Column #22 - Don't the Undead Deserve Some Respect?

I phrase it in the form of a question because I can't be the only one that noticed the massive divide in the genre affectionately referred to as horror. (Made all the more scary by bolding, underlining and italicizing it). I wrote a horror script one day (this actually means ten weeks, not including revisions, rewrites, and constant editing, known as second-guessing in the real world, a stressful never-ending state that all writers exist continually under. I don't know why exactly, we just do). I didn't actually write a horror script, there's this whole section of horror sub-genres like the slasher flick, pick any Jason/Freddy/Michael movie. Why do these guys only go by one name anyway. I actually wrote a "Creature Feature", which was kinda what I intended. I wanted to write a new Alien, a new Predator. I'm not vain enough to think I could improve on these works of science fiction genius, but what the heck, I gave it shot. The result? Well, I let you know at some point in the future.

But I digress, what I really want to say is that Zombies are people, too, and the time has come to give them their due. I've been inspired by a couple of zombie flicks this past year or so. First, recognition must go out to Danny Boyle and 28 Days Later, which brought zombies back from the literary brink, entertained the heck outta us, and almost, not quite but almost, made digital video passable as film stock. The strange, dreary, gray, dead color pallet made it seem like a world of the dead, or the living dead, or the formerly living, or the pre-deceased postmortem pre-CSI post-body bag crew. The movie also had a strangely appealing dystopic London free of ravers and annoying tourists. So 28 Days Later sets the stage. Next up is...

...Dawn of the Dead starring Sarah Polley who would've been awesome as Penny Lane in Almost Famous. This is the remake, not the George Romero original in which he apparently skewers consumerism and the capitalist system. They ignore that here and go for shear zombie quantity. Sarah plays a nurse with a curse (I just made that up, seriously) who finds out that the entire world is suddenly and without convenient explanation populated by the walking dead. Basically, the movie's a good excuse to mistreat and abuse Zombies. They use guns of course, chain-saws, giant earth moving equipment (I don't think this is actually in Dawn of the Dead, but how cool would it be to see a backhoe versus some zombies. Yes! That coooool.) People end up trapped inside a mall and then Agatha Christie Ten Little Indians style, they're slowly Zombified. And as zombies, they lose all their rights, all their respect, and all their personality. Instead, they become playthings for WASP-Yuppie-I'm angry-at-my-dad-for-not-playing-catch-with-me-like-Kevin-Costner-in-that-baseball-movie angst driven young males and females. They become targets. And why, you might ask, that is if you're still reading, are they targets...Because they're dead. Next comes...

...The third and much more interesting flick is the arresting Shaun of the Dead. A spoof to be certain, but with a good amount of gore. Very British, but enough naughty bits to satisfy any colonial (I made this up, there are no naughty bits). Very, very funny. Next to Team America: World Police, maybe the funniest movie of the year not featuring Vince Vaughn. The premise is simple: Society has become so mind-numbingly stultifying that we're all defacto zombies already and if un-said calamity turned people into "real" zombies, would we even notice? Shaun and his cohorts don't. I like to think that if I was in his same situation, I would still be oblivious. Shaun and his best friend Ed, so co-dependent as to both go on Shaun's dates, find out that in the world of the future, the world of the zombie, they could be kings. And so Shaun leads a grand new revolution of grandness full of grand ideas involving grandparents...Nah, I'm just pulling your leg here. Shaun saves the day in the most banal and entertaining of ways. Go check it out. You'll howl. Or yodel, if that's your thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Zombies get the short shrift not because they are living dead. Dracula macks all the babes, Frankenstein is sponsored by Duracell, and the Wolf-man has that slick bad boy dark-side that all the chicks love. No zombies are discriminated against because they bring up unpleasant memories, unpleasant thoughts, and unpleasant smells. Yes, it's that simple: Zombies stink. Literally. And they're ugly. Pug-ugly. Ever seen an attractive zombie? No, that's a vampire. There haven't been any. Oh, yeah, they might try to eat your brain, but show me one person who's perfect and I'll show you someone whose house of cards is wound too tight.

So here it is. Zombies = ugly. But remember, Zombies are people, too. Undead people, but still people-lish.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.