Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Zombie Movies. I can't.


I haven't seen too many zombies movies that I've liked. 'Night of the Living Dead' I think is a great movie. 'Dawn of The Dead' was pretty fun. 'Walking Dead' was something I couldn't get into. An entire show about people running from zombies? It's hard to give a two hour movie about it a decent amount of attention. How can I keep caring for six years? But even though I've never been a huge fan of them, I saw the trailer for World War Z and was interested. It looked as though it would be a bit different from normal zombie movies. Went to see it, and within fifteen minutes was reminded of why I'm not interested in these movies.

One of the things I can't get over, is that for some reason in zombie movies, people just know what to do. One minute, people are driving to work, everything in their life is zombie free. They woke up a bit late, didn't have time to eat anything more than half a bagel, have to sit in a meeting they don't want to be in. Then, bam! Zombies attack! And without even a thought, they snap right into 'zombie apocalypse mode'. Kicking zombies in the face, running them over, shooting them in the head with guns they've found and probably never used before. Calm as hell. No screaming. No freaking out. Jut an easy transition.
"I can't believe this traffic. I'm already late. And why won't this soft rock station play Peter Framptons' 'Baby I love your way'? It really soothes my... huh. THAT'S a whole lot of zombies coming at me right now. Well, good thing I took that 'Zombies are coming one day you idiot' survival class. Time to turn this car lighter into a flaming nail thrower. Let's do it, Zombies."

It's hard to stay interested as well because without people around, zombies do nothing. They don't do anything! With no humans in sight, zombies just stand there, snarling and spitting, cracking their jaws and bobbing back and forth. Vampires form gangs and fight each other. Werewolves only turn into werewolves at certain times so when they are people they can go to work, have regular lives, go out for drinks. Anything!
"Man, my weekend was nuts. I went to a club, got loaded and took these two girls back to my house. They both passed out as we were walking in. One fell through a glass table, the other rolled back down the front steps. Crazy, man."
"Your weekend was nuts? Mine was INSANE. I turned into a beast and tore three families in half. It was disgusting. Worst part is I blew through my new Lacoste dress shirt. Well, not the WORST part, but that shirts ruined."
It adds depth to them. Vampires and werewolves can be characters. Zombies? Nothing. They either stand like they're waiting for a bus, or they run at you like they are trying to catch a bus.

Zombies don't talk, either. They can't carry a story. Vampires talk. Werewolves can talk. Not one word comes out of a zombies mouth. They don't talk amongst themselves or come up with plans as to what their next moves are. The only thing they've ever said is 'brains'. That's it. 'Brains'. For some reason, when people become zombies, they only say the thing that they want to eat. Only onset illness that happens with. Nobody gets type two diabetes and gets stuck on a verbal loop of one junk food.
"Sir, I have bad news for you. You have onset diabetes."
"Oh, no. Really? What do I...do....do....donut. Doooonut. Dooonutsssss."
"... They always start saying 'donuts' before I have a chance to tell them that all they have to do is take insulin. Oh, well. Glad I'm not a donut."
Now zombies don't even eat brains, so they don't say anything. They eat arms, legs, hips, hands. Everything. I guess it wouldn't make sense for them to say anything.
"Oh, no! A zombie!"
"People paaaarrrtsss! Peeeeeooople paaaarrrtttssss!"
"He wants to eat all of my parts! Ahhhhh!"

There is usually a virus that spreads, or something to that effect. In some of these movies, they have the audacity to not even tell you how that happened. They stay as vague as possible.
"How did this happen?"
"We're not too sure. It could have been a pigeon in India. Could have been mad cow disease. Could have been that guy who fell into the sewer system which is full of diseases and almost drowned. An EMT gave him mouth to mouth, then he kissed his girlfriend hello later that night, they broke up soon after and then both went on a mad tear of sexual exploits trying to get over each other. Could have spread that way. But, really, who cares? Let's just try to stop it."
"Well... I guess. We need to stop it regardless, but shouldn't we try to figure out where it came from? That could help us sto..."
"Hey! I said 'let's just try to stop it.' What I should have ended that sentence with is 'blindly'. Let's just to try and stop it blindly. Let's go!"

Zombies are not strong. They are not hard to kill. The only thing that sucks about them is that there are tons of them. Tons of anything would be hard to defeat. If ten thousand leaves flew at you, you're falling down. These movies would be the same if there was a hoard of kids running around. Do you think you could beat up or stop hundreds of kids that were trying to kill you? Doubt it.
"Huh. That school of children is foaming from the mouth and running right at me. Well, you want it kids? It's on! Kids are so easy to beat up. You jus..."
(Kids reach him. Beat him to the ground in a second.)
"Well, I spoke to soon. Tiny, sticky 'Dora The Explorer' shoes are crushing my head. I'm done!"

Zombies used to just walk, now they run at full tilt. Why? Probably because a walking zombie is boring and not scary at all. It's dragging itself down the street? Wow. Horrifying. Poison Ivy is scarier than this.
"Hey, man. Don't look now, but there is a zombie coming towards us."
"Is he walking?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. We've got at least twenty minutes. Not a big deal. So, back to what I was saying, I just did.... Ahhh! Ficus! Look out!"
"Noooo! I put my arm right in it! Oh, man. I'm gonna be itching for weeks. Oh, just so you know, the zombie fell down. He's trying to get up now. Doesn't look like it's working out. Continue your story."


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