Zombies part 1

I love a good zombie movie. Actually, I love a bad zombie movie as well. But people just don't seem to get the stories or the fascination with them and think they're all about blood and gore, which is anything but the truth. The blood and the gore are just a bonus! :D

There are three types of zombies;

1. Necromancy - magic
2. Voodoo - putting people in a daze that's totally controllable under the guise of magic
3. Viral - has to fit three qualifications
1. Has to have been a person at one time
2. Must be dead now but typically alive at the time of infection
3.  Must have been brought back to life via the virus

It's amazing how many times one of the three qualifications get left off of an infection. If a "zombie" doesn't fit all of the qualifications of a viral zombie, you're dealing with something else entirely. Hate to break people's hopes and dreams here but Zombieland doesn't actually have a single zombie in the film, and neither do the 28 days/weeks later films. Both of these films have greatly influenced zombie films since they've come out, but unfortunately they aren't zombie films.

Whenever I'm talking about zombie movies I'm talking about the viral form, which is what 99.9% of all zombie movies consist of. Despite what people may think, running zombies are actually not contrary to the idea of a zombie film, at least by the definition (the definition is from the head and founder of the Zombie Research Society, Matt Mogk, who's work is even revered by zombie experts such as Max Brooks, Robert Kirkman and George Romero).

So why do I watch zombie films? Because they are a genre of horror all their own. Some directors are as mindless about it as can be and their films are strictly about blood and guts, which is cool. But still others use it as a means to tell a story or to make a point, like Romero's "of the Dead" series which seem to slowly highlight a point about humanity originally put forth my one of my favorite author's, Richard Matheson.

As it turns out, zombie's have vampiric roots. Richard Matheson wrote "I am Legend" as his first big-time novel after a fairly successful career as a penny novel writer in the 1950's. For the first time since Dracula came out it's sales were beginning to dwindle, but "I am Legend" inspired author's everywhere to return to the idea of vampires in their own works. Except George Romero took the idea and created a monster all his own that didn't even have a name at the time. He began filming "Night of the Living Dead" in 1964 (I think) and people by the buttons* flocked to the movie theaters to watch this film. It's still considered to have been the greatest box-office zombie film of all time. Zombieland definitely made more money than Night of the Living Dead, but tickets for Night of the Living Dead were much cheaper so it's still assumed that more people went to go see Romero's film despite not making as much profit.

Romero's second film, "Dawn of the Dead" was release internationally with a new score and a new name. It's said that Romero wasn't the one behind the name change and didn't want his creatures to be known as zombies because there was already zombie lore (voodoo and necromancy), but it was released regardless and was a huge hit internationally and the name "zombie" stuck to Romero's creatures. Zombie movies internationally did the best in Italy which inspired a new genre, Spaghetti Horror films, that would prove to be some of the most extravagant, gory, and creative films in the zombie and horror genres.

That's part of what I know about zombies.

Cool Story, bro.


*To understand why I used 'button' to describe a flock of people see my post "Meet Chad! And the Pregnant Watermelon Incident!"