Like Meghan, I also find zombie movies to one of the most fascinating subgenres of horror. I think that the fear of disease, rather it be a flesh-eating corpse virus or a more realistic spread of something like mad cow, is what makes these films truly horrifying. Body horror utilizes the fear of infection which is, in my opinion, one of the scariest things to imagine in our increasingly populated world. Adding animated corpses into the mix doesn’t lower the scare factor either. Despite the fact that they give me nightmares, I’m usually willing to watch a good zombie movie. AMC’s recent miniseries, The Walking Dead, was very good as well. In this series the zombies seemed to retain traces of their former lives but would still eat their own sister once the disease set in. I can’t really explain the appeal but I think the variance of the zombies in different films adds to the excitement of watching a new one.
I think it’s interesting to note the different stereotypes of zombies. They can be slow and dumb, like the ones in Night of the Living Dead, or faster and more able-minded. The ones that are smarter and have deductive reasoning abilities, (ie, the human went in there, I can use this rock to break the window to get at them), are the scariest. I also agree with Meghan though that the faster ones sometimes seem a little comical.
I like the Night of the Living Dead so far but I really won’t care if Barbara dies. They have made her so pathetic that the viewer has no attachment to her as a character. Maybe she’ll get more developed and hopefully get braver as the plot progresses.
The point about the intelligent zombies being the most frightening is an interesting one. Honestly, anything with human reasoning abilities outside of a traditional human body can be scary. The ability to reason and use logic adds a much more interesting element to the film because it is no longer just a gore movie. I have been disappointed with Night Of the Living Dead so far because of the poor acting, awful character development, and a lack of true zombie threat. So far, the only person harmed has been the brother who got pushed and hit his head on a rock. Not much of a zombie scare movie...
ReplyDelete