LITERAL REMAINS

That title is a little misleading.  It’s not exactly the truth.  I’ve never carefully rolled a zombie in paper and smoked it.  But there is something about the undead that makes me want more more MORE!  Brains are right darn tasty too.  And if you like the taste of human flesh, dude, I know a girl in New York….never mind.

I fell in with the zombies long ago.  As much as I would love to say, like a hundred million other fans, that it was the original Night of the Living Dead that first infected me, I can’t.  Although it was another Romero classic that sunk its teeth in me, the original Dawn of the Dead.  It grossed me out.  It scared the crap out of me.  What I could see of it.

When we were all younger, even you, dear reader, were younger at this time, I had a cousin, Todd, who lived in Georgia.  Todd would visit during the summer, and when he visited he not only brought a whole fireworks stand of fireworks, he brought horror movies.  Being older, he and my brother and other cousins, they wouldn’t let me join them in watching these gorefests (only Rudolph knew my ordeal).  And there were some occasions they watched a little more than horror movies, wink wink.  But sometimes, sometimes, they let me in to their blood and guts marathons.  And more often than not I would run screaming out of the room.  Remember, I was younger then, a mere child.  Now that I’m older, I don’t normally run and scream at the same time.  Too much energy.

But, I fell in love with zombies.  Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, The Passion of the Christ (think about it).  I even like Diary of the Dead.  I’ve watched some of the Italian zombie films, something about the Blind Dead…Somebody else needs to champion those.  I know, I’m probably going to hell for some of the statements in this paragraph, but I know I won’t be the only one- there are others who like Diary.  And tell me one thing wrong with Return of the Living Dead.  Its sequel wasn’t too bad either.

Of course they’re not all winners.  They never are.  Undead?  Contrary to the title, it is a slow pitiful death.  Hopefully some of the upcoming zombiethons in the works will be worth seeing, such as Dead Snow, Dead Air, and George Romero’s still untitled latest entry in his Dead series.  (A lot of them have ‘dead’ in the title, don’t they?)

A lot of people want to kick the zombies around, think that they’re only worth is to be the butt of jokes.  I know it seems like there are a dozen undead movie titles in the video store each week, and the only difference between them is the title (if that).  But there is something about them that’s horrifying.  Maybe it’s the rot and decay, the stink, the fact that they only want to eat us (none of that applies to Jesus, though—-Hail Mary and Our Father Full of Grace).

Read Brian Keene’s novels The Rising and City of the Dead and I guarantee the undead will seem fresh and alive (!) again.  [Note:  Skip the Keene novel Dead Sea, its a not so good.]  And for a good old fashioned zombie munchfest (oh the ideas I have for that title) read Joe McKinney’s novel Dead City.  Also, let us not forget Brian Moreland’s Shadows In the Mist.

And if you ask me, it’s the vampires that are overrated and overpopulating our society.  Damn vampires.

the_novacula