological warfare, and about treating a reviled group or minority badly? George Romero's zombie series is full of such commentary, and modern-day films like 28 Days Later, Fido, and Shaun of the Dead have followed in his pioneering, shambling footsteps.
o1. Some zombie films are just plain good.
People can look down their noses at zombie movies all they want, but they should at least give the genre a chance before they mock it. While a large percentage of zombie films are pretty darn gratuitous, with very little in the way of acting, good scriptwriting, or plot, there are still those gems that are really worth polishing. Plenty of critically acclaimed directors (Peter Jackson experimented with zombies and splatterstick before helming the LOTR series, and Danny Boyle directed 28 Days Later before he won his Oscar) and actors (Cillian Murphy, Simon Pegg, Naomie Harris) have worked in the bloody industry, and George Romero has become a role model and horror god with his "...of the Dead" series. And besides that, zombie films helped pioneer new special effects technology, which led to more realistic war and sci-fi films, and some of the most haunting cinematography can be found in low-budget undead flicks, such as Val Lewton's classic I Walked With a Zombie and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later.
So I guess what I'm saying with all of this is: GIVE THE MESSY UNDEAD A CHANCE, PEOPLE! X^D