I went to a zombie Christmas party on Friday.
You'd be surprised how many people 1.) were actually dressed up, 2.) had zombie costumes ready to go and 3.) had been to a zombie-themed party this year already.
Not that dressing up like a zombie or having a zombie costume on hand is that big a deal. How tough a costume are we talking about, right? Get some old clothes, rip 'em a bit, throw some dirt on them, show up to the party really hungover or directly from your job . The illusion is complete.
As for #3, I suppose it's because zombies are one of those things that just work for a costume/themed party. They're a little scary, a little funny, a little creepy and a lot stupid. Its like most of us after a couple drinks. Oddly, after a couple of drinks, all the zombie makeup looks pretty normal on everyone. Zombies aren't really that scary to begin with, so dressing up as them at a party seems a pretty innocuous thing to do.
It seems to me that zombies rank at the bottom of the horror film food chain. I don't think most of us are all that scared of zombies, not in the same way other things that go bump in the night scare us. It requires hundreds of zombies to become really scary, and even then, if you're even a reasonably good runner, you're pretty well safe. Zombies can look a little freaky, even outright gross, but scary? Scary is something which intends you harm and actually has abilities to make it happen. Zombies have what? They'll stumble after you and groan and not die when you shoot them in an extremity? Their clothes are tattered? They smell? I have those powers.
Now as a kid I was terrified of them, the shambling undead, wandering aimlessly everywhere, seeking to consume human flesh. I think we all feel this way when we first see the rotting corpses, the empty eyes, the grey and green skin, the long-drawn moan of the damned.
It wears off quickly. One can only watch so many shuffle-footed groaners wandering around shopping malls and gas station parking lots before some of the initial freakiness wears off. How many low-watts have to wander into some dark alley and get cornered by a slow-moving crowd of ghouls before the cliche loses it's lustre? The inanity of the undead and those who have survived to fight them begins to raise an eyebrow or two.
First up, zombie diet. Why human flesh? What exactly is it about human flesh which zombies crave? Is there a mineral or something? Vampires and blood. Sure that's been explained with enough pseudo science to make it almost plausible. Werewolves even have a certain sort of sense. Wolf, angry, maim, kill. But no one has ever come up with a viable reason for human flesh being the one and only foodstuff of the undead. Won't other meats do? Why aren't the butcher shops and burger joints overrun with the walking dead? Zombies in droves battering down the local Burger King's doors to get at that one last Whopper; hordes of zombies with cash in hand at the meat counter of your local supermarket.
I suppose it's only living flesh they crave. And yet, you never see the undead attacking cattle or chickens or anything. It's always people they attack. Living people. To be fair, animals are quicker, more apt to run for it when the dead come after them. Are there zombie chickens?
It seems to me zombies would have a much easier time of it if they weren't so picky. Surrounded by all kinds of zombie flesh, they only want living flesh. Think about how much easier a time they'd have getting a meal if they were just a tad less picky. Grab the guy next to you, take a bite, stumble on. And what about a freshly-turned zombie? Would he / she do for a snack? Are we to understand that only living people are good enough to eat?
I suppose this must be maintained to keep up some semblance of a horror aspect to zombies. Can you imagine vegetarian zombies? What's so freaky about that, right? Head down to the local organic food store and you can see that.
Zombies eat flesh and groan and wander in huge numbers because, let's face it, from a horror point of view that's all they've got. Dealing with aimlessly stumbling slow-witted morons is, in fact, a daily part of life for most of us. Without the actual walking corpse and flesh-eating part, these creatures are more irritating to most people than actually menacing. Throngs of imbeciles getting in your way and making your life difficult is how many of us descibe a bad day. This is why we love a good zombie movie after such times: to watch the heroes beat the crap out of hundreds of these dumbasses for taking too long in line at the bank and for cutting us off in traffic. No one (except Blade, that is) gets to kill hundreds of vampires or mobs of werewolves. Zombies, they're the extras of the monster world, the red shirts. Zombies are like half a step above Godzilla movie extras. Squish two or three hundred, no big deal. There's more where they came from. Why hasn't anyone made a Godzilla vs. the Zombies movie? Or better still, a Zombie Godzilla movie!
For next time, those who must live amongst the undead and how hopeless deserving of death they are.
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