I've had a little bit of free time, but sadly my creative muse is still on strike. I've been catching up on my movie viewing and I finally saw Zombieland. It was a fun movie worth seeing, but I'm not sure it added much to the zombie canon, but it did make me wonder why the zombie seems to be growing in popularity lately.The zombie has always been a second rate monster. Don't get me wrong I love zombie movies, but historically they haven't been what scared us. Vampires, werewolves, witches etc. have always lead our collective fears. Not to mention since Marry Shelly science has scared the hell out of us.
The zombie has kind of sat by the way side not really frightening anyone. Case in point if you're a horror fan have you ever seen or heard of White Zombie? It's a Bela Lugosi zombie film from the thirties. My point, unless you're a die hard fan geek, no one has ever heard of it. Why, because the Zombie didn't frighten anyone. The film is filled with classic zombie voodoo priest, witch doctors, dolls, and all. Classic magic zombies just don't scare the American audience. Romero's Night of the Living Dead seems to have changed the Zombie meme. Since 1968 zombies have become part of our collective fears. Part of what Jung would call the shadow. The collective fear lurking in our collective conscious.
Given the recent popularity of Zombieland and the growing web presence of zombie fans, and the ever growing zombie walks it seems like a good time to explore these questions: Why does the zombie scare us? And why now?
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