Last year in a movie theater I spent the first 15 minutes of Zombieland staring at my lap before I had to leave. After finding out what an excellent movie it turned out to be I decided it was time to do something about my fear of Zombies. Just to clear this up, I have an irrational fear of the walking dead, not the movies made about them. I'm quite convinced of the inevitability of a zombie takeover.
I figure the best way to get over my fear, thus leaving me better prepared when the takeover does happen, is to overexpose myself to zombie movies. So, I'm going to watch every zombie movie I can get my hands on in chronological order (even the bad ones). Starting with the classics, which are far less scary, will allow us to go about this using the frog in the boiling pot method. We'll see but I hope that by the time we get to Dawn of the Dead I won't think its so scary as if I'd started the project with it.
Not to confuse my fear of zombies with not liking zombie movies. I LOVE zombie movies and the concept of zombies. They're a truly diverse monster capable of addressing difficult issues through metaphor; think racism and Night of the Living Dead. Of those I've been able to sit through, 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later are my favorite. They got me interested in the other part of this project which is to track the evolution of zombie movies from the voodoo slave zombies of the 30's and 40's all the way to virus infected 'living" zombies of today.
I'll watch movies about flesh eating zombies, rage infected zombies, and suicidal zombies created by trees that are angry about global warming; I don't discriminate. Unfortunately this means I have to include The Crazies and Resident Evil, two movies which I had forever planned on avoiding due to my inability to find enough blankets and pillows to shield myself from the tv.
The ultimate goal of this project, for me, is to sit all the way through a zombie flick both in a theater and at home without screaming, crying, or staring at the back of a pillow through the whole thing. I invite you to use this blog as an aid in overcoming your own zombie phobia, to arm yourself with information in preparation for the aforementioned zombie takeover, or maybe just for a little light reading about zombies...because they're cool.
