Thursday, October 23, 2014

Coffin Hop Blog Tour: Are Zombies Still Relevant?


Are zombies still relevant in today’s horror genre?  


Click on Coffin Hop to go to the other websites participating in the blog tour.














It’s a legitimate question. AMC's The Walking Dead succeeded in doing what no other television show, movie, or novel has ever accomplished--that is, making zombies mainstream. The series is one of the most watched programs on television, and the convention circuit and merchandising for The Walking Dead is an industry onto itself. Although not everyone may be a fan of the show, I doubt there's anyone between the ages of six and sixty who have not heard of the series.

As in all genres, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and also the best way to make a quick buck. Since the early 2000s, a seemingly endless influx of zombie fiction, movies, and video games has flooded the market. Fans have been treated to some truly outstanding books (The Rising, Patient Zero, and World War Z), films (The Horde, Zombieland, and The Dead), and video games (Resident Evil, Dead Island, Dead Rising, and Left 4 Dead). Unfortunately, we have also seen zombies placed in every scenario imaginable. The living dead have faced off against strippers, cheerleaders, ninjas, and cockneys. A zombie apocalypse has been the focus of a commercial for Toshiba computers in which an electrical glitch in a laptop plunges the world into a living dead nightmare. Enough zombie romances have entered the market to spawn the creation of its own genre name, “zomroms” (when they start to sparkle, I'm shifting genres and writing erotica).   Traditionally, once a horror icon becomes the subject of farce, it marks its inevitable demise. (A good case in point is Universal Studio’s cache of monsters from the 1930s and 1940s, all of whom lumbered through countless resurrections until permanently put to death by Abbott and Costello).

Zombies, however, are different. They fill a niche that no other creatures are capable of. 

Vampires, werewolves, and other ghoulish creatures and creepy crawlies will always thrill us. Vampires appeal to that dark erotic nature of our personalities that we keep bridled, while werewolves remind us of how violent and uncontrollable our subconscious truly is. The other monsters are adult manifestations of those things in the closet that scared us as kids. They are pure fantasy, and we know it. But we don't care. We sit in a darkened movie theater, or become engrossed in the pages of a novel, and relish what horrors await. Deep down we know that as long as the characters can make it through to the end, then they will continue to live out normal lives.

Zombies, on the other hand, strike a chord with us for two reasons that tap into our deepest most emotional and psychological fears.

First, there is an undertone of realism to the zombie genre that is terrifying. Despite exaggerated reports of Ebola victims rising from the dead or the ingestion of bath salts turning drug addicts into the living dead, no one honestly expects a zombie apocalypse. What is frightening about the scenario, however, is that it represents a total collapse of society as we know it and the breakdown of everything we hold dear. We didn't create our own Hell by messing around with a Ouija board or a black and gold puzzle box. Factors beyond our control initiated the outbreak, and now we are left helpless to defend ourselves and our families as the living dead hunt us down in our own neighborhoods

This has been brought home to us repeatedly over the past decade thanks to twenty-four hour cable news, which have piped microcosms of catastrophe into our homes. We’ve all watched the flood waters of Katrina inundate New Orleans and tsunamis devastate the coast of Japan. It took days, and in some cases weeks, before local and federal governments were able to enter the devastated areas and regain control. In the case of New Orleans, the devastation was accompanied by the collapse of the social order. Looters took advantage of the chaos. People had to fend for themselves in order to survive, often against the local authorities. Our hearts went out to the victims of these natural disasters while a part of us breathed a sigh of relief that there but for the Grace of God goes us. Thanks to the zombie genre, we would suddenly become those nameless victims, and would be forced to confront bitter realities about how we would react in such a situation.


Second, as strange as it sounds, a zombie apocalypse provides a grim hope for the future in the form of a "reset" button. All the seemingly insurmountable troubles we face disappear, and the playing field is leveled overnight. We're no longer a part of the 1% or the 99%, a liberal or a conservative, a payer of taxes or a recipient of a government subsidy, a member of the elite or the working class. All of our debts, our past mistakes, and our concerns would be wiped out with the spread of the outbreak. Our possessions and social status would become irrelevant. All that matters now would be our strengths and abilities, and the direction our morale compass points.

One of my favorite zombie movies is Zack Snyder's 2004 reimaging of Dawn of the Dead because it is a superb portrayal of how ordinary people would react during a total collapse of the social order. Would we become Anna or Michael, who try to maintain their humanity even after losing everything dear to them? Would we become Kenneth, who opts to look out only for himself? Would we become CJ, the mall security guard who turns away the survivors because “no one here is infected and I intend to keep it that way?” Or would we be Tucker or Frank, the nameless faces that blend into the background and merely go on existing, only to become the red shirts of the survivors? Confronting how we would actually behave in such a situation can be scarier than dealing the zombie apocalypse itself.

The struggle between surviving and maintaining some semblance of humanity is what the genre is all about. (That, of course, combined with some intense gut-munching, head shooting action and buckets of blood and gore.) This is why zombies will always be relevant to the genre.

Contest: Thank you for making me one of your stops on the Coffin Hop Blog Tour. As my way of saying thank you, I'm giving away a zombie USB drive (like the one of the left) that contains an EPub version of my latest novella Nazi Ghouls From Space. It's like a Trick or Treat bag with something really nice inside, only this is electronic.

To enter, all you have to do is:

-- Follow my blog.

-- Leave a comment below on which is your favorite zombie movie, TV show, or novel and why.

The contest concludes at midnight on 31 October. On 1 November, a name will be randomly selected and the winner of the USB will be notified. Good luck, and keep digging up those coffins.


26 comments:

  1. World War Z is my favorite zombie movie because I find it fascinating how the virus seeks out healthy hosts. Mother Nature is a bitch, but we find a way to disguise ourselves. Plus, the fast zombies scares the hell out of me!

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  2. I liked WWZ too and love Walking Dead... so many I enjoyed in fact. Zombieland made me laugh. :) Happy Coffin Hopping! GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie

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  3. Zombieland, bc, in my opinion, it's the funniest zombie flick.

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  4. GFC Follower as Robin Blankenship

    My favorite Zombie Movie is 28 days Later

    robinblankenship@gmail.com

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  5. Zombieland and Fido are my favorites. I also like World War Z, Warm Bodies, and Shawn of the Dead. I'm a huge fan of The Walking Dead and think this season is off to an AMAZING start. Can't wait to see what's next.

    Zombies are by far my most loved monster!

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  6. My favorite zombie movie is definitely Shawn of the dead- mostly because, not matter what, I find film zombies to be hilarious. (I know too much about special effects make-up for my own good.) However, zombies in books, freak me right the heck out. There's no distancing yourself from the images your own brain can cook up from a good author's words. So far, my favorite zombie book is the "Zomblog Saga" by T.W. Brown.

    I'm @jeanette_art on twitter :-)

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  7. My favorite zombies series have to be DEAD SET from the UK. Oh, and Shawn of the dead for a film. I guess I like the British view on zombs... Happy Hopping:))

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  8. This is great essay! I'm a fan of the zombie sub-genre because I don't think it is possible to run out of possible scenarios of how will most react to the crumbling of social order. I am, however, a pessimist. I believe that in the most extreme circumstances, this will be a world of chaos where most people (either out of fear or malice) will only fight for themselves. Very few decent people would survive, and that scares the hell out of me. My favorite zombie book? World War Z was like a bucket of fresh water on the genre. Movie? Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Still creepy after all these years.

    Happy hopping!

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  9. My favorite ZomCom is an even split between Shawn of the Dead, Fido and Zombieland - nothing to fear there. Just a great flicks. Horror - maybe Deadgirl... but admittedly I haven't seen WWZ yet. TV show - used to be The Walking Dead, I'm hoping it heads back in a better direction this season. It got too melodramatic for a while and I felt like I was watching a Zombie soap opera - it started out great though!

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  10. My favorite zombie movie is the original "Dawn of the Dead" (although the remake was one of the very few horror remakes that was good, too). Liked the characters, the setting, the story, and the gore. There was even social commentary, since it clearly commented on our consumer society.

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  11. Thanks for sharing, Scott - and thanks for the opportunity to win a cool prize. Truth be told, I'm more of a vampire guy; however, I have been known to watch The Walking Dead periodically. Typically when the teenagers have stolen the remote from me. Beyond that, I usually quiz them on where the season is heading, or teasing them that Carl is still alive. *laughs* My 20 year old can't stand him!
    Thanks again.

    -Jimmy

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  12. My favourite films are Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Pontypool. And Burgess' Pontypool Changes Everything is fantastic! Happy hopping and great article!

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  13. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton! I really enjoyed this book and thought it was creepy at the same time. :)

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  14. I have to admit, zombies are not my favorite horror genre. I did like Dawn of the Dead. I also liked Stephanie Meyer's The Host.

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  15. Google Friend Connect is not working for me, but I did follow your blog by email. ~~~ I'm glad you didn't say that zombies are no longer relevant. It's like when people say vampires went out of style after "Twilight." If *I* like something, I like something. I don't care if people consider it out of style. I love the zombie genre, in all its forms, and I always will. ~~~ My favorite zombie movie, well, actually, I have three, is - 1. Night of the Living Dead, 2. Dawn of the Dead (remake), 3. Shaun of the Dead.

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  16. Shaun of the Dead is the one for me, I can watch it over and over again. The reason being, not only is it set in Britain, where firearms are all but illegal, so that makes it harder to fight the z's, but also the people in the movie are just everyday characters. I mean, Shaun works at an appliance store, for Pete's sake, lol! I also love NOTLD, it is now, and always will be a classic.

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  17. no fav; haven't really read or seen any

    bn100candg at hotmail dot com

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  18. As somebody who knows very little about this particular Horror sub genre, this was a really interesting article and gave me a really good starting point. The only Zombie books I have read is 'The Forest of Hands and Teeth', which really challenged my preconceived ideas, and Belinda Frisch's 'The Cure' which was pretty gross - which was a good thing LOL. Thanks for sharing this info and have a happy Coffin Hop.

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  19. Ooh it's a toss-up between Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I like that both combine horror and comedy, with some touching moments too. Thanks for the contest and see you on the Hop!

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  20. Aha great post. Zombies - I like them scary in 28 Days/Weeks Later - or funny - Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. The Walking Dead actually excited me and then bothered me - mostly because of the humans in the show. Not the living dead. The reactions and actions of these human characters drive me bananas!! I'm often more inclined in seeing them die than survive. Happy Hop! Johanna aka The Manicheans

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  21. Awesome post and thank you for not being like so many people who think that just because a larger franchise latches onto a certain theme and runs with it for X amount of months/years that the theme is then "dead". Zombies are resilient little bastards and have been immortalized in our collective psyche through literature, TV and movies. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. Classic monsters are always going to change and evolve with us, but to the folks who really love 'em they'll never go out of style. As for my favorite movies, I'd say it's a toss-up between Zombieland and Evil Dead. Also, I really liked Contracted although it was gory as all get out and there are just some scenes that you can't un-see. That being said it was surprisingly well done for such grotesque subject matter.

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  22. I like The Walking Dead. I think it is because it seems so real and that it could happen.

    brandyzbooks at gmail dot com

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  23. I think that Zombieland is my favorite movie. World War Z makes me angry because it's just the *name*. It bears practically no relation to the book at all. Purist that I am. :)

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  24. This is, seriously, the best post that I've read so far! I'm a fan of the genre since I was a kid, I own more than 100 dvds, I love Indie and low budget movies, it's a industry overrated! I really enjoyed the miniserie Dead Set. Following thru GFC

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  25. I am so thankful for Hops like this and finding new authors your books sound like something both my teenager and I would LOVE! I really enjoyed Zombieland!

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  26. I am so thrilled to have discovered this hop (better late than never). I'm now following you via email. I enjoyed the post; it rings true on so many levels. To answer your question, I've become a recent (avid bordering on rabid) fan of The Walking Dead.

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