I was riding my bicycle through downtown Chicago. I was going relatively slowly amidst a group of people just north of the Chicago River on Dearborn. We were all enjoying the sunny day and the leisurely stroll. Suddenly, the crowd around me started panicking. They were running in all directions. As I looked back, I noticed that the back of the crowd was slowly being overtaken by hungry zombies. They were fast-moving and taking people down in the middle of the street. I was swept along with the now-faster crowd of pedestrians until I looked to my left and saw an old man get taken down. That's when I put my bike into high gear and took off, leaving the poor souls behind me. I crossed the bridge over the Chicago River and looked back. The crowd was sinking into the distance, and I became relieved. Until I saw him. A young boy zombie had found a bike and was gaining on me. I was initially stunned that a zombie could even ride a bicycle. As I turned left onto Wacker Drive, he was right next to me, growling and clawing with his ragged hand. I kicked him away. He veered away and almost lost his balance. As he came in for another attack...I woke up.
I love these dreams. They're so exciting. I have a zombie dream about once a month, a rate that is far too low. In most other dreams, I'm more actively engaged in fighting zombies either in hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Nevadas or by manning massive defense breastworks in San Francisco to stem the tide of decaying flesh. This last dream, set in Chicago, was far more harrowing than others, but I don't mind. I have no idea why the locations are so specific and interesting.
In my last post on zombies, I listed important films and books that define and develop the zombie paradigm. In this post, I want to go deeper and explore just why I yearn to fight zombies in my sleep.
My personal fascination started when I was a senior in college. I deeply enjoyed
Dead Alive,
28 Days Later, and
Dawn of the Dead (the remake). Sure, I enjoyed the ridiculous gore and violence as much as the next de-sensitized, brute. At first, I thought that was the ONLY reason I liked these movies. Then I saw
Night of the Living Dead, George Romero's original masterpiece. This movie had incredibly poor production values, it was slow, and the zombies were laughably awkward. Still, I enjoyed it more than the others, and this initially had me puzzled. The others met my 21st century standards for movie violence while
Night surely did not. I realized that there was something pure, something important in
Night of the Living Dead that I connected to on a deep level.
After much thought, I decided that one reason I loved these films was the way in which the filmmaker depicted the effect on culture and society. I have always been fascinated by events that are capable of bringing down society as we know it, reducing us to our most primal level. The events are interesting in their own right, but it is even better to explore how certain people who occupy a place in the pre-zombie society must adapt to their new existence. A skillful filmmaker (I'm looking at you, George Romero) can utilize this reordering of roles as a scathing and effective commentary on our normal, pre-zombie society.
That's a lot of words, and it can be best explained through examples.
In
Night of the Living Dead, a black man becomes the only level-headed leader in a house besieged by zombies. He has the ability to save them all, but the rest drop like flies because they don't listen. At the very end, [SPOLIER] he is the last man alive as some zombie-hunting hillbillies with guns come up to the house. The audience initially thinks that our hero is saved. But, alas, they catch a glimpse of a black man in the house and immediately take a shot, killing the hero of the movie at the last second. They didn't bother to see if he was a zombie. Would they have acted differently if it was a white man? Apparently, the status quo, as disgusting and twisted as it was, regained control. Who is a greater menace: man or zombie?
Another example of a person of low social standing coming to the fore and becoming a leader occurs in
Shaun of the Dead. Shaun is an aimless, lazy guy who hasn't grown up. His girlfriend dumps him. Then the zombies attack. He tries to save his mom, girlfriend, and friends and finds himself as the leader of the group. Those who don't listen or question his policies die. When it's all over, [SPOILER] he has the girl and even keeps his zombified friend around so they can play video games together. He grows into a man, but he does not abandon his reckless youth. Isn't that the deal that most men strive for? In this case, he was only capable of success in a zombie world.
Dawn of the Dead (the remake) has a mall security guard who considers his post so important that he locks up refugees who have escaped their own crumbling worlds and end up at the mall. He considers them criminals for two reasons. First, he most certainly enjoys the new-found power and respect that allows him to command his fellow guards and detain the refugees. Second, and most critically, he refuses to acknowledge that the world is collapsing around him. By being an asshole to the others, he is able to escape the unavoidable conclusion that his life will never be easy or predictable again. He is ultimately captured by the refugees and forced to accept that survival is all that matters. The tone of the film is different from here on out. The mall-dwellers become concerned with living and finding a permanent home.
The reordering of roles happens in plenty of other movies. For example, it's incredibly common plot device in disaster movies like
The Poseidon Adventure,
Armageddon,
Airplane, War of the Worlds, or
The Core. What else do zombie movies have to offer to set them apart? Stay tuned...