Zombie-Mania!

What is it about the dead rising up from their graves and roaming the earth that gets me all giddy?

Like tweens to vampires, nerds and nerd-folk are flocking to any and all things zombie. Pop culture is rife with zombies and similar undead, and as a self proclaimed junkie of geek culture, I eat this stuff up.

The new film Zombieland, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, and Emma Stone, opened this weekend and swept to the number one spot at the box office. Despite being gruesome horrific creatures that spread disease and destroy life, people love zombies.

Next month the sequel to the Award-winning video game “Left 4 Dead” hits  the shelves. This game features four player cooperation to survive a zombie outbreak. Working together as a team you have to reach checkpoint after checkpoint until finally you can make contact with someone who can provide an emergency rescue. Players in the original game made their way through cities, farms, airports, and hospitals to try and catch a break from massive hordes of the undead. In this new sequel, players will experience the game from the perspective of four new characters set in the bayou and New Orleans.

We have even seen safety plans implemented at major universities for flesh-eating, apparently life impaired individuals. The University of Florida's response plans for a zombie apocalypse are no longer available for public consumption though, as some felt the joke was inappropriate.

These are great examples of ways zombies have mindlessly shambled into our hearts, but why do we accept them so? Obviously we don’t agree with their methods or their goals. If we would meet a zombie we would surely slay it without hesitation. But do these munchers of brains represent a bigger picture? In practically every incarnation we see the heroes fighting against the hordes, rebelling against the massing zombies. When society is becoming drone-like and with the disease spreading more and more become assimilated into the mass. Except for the brave few that avoid society. The ones that won’t conform and join the mindless masses.

Think of the zombiesque facets of society... mindless service jobs, the mindless homogeneity of youth culture, mindless conversations on cell phones such that we can have a crowd of people standing talking, but not to each other. Translation for the metaphorically inept: we *ARE* zombies and we don't even know it. Zombie movies even dating back to Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead have been metaphors for problems in the world. So next time you find yourself in the mindless lockstep of society, think twice and hold on to your brains.

Perhaps this is also why zombies work so well for horror movies, they are not some foreign, alien monster, they are us. Your neighbors, your friends, your family, all becoming a flesh eating monster. The idea of turning on your loved ones may be scarier than the graphic mutilations depicted on the screen.

Regardless of whether the zombies represent society, or are just there for some good ol’ fashioned fun, they are here to stay. If you are like me and enjoy Z-Culture, check out some of the following books that are a must for zombie fans.

Until next time, Hail to the king, baby…
-- “The Erik” Sanburn