Zombie Bites

The Evil Dead

21st July

They’re going to get you. But you don’t know why and they don’t have the decency to explain so I guess you better just try and escape, but don’t run out madly into the woods like that… wait! Oh. Nuts.

• Zombie Speed: Fast? Slow? It’s hard to pay attention long enough to be sure.
• Zombie Catalyst: DON’T PLAY THE TAPE OF SOME GUY READING THAT BOOK BRUCE!
• Zombie Contagion: Bad luck? Apparently.
• Zombie IQ: Smart but a bit fucked up. Like Stephen Fry. Let’s say.
• Protagonists: Just Bruce.
• Apocalypse Vibe: Nada.

Bruce Campbell spends ninety minutes in a mad—often desperate—struggle to escape from everyday household furniture. The relentless, knuckle-biting scenes of Bruce untangling himself from tables are every so often punctuated by visits from the undead, who turn up and float around for a bit. “You will surely diieeeeee!!!1!11twelve” they wail. Bruce then promptly gets trapped under a bookcase.

Verdict: Furniture: can lead to loss of brains

28 Weeks Later (2007)

22nd March

A good sequel, and a defining modern zombie movie.

• Zombie Speed: You run for your life, they run for your life
• Zombie Catalyst: The Rage virus
• Zombie Contagion: Blood
• Zombie IQ: Instinctual, with memories
• Protagonists: Father, daughter, son, soldier and medic
• Apocalypse Vibe: London without the tourists

Some zombie films spend their entirety telling a story that 28 Weeks relates in its first five minutes. We open with a nervous group quietly hiding from the hoarde in a barricaded cottage and no sooner have we had our moment of heart than the zombies attack and the survivors are thrust into heroic roles they didn’t want with all the survivalist rapid moral decision making that entails. For me the film was defined by the moment Don decided to leave his wife behind and make a run for it. The film doesn’t judge him, in fact it makes it pretty clear that if he’d tried to save her they both would have been fucked. And later when we experience the shrill condemnation that his kids lay at his feet, we can’t help but feel sympathetic. The world expects so much of you in a zombie crisis, but Don’s reaction made him one of us.

Verdict: Watch at least the first 10 minutes

28 Days Later (2002)

21st March

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland keep the zombie formula fresh in the new millenium.

• Zombie Speed: 100 meter zomblympic gold medal winners
• Zombie Catalyst: A virus
• Zombie Contagion: Blood
• Zombie IQ: Instinctual
• Protagonists: Hot guy, hot girl, know-it-all kid and her father
• Apocalypse Vibe: Fabulous right up to the midnight hour, but then, overlooked
• Music: FUCKING SLAYER

Jim is you and me. Waking up when everyone is dead, his disbelief and bewilderment is paced well with our own. He progresses from useless dead weight to survival expert to heroic saviour at the rate we feel we would too (because—obviously—we would all be natural apocalyptic survivalists).

The film has a dayofthedeadesque second half—but with characters you care about and dialogue that doesn’t make you want to be the zombie that eats them.

Verdict: Romero’s concepts finely honed into something more accessible

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

6th March

The film that pioneered the zombie need for “Braaaainnnssss!”

• Zombie Speed: Running, jumping, sumo-wrestling.
• Zombie Catalyst: A poisonous gas.
• Zombie Contagion: Exposure to said gas.
• Zombie IQ: Powerfully smart, apart from when it interferes with the plot
• Protagonists: Four blue-collars and a bunch of teenagers
• Apocalypse Vibe: Minimal and obscured by bad acting

Invincible zombies crack jokes and crank call 911 while biting directly into the blood-gushing skulls of naked teenagers. No doubt it appeals to a certain demographic.

Verdict: Worse than the time my Mum called me “sweetie” in front of Susie Watkins

Zombi 2 (1979)

23rd February

Need I say more than: Shark versus Zombie?

• Zombie Speed: Shambling
• Zombie Catalyst: Voodoo
• Zombie Contagion: Death
• Zombie IQ: Brainless
• Protagonists: A reporter and a daughter seeking her father
• Apocalypse Vibe: It’s the beginning of the end, but it’s a mediocre one
• Behaviour of female survivors: Holding dear to the ideals of pre-feminism, the lovely ladies stand there and take it when the zombies come for lunch.

Lol-worthy peril and unconvincing atmosphere abound but Zombi 2 redeems itself via the means of boobies, epic shark-zombie action, boobies, gruesome make-up, boobies and a compelling, horrifyingly lengthy scene that couples an eyeball with a sharp piece of wood.

Verdict: Pretty good

Day of the Dead (1985)

11th January

The zombie apocalypse has come and conquered. Only small groups of survivors remain. What are they going to do? As it turns out, not much.

• Zombie Speed: Shambling
• Zombie Catalyst: Undisclosed
• Zombie Contagion: Bites, or death
• Zombie IQ: Can use a Sony Walkman if given the opportunity
• Protagonists: A bunch of lame scientists and a bunch of lame soldiers
• Apocalypse Vibe: Mostly absent

The zombies appeared in Night, settled in Dawn, and have overrun the world in Day. You’d hope the film would be epic, and I wish I could say that it was. But as I sat there perplexed I kept feeling I was just watching Big Brother. Big Brother with loud, annoying, childish scientists doing infuriatingly pointless research. Big Brother with a gang of would-be-soldiers trying to rule over the other housemates.

Romero attempts to explore the theme of “what would humanity do when civilisation has collapsed and no hope is really left”. And certainly one possibility is to train a zombie to hold a book convincingly while rocking out to his Walkman.

Verdict: Meh

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

10th January

A black and white picture, a 4:3 aspect ratio, zombies with bits of cracker stuck to their faces. Can it really be any good? Yes, yes it can.

• Zombie Speed: Shambling
• Zombie Catalyst: Some lame “Radiation” crap
• Zombie Contagion: Bites, or death
• Zombie IQ: Can bludgeon
• Protagonists: A smart black guy, a courageous dumbarse, a loser and a bunch of useless women
• Apocalypse Vibe: Raw

As the first ever zombie film (in the modern sense of the definition) the film needs to be given some slack. So, that is, we forgive the fact the film has a distinctly B-movie 1950s-esque explanation for the outbreak. We overlook the almost offensive portrayal of the women. We ignore the fact that most of the gore looks like hollandaise sauce.

Underneath it all is the foundation of modern survival horror. If you care at all for the genre, go torrent it today (it’s public domain).

Verdict: One for zombieholics

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

10th January

Nobody else understands zombies quite like Romero did back in 1978. The original Dawn of the Dead is the zombie film.

• Zombie Speed: Shambling
• Zombie Catalyst: Undisclosed
• Zombie Contagion: Bites, or death
• Zombie IQ: Can bludgeon
• Protagonists: Traffic reporter, his pregnant girlfriend, his cop friend and another cop who tags along
• Apocalypse Vibe: Genre-defining

At first all the characters seem unlikeable. The peril, contrived. The banter, inappropriate to their predicament.

But piece by piece Romero builds up the ultimate zombie film.

The scene is set. Characters develop atypically. The full survival medley is performed. For a time things seem fine, good even. Boredom sets in. The safe house falls. The apocalypse cannot be stopped, only delayed. Some of our protagonists escape. The chance of survival is slight. But, there is hope.

Nowadays slow zombies seem ridiculous. How on earth could anyone get caught by these pathetic things?! But I think really we’ve just become used to the high horror of speedy modern corpses. Romero’s zombies are just a back drop. An encroaching animosity that forces a ragtag bunch of office workers and mall-shoppers to embrace situations that civilisation has long since made extinct.

As the film draws to a close Romero lets his message come across clearly: the biggest threat is humanity itself. In most other films such a statement would be cliché; it might even feel condescending. Dawn of the Dead pulls it off. For one because back in 1978 it wasn’t clichéd — Romero may well have been the first to put the concept to film. Mainly though, the message is given to you so gradually, so subtly, that in the end you feel he’s probably right.

Verdict: Unmissable

Land of the Dead (2005)

21st December

Land of the Dead emphasises that in a world of zombies, you can’t let your guard down, everyone needs guns, and if you aren’t a tough guy — you’re dead. But we knew that already, didn’t we?

• Zombie Speed: Shambling
• Zombie Catalyst: Undisclosed
• Zombie Contagion: Bites, or death
• Zombie IQ: Learning abilities, tool-use
• Protagonists: A natural leader and a slow-witted crackshot
• Apocalypse Vibe: Cold, dark and bitter but overall, not omnipresent

George A. Romero is the king of zombie cinema isn’t he? Quite honestly, I’m not sure about that. His films seem to suffer from over-gore. It’s not just that you see the Zombies pulling off people’s arms and gutting them, it’s that things go too far — beyond the barrier of realism. A zombie cannot pull off someone’s face from the lips up, sorry George, but you just spoilt my immersion.

The story doesn’t really flow. There’s multiple arcs. There’s a “smart” boss zombie who presumably we’re not meant to identify with, but well, his motivation is: he wants more brains.

The distopian city is good although somewhat stereotypical. The zombies don’t really feel that threatening. The characters felt a little hollow. There was no backstory.

Verdict: One for zombieholics

Zombieland (2009)

24th November

Zombieland is a light but satisfying mix of character development in a ruthless survival situation… but it mainly focuses on the lols.

• Zombie Speed: Jogging
• Zombie Catalyst: Undisclosed
• Zombie Contagion: Bites
• Zombie IQ: Brainless
• Protagonists: A geek, a tough guy and two sisters in crime.
• Apocalypse Vibe: Ambient and well presented.

Zombies are certainly not the main attraction. But then again, zombies are generally not the point in zombie films. Zombies films are about people surviving in a suddenly hostile environment they never signed up for, and Zombieland delivers here nonetheless.

Verdict: Worth seeing