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

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Temis the Vorta, Sep 15, 2010.

  1. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    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.
     
  2. Joel_Kirk

    Joel_Kirk Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ^^


    Werewolves have always been neglected...

    Lately, there have been variations in paranormal romances:

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

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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

    Not to mention all those Borg episodes and movies.

    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.

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

    Silvercrest Vice Admiral Admiral

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    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.
     
  5. Spaceman Spiff

    Spaceman Spiff Intrepid Explorer Administrator

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    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.
     
  6. Crewman Wunline

    Crewman Wunline Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    `````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.
     
  7. Silvercrest

    Silvercrest Vice Admiral Admiral

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    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!
     
  8. Spaceman Spiff

    Spaceman Spiff Intrepid Explorer Administrator

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    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.
     
  9. Silvercrest

    Silvercrest Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, that was being discussed in the horror thread, wasn't it?
     
  10. Spaceman Spiff

    Spaceman Spiff Intrepid Explorer Administrator

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    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. ;)
     
  11. tauntme

    tauntme Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    WORLD WAR Z
     
  12. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The problem might be that werewolves are too alive for Big Media's puritanical tastes. Vampires can be sleek, cold, detached mopers and brooders who dress well and agonize about their soulless plight. Werewolves, on the other hand, are living, hot-blooded, beasts who like red meat, roaring fires, and a good time.

    In short, any really solid depiction of werewolves would show them having copious wild and hot shagging. But since Big Media loathes nothing so much as a group of people that enjoys getting it on... they get neglected.
     
  13. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Poor zombies, they've been treated so unfairly. As we all know from I Am Legend (the original novel), zombies are actually vampires.

    And no, they don't sparkle. :p

    I dunno, I could go for a zombie movie that brings something fresh like voodoo mind control. Cannibalism and vampirism as both so passe.
     
  14. Aragorn

    Aragorn Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    How about a movie about an alien invasion -- where the vampires, zombies and werewolves join forces to fight back!!! :)
     
  15. stj

    stj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094961/

    A zombie comedy.

    Starring Joe Piscopo.

    In 1988.

    Zombies have been over ever since. Zombie movies have just been shambling on, scooping out the brains of the audience and snarfing them down. The eldritch half-life of a defunct genre is a metafictional modeling of the semiotic reality of the zombie movie. Which, lest we forget, is dead since Joe Piscopo sent it up!
     
  16. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    Mostly, yeah, although there was a bit of variety in the Werewolves of folklore. They often retained wolf-like traits while in Human form, and Human traits while in wolf form. Vampires of folklore were very different, too, more corpse-like and far less romanticized.

    Sweet. I'll get that for this year's Halloween Marathon. :cool:

    Not necessarily. Many Werewolves have been depicted sympathetically, from Larry Talbot to Jack Russell to American Werewolf to that guy in the Werewolf series back in the 80s.

    It was a virus, too. Matheson was ahead of his time.
     
  17. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The vampires of the past 10yrs have had plenty of copious wild & hot shagging. We went from PG stylized versions of Buffy & Angel getting it on in S3 to flat out soft core porn with True Blood. Werewolves may as well get their turn.
    Maybe the philosophical angel for them could be to rid themsevles of the curse or control it, not too undifferent from vamps really.
     
  18. Mike Farley

    Mike Farley Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    They would cast Baby from DIRTY DANCING and fail miserably. I give you RITUAL from 2001.