The most popular subject among horror movies fans these days are Zombies. With a minimum of costuming and special effects even amateur zombie movies can look pro.
The most popular subject among horror movies fans these days are Zombies. I’m not talking about the “real” undead of Caribbean folklore and Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie B movie but the mythology created in 1968 by George Romero for his classic Night Of The Living Dead.
The most popular subject among horror movies fans these days are Zombies. I’m not talking about the “real” undead of Caribbean folklore and Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie B movie but the mythology created in 1968 by George Romero for his classic Night Of The Living Dead.
For those unfamiliar with zombies and to explain their current popularity let me just say that zombies are basically a game of Tag. If a zombie catches you and manages to bite you it transfers a virus that soon kills you and you then reanimate as a zombie. Luckily you have a huge advantage in that zombies walk rather slowly, they never run in the classic mythology, they’re stupid, mindless in fact, and they can’t use weapons. However, as they attack and gain more to their numbers their side increases while yours diminishes. They eventually have the numbers, they can only be killed by destroying their brain, they don’t sleep or eat except your brain, and they cannot be reasoned with.
They are a great movie monster with which to make a relatively high production value viral video. Zombies are humans without any special costumes or CGI effects, only some makeup and require the most rudimentary of acting skills. The plot lines are simplicity itself; normal people run from zombies; normal people chase zombies, normal people eventually kill all the zombies (again), or the zombies win and kill all the people. Or in the case of Night Of The Living Dead, the remaining normal humans are killed by other humans. Night Of The Living Dead looked low budget and black and white and helped set the standard low for zombie filmmakers and the hand held news reel or home movie look works well for zombie movies.
Here’s the best part. In many cities in America there are occasional “Zombie Walks”. These are events held on public streets and with the public invited to participate in which people dress themselves up as zombies and roam the streets together as if enacting scenes from a George Romero movies. This provides an excellent opportunity for film makers to get stock footage of roaming hordes of zombies that can be edited into a video. These crowd scenes would cost thousands of dollars to arrange but now they’re absolutely free.
The real appeal of the zombie movie isn’t the “monsters” themselves, they’re really pretty lame, but the potential emotional scenarios enacted by the survivors who are in the position of not only seeing their loved ones become the enemy but of having to face the possibility that they may become what they fear most. There are worse things than death and apparently eating raw brain is one of them.
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