Posted on 07/17/2012 6:22:49 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
(Now for some lighter side fun.)
28 Days Later. Resident Evil. Land of the Dead. Deadgirl. Army of Darkness. The Walking Dead. Fido. Dead Snow. Planet Terror. Evil Dead 2. Dawn of the Dead. Zombieland. Shaun of the Dead — the list just goes on and on. Everybody seems to LOVE zombie films — but why? What exactly is so intriguing to people about the idea of being stalked by dead people who want to eat their brains after a worldwide apocalypse? Simple: zombie movies cater to a whole range of deeply rooted human desires. It may be an apocalypse for the world, but for the moviegoer picturing himself in the middle of it all, it’s finally his chance to shine.
1) You can plausibly be the hero. The problem with most action flicks is that the average person has trouble picturing himself as the hero. He doesn’t have special training or powers. He’s not a CIA operative, a Navy SEAL, a gunfighter, or a mutant. So the idea of taking on a gang of Die Hard-style terrorists or fighting with a sword against the medieval equivalent of Chuck Liddell in a film like Gladiator is completely outside of his reality.
On the other hand, zombies are most often portrayed as extremely slow and stupid, yet still dangerous. That makes zombies an enemy that the average restaurant manager or accountant feels like he could realistically handle. Every man, in his heart, wants to be a hero. He wants to be John Wayne, he wants to be Rambo, he wants to be Bruce Lee. In a world filled with zombies, that’s an achievable goal.
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(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
For the muscles to move (unless magic is somehow involved - and usually it isn't) there has to be some metabolism involved - burning up fat stores, muscles, and potentially anything the zombie has eaten (brains!).
Rage “zombies” (28 days later)are 100% alive - and are more correctly called “the infected”.
The book “World War Z” deals with the zombie infection time limit - but it seemed to be several years of hard core zombie action, longer where they froze over the winter IIRC.
Post-apocalyptic stuff does have an appeal for the reasons given, and the "zombie apocalypse" is a quick way to deliver those apocalyptic satisfactions some viewers may like -- all that stuff and all those women just there for the taking, there are no rules, and anybody can be a hero.
But beyond that, (1) zombie shows have a great opportunities for special effects, especially make-up. (2) They make good use of crowd scenes, playing on the fear of hostile hordes charging at you. (3) Lots and lots of killing: you can do a lot of harm to creatures that are already dead. If you blew actual living people's heads off that often, viewers might get sick of it, but with the undead, anything goes. (4) There are plenty of opportunities for scary "I thought it was dead, but now it's suddenly coming back to life" moments -- the scariest part of horror films, at least until you've seen it happen too may times. And when you get tired of the action, (5) there's always that "Are the people around me turning into zombies" thing, where you can't trust anybody, to give you chills.
Season 3 production pics? SWEET!
It's amazing how many people (especially libs) just don't get that point.
Hmmm. Hadn’t thought of it like that. It makes sense, however.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/
Rule number one on writing zombie lore. Never paint yourself into a corner by giving away too many hard details.
Unless there is a good shock value in so doing, and the ‘rules’ were based upon what the characters thought the rules were.
In “The Walking Dead” the ‘rule’ seemed to be that only those bitten by a zombie became a ‘walker’ when they died. Now it seems that anyone exposed (and it seems they all got exposed through their rather casual handling of beheaded walkers) who dies rises as a ‘walker’. YIKES!!!
LOL! Thanks. I needed that tonight.
Being brain dead as they are, they don’t realize how dumb they are.
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