During Halloween seasons in the past, Zombies never got their fair due. You'd see vampires, werewolves, mummies, Frankenstein and ghosts decorate houses, appear all over TV and be represented in costume shops all over the place. But, there wasn't much adoration for Zombies.
Within the last ten years or so, this has drastically changed. Zombies are limping and shuffling their way into the higher echelons of pop culture.
In the beginnings of the Zombie mythology the walking dead seemed to originate out of Voodoo curses and superstition. It was far more paranormal and occult than what it has become today.
In recent years the Zombie origin in most media and print is usually some form of disease or virus that sweeps it's way across the globe at an alarming rate. First the plague would infect the living individual with flu like symptoms. Then the sickness would progress quite rapidly within the next hour or so until the individual would die. Within seconds or minutes of death that person would be resurrected as a mindless Zombie with only one thing driving them.....the hunger for human flesh. Primarily the living human brain!
Of course if someone is bitten by a Zombie the infection is transferred to that individual who will go on to become a Zombie themselves and will then bit someone else and so on, and so on and so on.
There's also the old toxic spill story where either some greedy, scientific corporation, or our own military accidentally unleashes some chemical somewhere and it starts to infect people as well as those that are already deceased.
Formulaic example: Greedy corporation+mysterious chemical that needs to be dumped somewhere+ graveyard = Zombies.
In any case, Zombies are "alive" and well and here to stay! A new horde of Zombie films are finding their way onto the silver screen within the last few years.
Zombie movie demigod, George A. Romero has released a few newer Dead movies recently. Danny Boyle's 28 Days /Weeks Later movies scared the living bejeezers out of moviegoers a few years back. We've also seen the comedic likes of Shawn of the Dead and last year's Zombieland receive critical acclaim.
Premiering this Halloween, AMC will be bringing the wonderful Zombie comic, The Walking Dead to cable TV. I'm jonesing out for that one!!
Check out the trailer.....
Most recently author Max Brooks has brought zombies into modern day literature. His dark humored The Zombie Survival Guide and the serious toned World War Z: An oral History of the Zombie War are bestsellers.
Which is a nice segue to the main part of this post. A book review.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - I read this book on a nice relaxing weekend where some friends had rented a small lake house and invited me along. I pretty much dove into the book expecting it too be creepy tale that featured the eating of flesh and other gory visions. But, what I got was a lot more frightening.
Told as a series of interviews from those that survived a worldwide Zombie infestation, World War Z is far more a scary social commentary on how we, as human beings, may not be that much better than the zombie hordes. In many stories throughout the novel, we are our own worst enemies.
As the Zombie plague breaks out and spreads itself rapidly, humanity finds cut-throat ways to back stab and obliterate itself. Evil corporations find new ways to make money off of the tragedy while governments take holocaust-like steps to protect the elite. And that is the most terrifying thing about this book. It mirrors what may very well happen if some sort of international tragedy, such as a deadly virus, actually comes to fruition. As we humans are continuously tortured by big corporations and the politicians who help support these companies, it's easy to see where it would all end if the unthinkable would take place.
Max Brooks captures that image very well in these interviews (stories) that accumulate into one big vision.
Some may be disappointed that the Zombies themselves are pretty much there as a setting for the more social and political themes in this book, but there are some pretty good, edge of your seat, type stories here also. There's one about a military helicopter pilot who crash lands into a Zombie ridden swamp and is helped by a mysterious stranger.
I'm not much into sociopolitical books whatsoever, but throw in a heaping of Zombies and it isn't so bad.
If I were a poli-sci professor, I'd put it on the reading list for my students for sure!
Alright then, kiddos. I'd move onto other Halloween subjects, but I'm in a bit of a rut with having a low key Halloween this year. There was no ZombieConX this year and outside of watching a plethora of Horror movies, I've only visited one haunted attraction this year.
Once again we went to a local gun club's Fin and Feather Haunted Woods. They changed it up a bit this season. My favorite addition was the ghostly bride who followed you down the path with caged corpses hanging from the trees above your head. Creepy. The attraction ended on a bit of a downer when we ran into a bunch of monsters (teenagers) all mulling about in a large group just goofing off and having some form of conversation. At first I thought we took a wrong turn and were in a "backstage" area. Nope. It was just a bunch of young scare-actors standing around when they should have been in full on scare mode. I know help is hard to find, but I'm becoming less and less of a fan of letting teeny-boppers take part in haunts.
In any case, it was still a good time and I have one more weekend of Halloween bliss to try and con...er I mean drag....er I mean take someone to go with me to another haunt.
And with that a bid you all a fond farewell. It's supposed to be a full moon tonight, be sure to go out and enjoy the spirits and ghouls it will beckon.
Zangz.
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