Zombob's Zombie News and Reviews

Our Say: Why We Love Zombies

Nothing can stop the zombie invasion.

The undead now lurk in every corner of pop culture. There are zombie TV shows, video games, Twitter feeds and even zombie Jane Austen novels for the not-so-gentle-reader, in addition to the legions of fright flicks. Fans of the flesh-eating oeuvre eagerly await the film "World War Z," starring Brad Pitt, not to mention the return of AMC's phenomenally popular series "The Walking Dead." Go, Michonne! But I digress.

Right now, the living dead is all the rage. Of course, if you don't know Romero from Romeo, this trend may puzzle you. Why do so many of us enjoy escaping into the realm of the zombie apocalypse? Why do I love to take a break from Beckett and the Bard to dabble in dismemberment? Why is evisceration and existentialism such an apropos mashup? As a gore hound with a day job as a theater critic, the reason for this renaissance of the rotten seems clear to me.

You see, my fondness for flesh-eaters began when I was about 12. I was so scared by "Night of the Living Dead" that I had to sleep with the lights on -- for a week. So I've had a lot of time to ponder the question. Consider this the thinking woman's guide to the walking dead.

Simply put, the rise of zombies in pop culture reflects our creeping sense of anxiety about the state of the world. On the most basic level, horror movies are an outlet to express our unspoken fears. We live vicariously through the characters in these stories,

experiencing their desperation and their capacity to endure. When they triumph over all odds, so do we -- and that's quite a thrill. When they get gobbled, we confront our own mortality. The squeamish ones, like me, also look away. Briefly. Until we can't bear the suspense.

Let's face it, there is a lot of scary news out there these days. From the economy to the environment, it can seem like the end of the world as we know it, and it's hard to feel fine about it.

We live in a world where bizarre is the new normal. This is a world where tourists go to Chernobyl and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on vacation (wish you were here!), a world where a carefree trip to the zoo with your toddler can be a reminder that the pace of animal extinction is faster than a rabid zombie.

Most of us happily deny these fears in order to go about our daily routine, but it's hard to quell those nagging worries entirely. Zombies embody those tenacious fears that refuse to be buried. They claw their way into the light and demand to be confronted.

Sadly, one reason zombies ring our bell right now is that they are symbolic of a real threat. Unlike ghosts or goblins, zombies are rooted in the possibility of a global pandemic. A stray virus that mutates in unexpected ways may very well ricochet around the planet with alarming speed. That's the yarn spun in "28 Days Later." Before you know it, a contagion takes out all of civilization. Before swine flu hit the radar, that may have seemed like malarkey. Now, it seems terrifyingly plausible.

The small band of bedraggled survivors in "The Walking Dead," which is based on Robert Kirkman's cult hit comic books, never even know when or where the virus started. They hold out hope that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will find a cure right up until the Atlanta office is obliterated.

But the real key to zombie appeal is how deeply the genre is rooted in metaphor. Zombies represent our collective subconscious, so they are constantly changing with the times. Every decade breeds its own strain of the monster. That's why it's a genre that never dies.

Back in 1968, horror icon George Romero commented on race in America in his masterpiece "Night of the Living Dead." He also sent the brain-munchers to the mall in 1978's "Return of the Living Dead" in a scathing commentary of consumerism.

Disembowelment also fed the satire in "Shaun of the Dead," in which the zombie disease serves a cautionary tale about sleepwalking through life. In Joe Dante's horror short "Homecoming," fallen soldiers return from the grave to vote against the war. In "Zombieland," the hordes remind us about the perils of groupthink, especially social media. In one scene, the characters take turns musing about their favorite part of the apocalypse. The hands-down winner? No more Facebook status updates. Like!

You also have to love the fact that zombies are a working-class monster. They aren't 1 percenters, unlike most vampires (that's Count Dracula, to you!). They are postal workers and nurses and day care workers. They are us, which is why they strike such a deep emotional chord. When little Sophia was killed off on "The Walking Dead," even the most jaded viewer shed a tear.

Faced with an uncertain future on so many fronts, many of us look to the horror genre to work through our feelings of powerlessness, our fears of what may lie in the dark. On the other hand, it's possible I am overthinking this whole zombie thing because as far as guilty pleasures go, it's a tad embarrassing.

Either way, there's nothing like a few hours amid the undead to make you feel alive.

~Mercurynews.com