Zombie Love-- What Is The Deal?

What is the fascination with this particular form of supernatural creature?  They aren’t sexy or smart, they are just the opposite hideous and mindlessly dull.  Its just a waddling hunk of decomposed flesh wandering about.  As mystical creatures go, I prefer vampires.  They look good most of the time (my vanity stays intact), they sleep in the day and go out at night (I’m not a morning person, so it works for me.) Then further down the chain, the werewolf.  Again you look human most of the time.  You might get fleas, but at least you would have heightened senses while in animal form.  If you’re a zombie, you’re wearing what ever you had on at the time of your death, you don’t really heal so be prepared to lose body parts from being attacked by the living or just all of that rhythmless shuffling back and forth.

I can’t escape these things in pop culture.  Holly Comesofty writes me:

… I think when I finish my book I may have to get Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I have no idea what it’s about but I do love me some Austen and who doesn’t love zombies.

I know this book because it was featured on NPR last week.  Its a good case study for judging a book by its cover and title.  The author, Seth Grahame-Smith, shares his byline with Ms. Austen says that his book is 85 percent Jane and just 15 percent Seth.  Here’s an excerpt:

But no sooner had she grabbed the handle of her weapon than a chorus of screams filled the assembly hall, immediately joined by the shattering of window panes. Unmentionables poured in, their movements clumsy yet swift; their burial clothing in a range of untidiness.  Some wore gowns so tattered as to render them scandalous; other wore suits so filthy that one would assume they were assembled from little more than dirt and dried blood. Their flesh was in varying degrees of putrefaction; the freshly stricken were slightly green and pliant, whereas the longer dead were grey and brittle – their eyes and tongues long since turned to dust, and their lips pulled back into everlasting skeletal smiles.

I’ve never liked zombies.  Which is why people give me zombie gifts: a DVD of Shaun of the Dead from Holly and The Zombie Survival Guide from Gunny.

I thought maybe zombies are are a Hollywood thing, because of all the special effects.  If I leave town I’ll get a break.  But no, I was at the University of Chicago last week and I discovered that they have a Zombie Readiness Task Force that rates the safety of each building on campus.  The group is partially funded by the school:

The Zombie Readiness Task Force was granted $5,540 to bring Max Brooks, the author of The Zombie Survival Guide, to campus to deliver a speech on how to survive zombie attacks. Because the group was denied RSO status last spring, the Task Force is not eligible for SG funding this year. Second-year Justin Hartmann, co-founder of the Task Force, said receiving UnCommon funding was crucial to the group’s development and growth.

“We thought that a fund for the purpose of uncommon activities was exactly what we needed,” he said.

Hartmann added that the Max Brooks lecture will be a nice change of pace from typical U of C life.

“While discussions on the quad about Kant and Marx are great, every now and then we need a little change of pace. Last year’s grant money went to a lecture by James Carville, which, while ever so academic, hardly provided a break from strenuous academic life. Max Brooks is a wonderful speaker and can help stressed U of C students remember the important things in life, like protecting ourselves from the undead,” he said.

And then last night on G4′s Attack of The Show, they are starting a horror film feature.  They gave a rundown on Dance of the Dead, which features a really cool tracking shot of zombies popping out of graves in full sprint (part of me is disgusted by the gore, the film buff in me says that’s a kickass shot.– its towards the end of the segment).

Two key things creep me out about zombies. (1) The attention to detail from Max Brooks and others.  Does the government know something?  Zombies are in the mythology of various ancient cultures, yet our obsession seems to have gotten stronger in last few decades.   How many people do you know walking around with garlic, holy water, or wolfsbane?  Not many, but people seem to be ready for a zombie attack.

(2) The availability of potential zombies.  Vampire and werewolf conversions are fairly elaborate compared to zombie creation.  That and you can’t really reason with a zombie, vampires and werewolves have a cultural hierarchy (see True Blood, Underworld, Anne Rice novels, etc.) they have a code.  Then there is the popping out of graves thing– If zombies were to exist, they would be just flooding out of cemeteries.  I used to think, just get a well armored vehicle a la The Road Warrior and then you can get away from the zombie hordes– and then I saw 28 Days Later with fast zombies so that idea went down the drain.  Cremation folks.  That’s the answer.