Zombies are weird, let's talk about them

[CatScrezatio]

One of my favorite media franchises as a whole, is Residents Evil (aka "The Resident of Evil Creek" if you're Hillary Cliton circa the 1990s)

So, since I preordered the remake for RE3, and the virus is keeping me home, I decided to play through the RE2 remake, as well as the original RE3 to wet my appetite.

They were still both great. I still love them both, I know them well enough that I can beat them relatively quickly, but as I was playing, I was thinking a lot about them, and with all this time on my hands, why not start a discussion about this topic.

I don't think it's an unpopular opinion to say that zombies have kinda flooded the market so to speak, to the point of over-saturation really. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. I love monsters in general, I have since I was little. Something about the imagination and design of some creature is really fascinating to me.

Zombies, like most other things, are really really interesting when they're done well. The problem with that is, when something does well and people like it, other people try to cash in to a much lesser extent.

Vampires, demonic possession, cosmic horror (this one hasn't gotten into full swing yet, but I see the writing on the wall, we're all gonna be rolling out eyes when we see a tentacle in a few years) and definitely zombies. It just gets to the point that the same story is told over and over again, and nothing interesting is really happening with it.

Zombies are everywhere. Everywhere you look, zombies. It just stops being horrifying after awhile, when it really should be. If I say a shambling corpse coming at me, I'd be losing my shit, and I bet most other people would be too.

Resident Evil always made them feel scary. They were always a threat because really, with minimal exceptions, you couldn't actually kill them. They'd get back up eventually and your problems wouldn't end.

Not to mention all the other weird shit that series cooked up (see Hunters, Crimson Heads, Tyrants, Nemesis, plagas, regenerators, eliminators, giant snake, zombie shark, etc.) There was always a threat to them, always a presence. Even when you realized if you let them get close you can blow up their heads with the shotgun, or when you're late-game and packing seven different weapons, it's still a mad-dash to not die, and there's still enough interesting variety to keep you engaged. Speaking of variety...


George Romero doesn't make the rules
Seriously. Night of the Living Dead is a good movie. I like that movie alot. But you can do your own thing with zombies. We don't need to treat the man like Tolkien and just recycle his zombies for new stories.

I can hear someone saying, "Oh, but Cat. Some zombies can run!" Okay... Cool... That's still not much of a change. Like, I get it. They're zombies, at their core they have all the ability of a dead body, but we can do better. Residents Evil did better by having weirdos do experiments on them and make terrifying aberrations that spit in the eye of god! And I love it!

My point is, they're more flexible than we given them credit for, and just limiting it to "zombie... Zombie but he run... Zombie but he a doggo" gets very old very quickly. Speaking of witty transitions.

The zombie apocalypse is overdone.
Yeah, I said it. I've seen it too many times, I have no interest in it anymore. The idea of the "group of survivors trying to survive in the tough new world" is boring. Go read the Walking Dead comic, you can get it out of your system (also the comic's really good) Personally, I find the aftermath more interesting.

The settlements and cities built on the ruins of the old, man taking back some semblance of structure against the undead. The wandering people living in the bombed out, undead world between these places. How does that all work? What's it like knowing that dead people might murder you? This is interesting!

Or, if you want to go the RE route, how does the world respond to a sudden and rapid rise in potential of bioterrorism. How do the people who were at ground zero when these diseases were released interact with the world. How do they see further assignments with different plagues and different effects. You know, these things that aren't explored in these stories!

I really like zombies, and I want more good zombie media, but sometimes I worry that the genre is doomed to become like its subject matter. A shambling, bloated corpse that should really just be out out of its misery.


What do you all think? What would your ideal zombie story be? I'm excited to hear different opinions

 

[Legendary28]

Oh boy let me get this out the way by saying I have not just a fear of zombies but and irrational fear of zombies. I don't like the way they look and I would be that guy scoping out places to stock up before leaving family and friends behind. I do not mess with zombies on any level but I also know that chances of it happening is near 0 so over my years I have tried to get over this fear much like heights and darkness by getting comfortable with the exposure. Let me tell you. I still FUCKING hate zombies, but I have gotten better.

Before I couldn't watch zombies movies, play zombies games, it was so bad I couldn't listen to Thriller, with the overexposure I have found things that I'm okay with and the things I am not okay with. First for me it is kind of tied to being claustrophobic seeing a swarm of things that is surrounding you with no escape in sight as you are just on borrow time and it won't be long before these things are tearing you apart. That the second thing, even if you manage to not be food your just going to die anyway only you be the one hungry so no matter what I'm dead. That's the crazy mess up part about it once you're infected you are either going to be immune to the virus or a brain eating muncher.

The second worst thing about a zombie outbreak is the living people combating the zombie outbreak. The during will be chaotic and the rebuilding would be a lot of fighting for power. It would takes decades to get things back stable again and some form of order not just little pockets of people. Getting government back if we still have some of them not eaten or killed.

I seen media that show zombies in a different light. Zombies comes in all shapes and sizes and different methods that I personally don't want to even think about. My fear has some grounding in reality so I'm not saying that I would just cover cemeteries in cement. However it has kind of warp my view on somethings. For example I went to go see the movie zombieland, as I'm going to watch this movie that I know is fake and isn't real I can't help but check out nearest exit and what would I do if something did come through the door. Halloween going to a place where people scare you I know for a fact I would get kicked out for fighting an employee, he was doing his job and some crazy try to crush his head.

 

[Tazreale]

I enjoy zombies, but thing is, there isn't much good media in general with them.

TV wise, I guess Walking Dead is closest to decent, zombie drama. It is okay though, doesn't live up to all the hype in my opinion. I enjoy the character drama now and then more than zombies, but the series is just 'okay,' at best. Is it the best zombie, current trending show? Probably, considering there aren't many other zombie airing shows. There is that dumb one with the dude that can control zombies(forgot the name of series, but it is stupid.) There is also some other series with kids/teens surviving in zombie apoc. Not that great either of a series. I think Walking Dead had a spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, but I never watched it to relate. There was also another fairly new comer to zombie trending shows, but its name is eluding me too as it took different chapters of character perspectives in it. I know the first episode was showing what happen to folks from their perspectives, I didn't watch too into it, so don't know how to rate it. Then if you want to go away from western, I believe Japan/Korea/Whatever Asian province has this kingdom series with zombies(name is also eluding me/haven't watched.) But point is, there really isn't many zombie tv series when you weigh in all the various crime drama shows, reality tv shows, sci-fi, and everything else. Walking Dead will likely remain on top of the list as 'best,' even to me it really isn't.

Zombie movies are all over place. Of course the classics of Night of the Living dead will be best. I can't even recall anything recent of zombie survival movie that had me 'yay.' I been meaning to give Train to Busan a watch as it got plenty of good reviews. Other than that, I guess Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland are probably next best thing. Some of George A. Romeo's other movies may also be good. I only ever seen his first three 'Of the Dead,' movies and that was many years ago. Now looking at what he directed, I didn't even know he did Land of Dead, Survival of Dead, and Diary of the Dead(which I suppose I will later watch at one point.) He also directed several other random movies, Creepshow sounds familiar, but dunno much on his other movies.

Games. Well that is where it gets harder. Resident Evil use to be zombie, then they turn things into other virus later in series. It went from survival horror to action game with some of their other projects. I haven't really found a decent zombie game I enjoyed. Sure, there are few multiplayer ones, but those are older games(Left 4 Dead 1 and 2.) People claim Z Nation game is better than movie, I haven't played it to give my opinion either on. The closest, good zombie game I played in years was Last of Us; haven't tried any of the Resident Evil remakes to give opinion on them either. Ah, technically I guess State of Decay is more recent enjoyable zombie game I played, but I am only playing first one and hear mix reviews on second one. I think what I crave most is a good multiplayer/co-op Zombie survival game. The closet I seen was Scum, but, its underdevelopment and not really my cup of tea at moment. There was also that Survive 7 Days or whatever, but I hated it. There was some other zombie game that they turned into a battle royal that was suppose to be a massive multiplayer game, can't remember its name, but it hyped up and just pulled a King of Hill type game. ;/

What I wouldn't mind is a zombie game similar to Conan Exiles, but closest to that seemingly at this point is again Scum which is still under heavy development. Is it playable? Yes. Enjoyable? Up for debate really.

I guess movie wise, most have a limit of what they can do. I mean, how exactly do you end movies with zombies? "We managed to find a cure?" "We managed to escape to an island?" They generally end up in a slaughterfest and still have aftermath of zombies still being about. It seems hard to really direct good zombie movies, cause you need a proper end goal to make it worthwhile and you can only put so much character relation/build up in what, a two hour film? TV shows have a higher advantage point, Walking Dead did at some point as well, but it has went on for too many seasons too long and has overstayed its welcome. It just feels overly stretched out and that is what I don't like about it, too much 'filler,' content. The way some people die off is just dumb in it, especially key folks that should know better. Plus some of their deaths don't really have a heavy emotional impact or build up, because again, the way they died was stupid to allow it. I can see killing them off in different ways from the comic at other intervals, but still, they still haven't followed comics to T involving other characters' deaths. It started out great, but just became more and more garbage in end, that is why I rate it as 'just okay,' in an overbearing, generous way as my true thoughts to the series will be much harsher than that.

The only way to make good zombie franchise is again character relations. The closest you can do is probably Walking Dead approach. Honestly making a good series or something interesting is hard as again a lot of stuff been already done and rehashed. So yea, near impossible to come up with zombie ideals beyond copy and paste of existing ideals. I am even sure there was a Zombies in Space thing. What can one really do with it, besides coming up with dumb concepts? Zom-nado? Maybe Sharknados can spin off with Zombies.

 

[RedRose]

I'm big on zombies. I've seen all types. Slow and quick, more or less clever, some can even have babies LOL. There's this fear itself episode with almost human-clever zombies.

And yes, TWD used to to be soooo good.

I think the message is often that other humans are/can be as much of a threat (can't remember the movie, but there's one where it is very striking, the characters finally arrived "safe" but sadly what they find there is worse than being on the run).

 

[Dala]

Personally, I think a story about rapidly evolving zombies and
the ecosystem that forms around them would be great.

At the start of the story, they are the typical shambling corpses/virus
hosts that don't have the dignity to
stay in the dirt where they belong.
But throughout the story they
evolve, rapidly mutating and breeding
into stronger, better creatures.

Evolution gone wild. Or wilder.

Eventually there would come a point where they stop resembling humans entirely.

I also think it would be interesting to
see the zombies not as a monolithic block of enemies,
But rather as an emerging, constantly changing new ecosystem that infights and consumes one another.
With their natural habitat being overrun cities.

With the moaning, shambling, boring walking
corpses everyone is used to,
slowly being consumed and superceded by things that
arguably are better than humans.
It would make an interesting story.


Humanities existence is no longer being threatened by hordes of mindless dead,
But the next stage in their evolution,
And a rapidly evolving ecosystem
where us weak little apes aren't welcome.


I think that would be a very good story.

 

[Chalarm]

I always like to think fo zombies on a sliding scale, one side being the virus infection idea and the other being a fantasy type that are unnatural creatures returning from the dead. The former would be your RE franchise and similar ideas while the latter is your DnD monsters with all the other variations fitting somewhere in between on the slider. Characteristics will change but they are zombies in the same sense of mindless masses of hunger.

It would be nice to see more of push back to the fantasy zombie style though as I feel there has been too much of a concentration of rage virus/parasite type of zombies over the recent period of time. At least in movies and tv.

However I am tired of zombie apocolypse stories. Mainly because zombies don't work well once they become large scale, which is pretty strange and contradictory sounding but hear me out. Most stories with zombies involve close quarters and tight spaces, the abandoned house, the secret lab, etc. Even when the resident Evil franchise moved on to entire cities as the setting, you are still playing in narrow corridors. Because once you move to open spaces it's usually not scary to be able to walk circles around the shambling corpse or able to just walk away. Even with fast zombies it's usually easy to isolate oneself from them or to outsmart the mindless creatures when the idea of the entire world comes into play in the stories.

Alot of the franchises even realize this sticking point. When you have a zombie apocolypse what becomes the most dangerous threat... MAN!! Roving band of bandits, crazy cults, etc. They fall into the idea that people will revert to savages and are naturally non cooperative, like everything they scavange and fight over in the ruins isn't a testament to human societies' ability to cooperate. If you build an apocolyptic world and then have your primary threat fall to the wayside, you're doing something wrong in my opinion.

Now there are good stories that focus on large outbreaks of a zombie horde like World war Z (book or movie; take your pick, I liked both for different reasons). My issue is that most plots don't make them threatening enough to have become an issue for most of the world.

But I feel like we are on the plateau of the zombie craze. It definetly isnt't going to dissapear, but just like vampires and werewolves they have become a nice easy go to for a monster to throw in when needed. They make good video game fodder and can be scary when done well for movies and shows.

I also think it would be interesting to
see the zombies not as a monolithic block of enemies,
But rather as an emerging, constantly changing new ecosystem that infights and consumes one another.
With their natural habitat being overrun cities.

It might not be exaclty what you want but I know a webcomic I read recently called "stand still, stay silent" where the zombie outbreak has morphed all mammels on the planet into mutated creatures and new ecosystems have developed. When a small group is sent to explore the old world they find alot more than what was expected from the mutations.

 

[obieblu]

Just reading the older OP, I'll jump in on about the 'variety' aspect of zombies.

The zombie fear arose out of the fear of Communism. This mass of mindless sameness was coming to turn you into part of their mindless sameness. You'd never get to start a business and become a megamillionaire as is your guarantee as an American citizen. You wouldn't be able to have individual thoughts, and you'd shuffle slowly through gray lines to collect your sameness of food. And it could happen to anyone. Even your own child could go to a meeting at college and become one. Then you'd have one in your house, handing a pamphlet to your wife and trying to turn her into one. While we've moved on from that specific political fear, I think the core of appeal for zombies still is having your identity erased by the horde.

I do like the Resident Evil fandom, but it's only a quilt with patches of zombie for me. My boyfriend loves zombies but hates the RE movies. He watches the zombie parts, then looks at his phone and complains "too much scifi" when the weird monsters show up. I think RE is much more of Playing God horror, more like Action Frankenstein than strictly zombie genre. The specific zombie scenes, a horde descending on a small band of survivors, does get my zombie craving satisfied, but the end of every movie is a standard scifi-monster fight.

I find no inherent appeal in unique varieties of zombies. It can be part of a story just fine, but it doesn't make me more or less afraid of having my identity destroyed or being eaten alive. Being a zombie who's head splits open doesn't make me think it will be cooler to die horrifically if I get to become one. I think the value of the modern incarnation of the zombie genre is that they're stories about the survivors. Are humans the real monsters? Is it an allegory on Capitalism? What sort of society should we rebuild? How are other countries responding? and zombies become more of 'nature', an environmental pressure, rather than anything of profound interest themselves. I think each wave of zombie craze has an expiration date when storytellers can't come up with new interesting stories about the survivors.

Even that mindless, entertaining dumpster fire called Z Nation had me laughing at the stupidity of the main characters and kind of things like the redneck zombie-shooting gun shows. (I had to live in an area for a while that would totally do that.) I was even ok with the radiation zombies. But I checked out when they got to the plant zombies. They were turning too far to gimmicks.

 

[RedRose]

The Wayward Pines was quite interesting.

Yes, we can definitely find allegories (it's clear Forrest of hands and teeth has to do with capitalism)

I personally love it if there's character development and not just relying on the z

 

[Mtvarisa]

What I like most about zombie genre is exactly the classic variation of zombies (though I love older Resident Evil games as well) and I fully acknowledge the right of any author for any deviation and his/her own ways to seeing the zombies. I'm just talking about MY preference here.

Also, it's not Romero who should be considered as Tolkien and only canon but the FOLKLORE at which Romero based his zombies. (AGAIN, I don't have anything against non-canonical zombies). Just saying that, zombie, as mythical creature is rather simply the dead that came back through voodoo magic. It's a thing of French colonies in America and it's part of their culture. We can have any variety of zombies but the ones which are made in labs through genetic modifications, or through some virus and so on aren't simply those type of zombies.

Now why the authors have need to deviate so much from classical folklore to make suspenseful zombies? The answer is simple. Zombies aren't that horrifying in fact.
Classical folklore zombies would never be able to take over the world, cause apocalypse or anything near that. They work only on some closed space, remote place, such as old manor or house, old farm in the middle of nowhere, or graveyard on the Halloween night. That's it. They are slow, they have no strategy, nothing except instincts, they feed on their only source of multiplication (So they eat the only thing they can turn into more zombies. That's rather ineffective way of reproduction). Simple stairs are problems for them, domestic animals are problem for them, simple mote with water in it, basically any hard terrain and anyone who is not handicapped is out of their reach. So once the initial shock and horror of seeing and smelling walking dead body wears off, they're done.

That's why I think The Walking Dead is a laughable concept. The zombies that are shown there would never been able cause the world destruction that we see. How did they overcame military with tanks, jets, guns, cannons, rockets and so on? World terrorist organizations have much more brains and firepower but can do nothing like that to countries like USA (or even less powerful ones).

So genre evolved from a simple folklore and became something completely different. I am not even sure we should call these creatures zombies anymore. Same with vampires.
Vampire is a very particular thing from European culture. And it is afraid of garlic and crucifix because it's a creature of evil. Modern day vampires aren't afraid of crucifixes because it's a bad tone to mention any kind of religion in modern fiction mostly. Some might think it's not tolerant enough, I don't know... So now we have vampire who is just immortal sexy being which isn't even evil in most cases. Again, I'm all for creative freedom and I think everyone has the right to do as they want with fictional creatures, but for me, those kind of vampires are just meh

 

[Yoga Princess]

I liked that Fear The Walking Dead had some school faculty members in the very beginning. I like how it and the parent show have portrayed zombies. I probably prefer end of world movies without zombies more than end of world movies with them, based on my viewing history.