For the love of Zombie! Why Cins loves the Undead.

Zombie movies are my favorite.

I love them.

I'm in this photo. Can you guess who I am?

I loved them ever since I saw my first zombie shamble across my television screen in Night of the Living Dead. Hell, I remember falling in love with zombies when I heard a radio commercial for Return of the Living Dead on the radio. There was something about that one actor moaning "Brraaaaaains" that really tickled me as a kid.

Since then I try to seek out interesting movies or literature on the subject on the undead.

So what makes me so fascinated with the zombie genre?A few things actually.

The versatility of the subject is one thing I find attractive. Much like vampires, its pretty easy to change up the zombie lore and make it your own. Originally, from what I've gathered, zombies in the Voodoo religion were people put under control by a powerful sorcerer usually to do some sort of bidding... probably of the evil kind. The theory is a person is given a zombie drug which makes them appear dead. They are buried, dug up, then revived, usually in a "zombie" like state where they act only the the sorcerer or bokor's will. Keep in mind all I really know about voodoo is what I read on Wikipedia and what I've seen in Serpent and the Rainbow. So if I'm wrong or you have more facts, please feel free to share!

Romero is the grandaddy of all zombie movies and brought zombies into the main stream. He created his own mythology and his slow moving, flesh hungry undead are what we're most familiar with. Romero created such a mysterious mythology that other film makers were able to take the concept and run with it...literally if you look at the Dawn of the Dead Remake. We now have fast zombies like in Dawn of the Dead Remake, the infected in 28 Days Later, the genetically enhanced zombies from Resident Evil, and the domesticated docile zombies in Fido among other countless brands of zombies. Each brand was created in a different way (disease, terrorism, God getting pissed, all of the above, etc). The zombie can be reinvented over and over each time with a different twist or mythos. Even if you hate fast zombies or don't consider the infected really zombies just turn around and BAM there's another zombie movie that may be suited for your taste! As a writer or a director, its a creative subject with endless possibilities. As a viewer, it never gets old.

Another thing I love about the zombie genre is its vast epic feel. There is a rather nihilist approach to the genre, a simplicity that other horror lack. Its simply this; the dead are rising, we're all fucked. Everything we know of gets devoured and destroyed. As humans we're reduced to our wits, instincts, and any weapons we can scrounge up. No one is safe from a zombie attack. You could be the most powerful person in the world but that won't stop you from becoming a victim. And there are millions of them. MILLIONS. Zombies can't be bargained with and you sure as hell can't come to a truce with them. Its kill or become one of them.

A great example of this epic destruction is Max Brooks amazing novel World War Z.

What is so fascinating about this novel is its not all about the flesh eating zombie folks. Its about the crumbling of civilization on a global scale. He goes into depth about what would happen geographically, politically, and socially if the Zombie Apocalypse came. A zombie isn't just a pesky menace like a werewolf or vampire. While vampires and werewolves are capable of spreading their "infection" to others, they are still in control of their conscious thought. So even if the vampires or werewolves were evil, they still are in control of who they kill or turn. Zombies are mindless killing machines acting only on instinct. One zombie can destroy the whole world. We're not just concerned about a few plucky victims running for safety, we're worried that the entire planet is doomed. A serial killer is scary but the complete end of the world as we know it is terrifying. Not only is it the end of the world but if you get caught by one of these guys you will die AND be forced to become something horrifying. A scary guy like Michael Myers makes me jump. Zombies haunt me for a while afterwards.

The zombie genre is one I can easily play in. Its a fantastic "What if" story that really does make you think. What if the end came? What if the dead walks again? What if my grandma tried to eat me? What would I do? My husband and I spend a good deal of long car trips playing the "How to survive the zombie Apocalypse" game. Its like playing a game of Stratego....very bloody and decayed Stratego. We sit and wonder where the safe zones would be in our city, what we would bring, where we would loot (yes, I said loot), and other survival tactics. For the most part I have to say we have a pretty good contingency plan for the rising of the dead.

Can't help lovin' that man 'o mine.

Zombies capture my imagination. They fascinate and frighten me all at once. They make me think about my own morality and will to survive. And of course you can kill them in several different entertaining ways. And while I love all types of horror from slasher to ghost, zombies tend to be on the top of my list.

Thoughts? Share! Sharing is caring, folks!

Review: Diary of the Dead

Holy Crap! Creepy Kitch is doing an ACTUAL movie review?!

I just popped Diary of the Dead into the PS3 last night to give it a whirl. And I figured I might as well give it a review.

Now a little background on my taste. I am an avid zombie movie fan. Its my favorite sub-genre in horror. I am a fan of fast AND slow zombies and feel both of them have a place in today's society (lets not fight, fellas! We can all get along!). I also have a ton respect for George Romero and feel he was the one who really launched the genre into what it is today. He is the "zombie grandaddy" and we should pay homage to him by leaving fresh brains on his doorstep in his honor!

(To all the psycho stalkers reading this blog...I didn't mean it seriously. Please do not leave bio-hazzards on Mr. Romero's doorstep.)

After watching Diary of the Dead I only have one question.

Oh George, why?

Diary of the Dead is the latest installment of Romero's "...of the Dead" series. While all the movies in the series aren't necessarily related directly to each other they all have a flow through line and kinship that keeps them linked together. The Plot of Diary of the Dead is as follows: A group of college film students find themselves in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and they decide to document their experience a' la Cloverfield/Blair Witch Project style.

Here's the Trailer:

Now I thought that sounded like a good concept. I'm a sucker for the "shaky cam" style and I love zombies. This looked like a good match! Unfortunately, I felt that Romero really didn't have much of a grasp on what the whole "shaky cam" concept was about.

My main complaint with this film was how it was shot. While I can understand that the character with the camera was a film student and knew how to handle one, everything seemed too well done. The camera work was very steady, the cuts were very clean and the angles were always spot on perfect. This, unfortunately took me out of the moment. Now I don't think every "Shaky cam" movie need to induce nausea but the fact that this movie looked SO polished made my suspension of disbelief completely shatter. I found myself constantly asking: Why are they doing this? Why do you have a camera? What is the point! Put down the camera and HELP someone! This combined with the other footage from security cameras and cell phones, all which was also shot in a far too professional matter, came across less as a raw film and more as a reenactment from Unsolved Mysteries. Another complaint involves the dialog. Once again, for a movie that was supposed to come across as raw, it felt completely scripted. The characters spent so much time waxing poetic about their predicament that I wanted them to get eaten just to shut them up! The message the script was offering was a jumbled mess. I wasn't sure what Romero was trying to say here. I narrowed it down to the following: The media of today is desensitizing us, the youth of today is too reliant on media, Today's generation is not worth saving from the undead, and don't mess with Texas. Yes, movies can have more than one message but these were all so vague that I wasn't sure what the hell this film was trying to tell me.

The general impression I received from this film was that George Romero set out to make a film about today's youth and media but had no idea what today's youth and media was about. I visualized poor George trying to figure out how to do a hand held camera then getting frustrated and screaming 'Fuck it! We'll shoot it the old fashioned way and I'll just punch the camera man from time to time to shake him!" The movie would have come off a lot better if it was shot as a traditional film using only wacky editing tricks and odd footage to shake things up a bit.

Now the style it was shot in and the script weren't my only complaints here. The zombie attacks were pretty damn lack luster as well. The movie had your traditional shambling slow moving zombies. I have no problem with slow zombies. I LOVE slow zombies! But what I find frightening about slow zombies are the sheer volume of them. One zombie? kind of freaky. Hundreds of zombies? Down right terrifying. Romero was always able to convey the constant relentless onslaught of the undead in his past films. Unfortunately, Diary of the Dead didn't have that feeling on volume that Night of, Dawn of, Day of, and Land of had. Zombies attacked the characters much like ninjas attack Chuck Norris. One at a fucking time. Zombies are slow but they're not THAT slow. These zombies were not scary. The characters would convey their horror by staring at them slack jawed for a while, discussing what they were as the undead shambled on over, then lazily shoot them a few times until they realized a head shot worked.

There were some decent Zombie death gags here and there. The defibrillator on the face and the bottle of acid smashed over a zombie's head were really great ideas and vintage Romero. Unfortunately they suffered from overuse of CGI and looked not as gory and fantastic as they could have.

I could go on and on about why this movie was no good. But its greatest crime was being boring. Yup. It was extremely dull. While Romero's films are not action packed thrill rides of explosions, he does have a wonderful knack of building tension and creating interesting characters trapped in that tension. Diary of the Dead had neither. It wasn't even so bad it was good. It was just boring as hell, then over. I wouldn't even call it a flaming bag of dog poo. It's just a boring, easily forgotten film.
If you want a good zombie film in the "shaky cam" style check out [REC] instead which is far superior. You can probably find it on google video.

Unless you're a die hard Romero fan and are determined to see all of his ...of the Dead films, I would suggest skipping this one. If you're REALLY determined to see them, here is a very short list of highlights you can skip to:

WARNING! SPOILERS!

-A zombie getting a defibrillator in the face.

-A zombie getting a bottle of acid broken over his head

-a zombie getting pinned to the wall with an arrow in his head.

-Samuel, the deaf Amish guy.

-Samuel killing a zombie by shoving his own scythe through the front of his head and the back of the zombie's head that's biting him.

-Zombie water garden in a pool.

And that's pretty much it. And you may be able to find most of these clips on YouTube.