it's official: zombies are now the "in" thing

[Gaith]

Level 2 Diagnostic wrote:

---

Just in the last ten years we've had 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, five Resident Evil movies, REC, two House of the Dead movies, 8 or 9 "of the Dead" sequels/remakes/spin-offs, Shaun of the Dead, Fido, I Am Legend, Planet Terror, Zombieland, and lots more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I honestly don't think there's a genre more played out than zombie movies. They make vampire movies look fresh and creative.

YES.

[Bob The Skutter]

Not to mention Zombies everywhere in video games, not just Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 but even in stuff like Call of Duty games.

[Trekker4747]

Level 2 Diagnostic wrote:

---

Just in the last ten years we've had 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, five Resident Evil movies, REC, two House of the Dead movies, 8 or 9 "of the Dead" sequels/remakes/spin-offs, Shaun of the Dead, Fido, I Am Legend, Planet Terror, Zombieland, and lots more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I honestly don't think there's a genre more played out than zombie movies. They make vampire movies look fresh and creative.

Word. Zombies are played. It's time to get over them popular culture, I'm not sure what the obsession was with them to begin with.

Aragorn wrote:

---

^ Sorry, but decaying flesh and the inability to communicate feelings do not appeal to the teenage girl market.

Tell me, how does the description not apply to Edward Cullen?

[Snaploud]

Trekker4747 wrote:

---

Word. Zombies are played. It's time to get over them popular culture, I'm not sure what the obsession was with them to begin with.

It's part of a larger fascination with the apocalypse/collapse of civilization/end times/etc..

[Goliath]

Trekker4747 wrote:

---

Word. Zombies are played. It's time to get over them popular culture, I'm not sure what the obsession was with them to begin with.

I think there's still room for a back-to-basics, voodoo-zombie film or two. Having just seen the old I Walked With a Zombie, I'm curious to see what they do with th remake.

[Captain Craig]

I agree with another poster Zombies have been on a steady popularity kick most of this decade. Vampires have been going strong since Buffy and with True Blood and Vampire Dairies look to stay strong for another few years.

I'm really wanting Werewolves to take off. They have flirted on the edge with Underworld, but that also is vampires, True Blood(again only in cameo capacity) and again Twilight(there they at least are co-starts I suppose). However, they did get a starring role in Benicio DelToro Wolfman remake. Sadly that didn't catch on fire at the box office. I'd love to see a show/movie series where Werewolves are the upfront focus.

[Joel_Kirk]

^^


Werewolves have always been neglected...

Lately, there have been variations in paranormal romances:

Were-panthers...and other were-four-legged-creatures...

[RJDiogenes]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

---

Only other thing of note is that one of the stars is Alex from Lost.

That's the one vital piece of information right there.

Level 2 Diagnostic wrote:

---

Just in the last ten years we've had 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, five Resident Evil movies, REC, two House of the Dead movies, 8 or 9 "of the Dead" sequels/remakes/spin-offs, Shaun of the Dead, Fido, I Am Legend, Planet Terror, Zombieland, and lots more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I honestly don't think there's a genre more played out than zombie movies. They make vampire movies look fresh and creative.

Not to mention all those Borg episodes and movies.

Goliath wrote:

---

I think there's still room for a back-to-basics, voodoo-zombie film or two. Having just seen the old I Walked With a Zombie, I'm curious to see what they do with th remake.

I'd love to see a good classic Zombie movie or three. I don't think the current generation even knows that Romero made up this cannibal Zombie thing.

Captain Craig wrote:

---

I'm really wanting Werewolves to take off.

You and me both. Werewolves are my favorite monster. And very neglected.

[Silvercrest]

Just remember, the classic werewolf was just a guy who turned into a wolf. NOT a wolf-man. The current generation has trouble with that one, too.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Sure, but the guy who turns into a straight wolf is a little less horrifying. The Wolf Man works because we can still recognize something of ourselves in him. With the werewolf of lore, once he's in wolf form, we don't see that anymore.

That can be used effectively, if it's given the right slant, but the reaction isn't as visceral.

With the voodoo-type zombie, society isn't too worried about having their minds taken over right now (for good or ill). Romero zombies represent the breakdown of society, which has been an anxiety that's been particularly present in the zeitgeist for the last decade or so. Romero zombies have been around since the sixties, but it's no coincidence that they've really taken hold since the fears of Y2K, 9/11 and beyond. Nor is it happenstance that the majority of modern takes on the Romero zombie involve viruses.

[Crewman Wunline]

`````Okay, it's official: MTV has hit the bottom of the barrel and is frantically scraping. Of all the "classic" antagonists in horror/monster/B-moviedom, zombies are just the nastiest. I don't mean 'tude: they don't have enough personality to be personally nasty; they just are nasty to deal with, nasty to look at, nasty to think about. If you've ever smelled real corpse-smell (thanks too much for that memory, US Army), you probably don't want to be entertained by lurching, semi-reanimated, rotting corpses, or by their splatterful destruction. Can you imagine what that would smell like IRL, to splash a month-old unpreserved cadaver?
`````The only reason I can come up with for the survival (and now burgeoning) of the genre is the fact that teenage boys, if they can talk teenage girls into accompanying them to a zombie flick, are guaranteed to actually be touched by said girls, in those moments when the screen action gets so graphichorrificnasty that said girls need to bury their heads for a moment in a strong shoulder...or at least an adjacent one. Yes, I freely admit that this view is both sexist and stereotype-laden, but I stand by it.
`````So to recap: Zombies? Ick.

[Silvercrest]

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
Sure, but the guy who turns into a straight wolf is a little less horrifying. The Wolf Man works because we can still recognize something of ourselves in him. With the werewolf of lore, once he's in wolf form, we don't see that anymore.

That can be used effectively, if it's given the right slant, but the reaction isn't as visceral.

With the voodoo-type zombie, society isn't too worried about having their minds taken over right now (for good or ill). Romero zombies represent the breakdown of society, which has been an anxiety that's been particularly present in the zeitgeist for the last decade or so. Romero zombies have been around since the sixties, but it's no coincidence that they've really taken hold since the fears of Y2K, 9/11 and beyond. Nor is it happenstance that the majority of modern takes on the Romero zombie involve viruses.

I know, but I'm just saying that we've gotten to the point where people think it was ALWAYS that way. I've had multiple conversations, both here and elsewhere, with people who don't know the original concept of a zombie was of a corpse raised by voodoo, who obeys the command of his master. And that a werewolf was simply a guy who turns into a wolf.

And when they hear about these versions, they think someone got it wrong!

[Spaceman Spiff]

Oh, I get what you're saying, and I agree--these folks ought to get set right.

And certainly, the zombies and werewolves you're talking about can be made into effective movies and books. Just a few months ago, RJDiogenes and I were talking about David Wellington's FROSTBITE, which is about a woman who becomes that type of "total" werewolf. (The sequel was just released yesterday; I'm gonna have to snap it up.)

So it can be done effectively. It's just not going to be the norm anytime soon.

[Silvercrest]

Yeah, that was being discussed in the horror thread, wasn't it?

[Spaceman Spiff]

Yep. I'll probably bump the thread after I pick up the book. (Or buy the Kindle version.)

His vampires are a whooole lot meaner than the current crop, too, but that's for another thread.