Are Zombies 'Over'???

[Pteranodon]

Best Buy has a commercial where a bubbly young student is making a 'scary zombie movie' with her chums using The Computer She Bought At Best Buy... I thought such grotesque, violent movies were supposed to be made by brooding, bitter 'outcasts'- not bubbly Betty/Veronica types...

I thought the Zombie's preoccupation with shopping malls, hospitals, suburbia, and undead men in uniform etc was supposed to be a commentary on the blandness of mainstream 'consumer' culture...Now like everything else it has been hijacked by that same consumer culture.

Has the walking cannibal corpse finally gone the way of the Vampire? (look up Guillermo Del Toro's insights on modern 'de-fanged' Vampires) Has the Romero-style Zombie become so mainstream that they can't possibly be scary anymore? What's next, zombie cartoons and romantic teen-zombie novels?

(and yet I still play 'Plants vs Zombies')

[7oddisdead]

It is a sad state of affairs. I caught that commercial for the first time this weekend and had a similar feeling. The only thing I try to keep in mind is...after the fifteen minutes of undead fame are over, we can have our zombies back. Until then,we may have to suffer the cheese factor...


*bear in mind as well, this sort of mainstream activity does help promote things such as w/a....helps to reach a wider audience....which is never a bad thing;) ...*

[reaper239]

i would disagree. yes there is crap out there, but much like in the 80's crap is still identified as such. but more to the point, zombies are still a symbol of what people are afraid of. for instance, during the cold war, people were terrified of alien invasion. why? because they were terrified of a red invasion. body snatchers? i feel that was representative of the whole 'commie among us' thing that made the blacklist necessary. you see, pop culture monsters are always a reflection of what society fears most. so what does society fear today? in a culture that increasingly seeks to remove God from every aspect of public life, where people are working two nd three jobs to stay afloat, and where now the fear of joblessness and homelessness is spreading like wildfire, people are afraid to lose their souls to the grind. another way to look at it since 08 is the fear of joining the huddled masses roaming the streets.

[7oddisdead]

while i agree with what your saying, i dont really think thats the point of this thread. we all know the "good stuff" is out there...same as the bad. its the use of the zombie apocalyse as a marketing tool that could ultimately ruin what has been established before us, as well as soil the image of the "good stuff" that is out there now. the best buy add is a good example, another one that comes to mind is this

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=45019/Product/HORNADY-ZOMBIE-MAX-HANDGUN-AMMUNITION

while i must admit, that really does look just friggin cool...its a good example of "hey, zombies are cool right?? lets make some ammo that is marketed toward that genre..surely we'll sell out in the first week!!" (thing of note, they pretty much did)...so really the question of, is it a statement on culture and the eviroment people live in gets thrown in the river...marketing dude...they are using us to sell things....

[reaper239]

but that's what happens in a capitalist society. people figure out what people like to see and then use that to market. we should be happy that people are finally acknowledgeing how awesome zombies and zombie culture is. instead there are a lot of people (not talking to anyone here as this is really a good topic to bring up: validity of the subject matter) who pout and cry like a bunch of hipsters that their favorite thing has gone mainstream, "yeah, well i was into it before it was cool!" really? what does it being cool have anything to do with how good it is? take the band ZAO (metal band that was influential in shaping the modern metal scene) i didn't get into them until a few years ago but they've been around since the mid 90's. i'm a huge dedicated fan, but there are fans who call me a poser because i wasn't listening to their first self released album back when it came out. well i'm sorry that i never heard of ZAO before, but does that make me any less of a dedicated fan? no. the same goes with zombies. i have been watching zombie flicks since the mid 90's (before they were cool ;)) and i love all things zombie, but i have friends that i helped get into the genre, showed them the romero classics and everything, and now they are dedicated zed-heads. are they commercialized? sure. does that make them any less fanboys? no. commercialization isn't the enemy, it helps get the message out there. just like what you were saying, it reaches a wider audiendce, and that's never a bad thing. (sorry, i rambled a bit)

[Grognaurd]

"monsters", so much reworking has been done to turn monsters into angst-ridden youths. Vampires are no longer the Nosferatu risen from the grave. They become essentially people with some minor advantages / disadvantages. Interview with a vampire, twilight, true blood. Can't go killing vampires wholesale, because they are people too and if they do get out of line it becomes a Law enforcement problem (either vampire or mundane).

Werewolves. Damn, dude. You cannot go around killing werewolves, they are human everyday of the month and supernatural threats a few nights a month. Hell, they might not even know.

Creature from the black lagoon, he probably showed up to stop toxic waste sewage from ruining the sea.

Zombies, well now, what do we have here. A ravenous hell-mouth. Nothing of the host remains, there is no cure and like the first terminator, they will not stop!

Something I have been playing with is what if it is more like a virus? What if the body could clear it in 10 to 14 days? What if unlike when they are turned, they REMEMBER everything they did while "sick"? What if like Ebola, there is an unknown reservoir and it comes back? Worse, what if it is like herpes or AIDS and never truly cleared from the host?

[7oddisdead]

we're essentially saying the same thing reaper, so im just gonna stop this and say, "i agree with you...just from the other end of the same side of the fence"

[reaper239]

"monsters", so much reworking has been done to turn monsters into angst-ridden youths. Vampires are no longer the Nosferatu risen from the grave. They become essentially people with some minor advantages / disadvantages. Interview with a vampire, twilight, true blood. Can't go killing vampires wholesale, because they are people too and if they do get out of line it becomes a Law enforcement problem (either vampire or mundane).


this is why i like 30 days of night. i real return to the vampire as a monster.

[7oddisdead]

30 days was quite amazing....one of the few recent vamp flicks to not try and glamorize the vampire..good stuff:)

[smalls kenobi]

The movie i dreamt up 4 years ago would make Zombies Scary again ;)

[Pteranodon]

so what does society fear today? in a culture that increasingly seeks to remove God from every aspect of public life, where people are working two nd three jobs to stay afloat, and where now the fear of joblessness and homelessness is spreading like wildfire, people are afraid to lose their souls to the grind. another way to look at it since 08 is the fear of joining the huddled masses roaming the streets.


WARNING: WTMI ahead


Wow...you hit a nail on the head there in my own personal life. "...afraid to lose their souls to the grind"- that's something I've been consciously fighting for years. You really CAN lose your soul (or humanity) to the grind... I've had jobs where they expected you not to even THINK of things non-work-related (for real, I am honestly NOT exaggerating) -no radio, no friendly conversing with coworkers, no humor, not even meal breaks- I had to completely stifle my real personality for entire days, 4-5 days a week (much of this was just BEFORE the recent recession!) Couple that with a constant battle against health problems and I was in real danger of becoming a modern-day "musselmanner".

I nearly succumbed to it so many times- it's not just work either, it's been a struggle to keep myself Human for many years. It's like treading water over a grey abyss...

Oddly enough, the "zombie" is more alive than I was during the worst times- read "The Zen Of Zombie" sometime- a Zombie constantly pursues its "hearts desire" (to eat brains) 24x7 and actually a zombie's 'spirit' is indomitable if you think about it; they are NEVER deterred or discouraged...