Zombies!

I am actually doing some research on this topic once again, including an article I stumbled across about a Cambodian Mosquito causing victims to perish and then reanimate, and I am also currently reading Max Brook's "World War Z".

God I love Zombies. So here is my 2nd essay I wrote in Kim Carter's English class- the essay where I really got my passion for writing back. Enjoy.

The “Evolution” of the Zombie
Everyone in their lives has seen at least one “Zombie” movie. The telltale signs are bloodthirsty, recently deceased, cannibalistic, villains who feast on the flesh of the living. Usually, the protagonists of the story dispatch of their would-be attackers by removing the offender’s head or destroying the brain. These types of horror movies have been around since the 1960's breaking into mainstream media with George A. Romero’s cult-classic, “The Night of the Living Dead”, and more recently, “Land of the Dead”, co-produced by Romero, respectively. As special effects, progressions in theatrical performance, make-up and acceptance of such gruesome themes have grown, so has the portrayal of the living dead. Zombies just aren’t the same as they used to be.
In the black and white classic “Night of the Living Dead”, a small group of human archetypes are stranded inside of a small cabin besieged by a large army of the undead. At no time does the movie explain exactly how a person becomes a Zombie, only that those who are bitten by Zombies become Zombies themselves. The “Strong Alpha Male”, “Conniving Survivalist”, “Strong Alpha Female” and “Infected Child” are just a few examples of the usual character suspects. Their attackers are characterized by slow, lumbering motions and moaning. They are incapable of advanced motor functions, the use of tools, logical thinking or reasoning, or even basic forms of communication. In short, at least one or a small group of the protagonists find a way to survive against insurmountable odds and manage to avoid becoming a buffet to a large group of reanimated corpses. For example, in “Night of the Living Dead”, the “Alpha Female” is able to avoid becoming dinner by simply running faster than the attackers or pushing them away. This version of the undead is very susceptible to ordinary people and can easily be shoved aside for escape reasons. The “Alpha Female” is able to use various garden tools to fend off her weak and lethargic enemies and escape to survive another day. This was the industry standard for this movie type until the twenty-first century.
The man most often held responsible for the updating of the undead movie is Danny Boyle, the writer of the dark comedy “Trainspotting.” Boyles’s movie “28 Days Later”, while not technically a Zombie Movie due to the fact that the cannibals are not actually dead or reanimated, still upped the bar on scary movies. In “28 Days Later”, humans are infected with a disease called “Rage” which was transmitted by an infected monkey bite. The “Rage” infected humans display the same attributes as early Zombies such as flesh-eating, barbarism, and poor cognitive reasoning skills, but with one major difference: these Zombies could run, jump, or grab; basically anything a normally functioning human could do. Boyle rationalized that a Zombie should be able to do anything in death that he could have done in his most recent state of life. For example, if the Zombie was in perfect functioning health, aside from the fact that he is a Zombie, he should be able to run as fast, grab as hard, or fight just as lethally as if he were alive. In fact, in the remake of Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”, writer James Gunn applied Boyle’s principals and made his Zombies more lethal than the original.
In 2004's “Dawn of the Dead”, a small group of people are besieged by a large army of the recently deceased. This time, those who are bitten rapidly become Zombies themselves and transform into nightmarish killing machines. These Zombies are able to run (that is if they have legs, and some of them don’t), jump, swim through water, climb fences, or tackle would-be victims. In fact, all of the protagonists are eventually mauled or eaten, or become Zombies themselves. The update of the antagonists in this version of the film apparently translated with audiences very well; “Dawn of the Dead” grossed over $150 million in US Box Offices.
In 2004 a different breed of Zombie movie crossed the pond from England to the United States. “Shaun of the Dead” was written by Simon Pegg and humorously lampooned the genre of movies by using Zombie moans jokingly and often confusing the corpses as “drunkards.” The main character Shaun often scolds his oafish friend Ed for referring to the movies villains as “the zed word.” Pegg modeled his Zombies after the original formula; slow, lumbering, mindless and hungry. “Shaun of the Dead” made such a splash in Hollywood that George Romero offered the co-stars bit parts as Zombies dressed as their counterparts in his last movie, “Land of the Dead.”
While one version of Zombie is by no means superior to the other, cinema buffs usually prefer one or other. Younger audiences tend to prefer the latter version because the movies end up being a bit more gory and violent, whereas the former version relies on it’s suspenseful moments. I also like the newer version of Zombie, as I believe that if Zombification of the human race were possible, it seems more plausible that people would behave just as they did in life were they to be reanimated. The advancement in the behavior of the undead has opened a door to endless possibilities for even more entertaining and frightening genres of movies.