The question is frequently posed, what are the best zombie movies? To answer this question, however, one has to first in fact be clear about just what qualifies as a zombie movie. Or, for that matter, what qualifies a zombie. The uninitiated might be surprised to learn this isn't so straightforward a matter as it first seems. We won't presume here to settle the much debated sprinters vs stumblers debate, nor what constitutes being dead. Even leaving aside those controversies, though, the matter isn't necessarily straightforward. For instance, simply calling them the undead or living dead leaves open the place of vampires. They too share the gray place between dead and alive, but, they aren't zombies, that's for sure. So, some kind of rules will be helpful in determining the parameters of what qualifies.
Well, they do say that rules are made to be broken. And it's certainly true that the rules guiding conventions in regards to movie zombies have been broken plenty enough. Nevertheless, there remain some pretty enduring rules. Even many of those that have been broken have not thereby been vanished from the genre. So, while a little flexibility may be required in the application, some parameters can be usefully identified.
In looking at these zombie movie conventions it is useful to distinguish between the pre and the post Romero zombies. We can conclude by identifying, too, some of the standard narrative rules of zombie movies.
The Pre Romero Zombies
1. The original idea of zombies comes from notions of Haitian voodoo and the pre-Romero movies often followed this archetype so that such zombies would have a master that controlled them as a function of having raised them from the grave.
2. These early zombies usually had slow, unbalanced movement,
3. Even the pre-Romero movies had already developed the narrative trope of setting the zombie uprising (if you'll excuse the pun) in some kind of an apocalyptic scenario. Nihilism was the aesthetic of the day. Or night.
4. Connected to the above, zombiism was often depicted as a form of plague.
Romero/post-Romero Zombies
5. Among Romero's enduring changes was that the zombies ceased to be in the control of some master-mind. Instead, now, zombies more closely resembled an act of god or natural disaster. It has become common currency that in fact the rise of zombies constituted some kind of retribution by nature against some alleged ecological evil of human action.
6. They were now driven by an insatiable hunger to eat the living, which had (and apparently required) no further explanation.
7. Romero's zombie attacks took on a different cinematic flavor, depicted in gruesome and graphic detail. There was now a premium on the re-creation of lifelike blood and gore.
8. Possibly the biggest and most widely homage-inspired contribution of Romero was the mythology that zombies could be killed only by a brain destroying blow to the head.
9 Though, as seen above, the idea of zombiism as a plague was older, the Romero tradition made standard the convention that it was passed by zombie bites.
Stock ingredients for a zombie movie
10. Pretty much every zombie movie, it seems, has to have the loser character that, whether out of stupidity, selfishness, cowardice or general inhumanity screws everything up for everyone else. Their anti-group disposition causes a break in the fortifications holding the zombies out of the safe space. So the last shred of human society, the straggling survivors, is smote by the social outcast. (There is very much a kind of communitarian conservatism to most of these movies.)
11. Straggling survivors, who just gotta stick together to survive. Frequently, they are composed of a solid PC diversity across ethnic, gender and age lines. All this seems intent upon representing a microcosm of human hope and futility, dignity and venality.
12. And of course one of the most stock of stock story devices, is the initial incomprehension and denial about what's actually going down. Interestingly, despite all the zombie movies in the world, no zombie movie itself ever takes place in a world that has zombie movies. Or, at the very least, no public official, nor any other person with any authority, it would appear has ever seen such a movie. Because they sure are slow on the uptake.
13. Zombie movies are not really about zombies. They in fact are about the deterioration of society and human frailty and vanity.
14. Some poor sap, emotionally attached to one of the zombies, just can't believe his or her loved one is now a flesh eating ambulating corpse. It usually goes badly.
15. A peace maker and implicit leader, who tries to pull everyone together and is usually thanked for the effort by some obnoxious jerk eventually accusingly commenting "who made you leader?"
16. And, last, but far from least, we need some hotties -- from both sides of the gender divide. Call it "love interests" if you'd like. Personally, I suspect these are secretly the main attraction of major zombie movie geeks, who can finally credibly think, "Those babes will have to have sex with me, now! How else will the human race be repopulated?" The problem of course is, as mentioned above, the hotties are usually represented by both genders. So, in fact, poor geek, there's still some alpha type getting in the way of your apocalyptic fantasy. But, at least it gives them hope. What's the real point of a zombie apocalypse if you can't have a little hope of making it with a hottie?
So, there you go; there's our 16 rules for identifying zombies and their movies. Now, next time you're asked about the best zombie movies , you know what you're talking about!
Well, they do say that rules are made to be broken. And it's certainly true that the rules guiding conventions in regards to movie zombies have been broken plenty enough. Nevertheless, there remain some pretty enduring rules. Even many of those that have been broken have not thereby been vanished from the genre. So, while a little flexibility may be required in the application, some parameters can be usefully identified.
In looking at these zombie movie conventions it is useful to distinguish between the pre and the post Romero zombies. We can conclude by identifying, too, some of the standard narrative rules of zombie movies.
The Pre Romero Zombies
1. The original idea of zombies comes from notions of Haitian voodoo and the pre-Romero movies often followed this archetype so that such zombies would have a master that controlled them as a function of having raised them from the grave.
2. These early zombies usually had slow, unbalanced movement,
3. Even the pre-Romero movies had already developed the narrative trope of setting the zombie uprising (if you'll excuse the pun) in some kind of an apocalyptic scenario. Nihilism was the aesthetic of the day. Or night.
4. Connected to the above, zombiism was often depicted as a form of plague.
Romero/post-Romero Zombies
5. Among Romero's enduring changes was that the zombies ceased to be in the control of some master-mind. Instead, now, zombies more closely resembled an act of god or natural disaster. It has become common currency that in fact the rise of zombies constituted some kind of retribution by nature against some alleged ecological evil of human action.
6. They were now driven by an insatiable hunger to eat the living, which had (and apparently required) no further explanation.
7. Romero's zombie attacks took on a different cinematic flavor, depicted in gruesome and graphic detail. There was now a premium on the re-creation of lifelike blood and gore.
8. Possibly the biggest and most widely homage-inspired contribution of Romero was the mythology that zombies could be killed only by a brain destroying blow to the head.
9 Though, as seen above, the idea of zombiism as a plague was older, the Romero tradition made standard the convention that it was passed by zombie bites.
Stock ingredients for a zombie movie
10. Pretty much every zombie movie, it seems, has to have the loser character that, whether out of stupidity, selfishness, cowardice or general inhumanity screws everything up for everyone else. Their anti-group disposition causes a break in the fortifications holding the zombies out of the safe space. So the last shred of human society, the straggling survivors, is smote by the social outcast. (There is very much a kind of communitarian conservatism to most of these movies.)
11. Straggling survivors, who just gotta stick together to survive. Frequently, they are composed of a solid PC diversity across ethnic, gender and age lines. All this seems intent upon representing a microcosm of human hope and futility, dignity and venality.
12. And of course one of the most stock of stock story devices, is the initial incomprehension and denial about what's actually going down. Interestingly, despite all the zombie movies in the world, no zombie movie itself ever takes place in a world that has zombie movies. Or, at the very least, no public official, nor any other person with any authority, it would appear has ever seen such a movie. Because they sure are slow on the uptake.
13. Zombie movies are not really about zombies. They in fact are about the deterioration of society and human frailty and vanity.
14. Some poor sap, emotionally attached to one of the zombies, just can't believe his or her loved one is now a flesh eating ambulating corpse. It usually goes badly.
15. A peace maker and implicit leader, who tries to pull everyone together and is usually thanked for the effort by some obnoxious jerk eventually accusingly commenting "who made you leader?"
16. And, last, but far from least, we need some hotties -- from both sides of the gender divide. Call it "love interests" if you'd like. Personally, I suspect these are secretly the main attraction of major zombie movie geeks, who can finally credibly think, "Those babes will have to have sex with me, now! How else will the human race be repopulated?" The problem of course is, as mentioned above, the hotties are usually represented by both genders. So, in fact, poor geek, there's still some alpha type getting in the way of your apocalyptic fantasy. But, at least it gives them hope. What's the real point of a zombie apocalypse if you can't have a little hope of making it with a hottie?
So, there you go; there's our 16 rules for identifying zombies and their movies. Now, next time you're asked about the best zombie movies , you know what you're talking about!
About the Author:
Now that you know what makes the grade as a zombie movie, check out Mickey Jhonny's provocative top five list of the all time best zombie movies . Over at the Walking Dead appreciation blog, Pretty Much Dead Already, his article on the Walking Dead fanfiction is a must read for every fan of the zombie genre.
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