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Friday 15 October 2010

ZOMBIES or HOW TO TURN COOL UP TO 11.


There's been a trend over the last decade that's eaten it's way in to all aspects of pop culture and it's beginning the nibble on what little nerves I have left, I am of course talking about zombies. Now I love a good zombie flick and of course celebrate the work of Mr. Romero just as much as the next guy, the thing that bothers me how zombies have become the Hollywood equivalent of a 'Go faster stripe'. In flicks such as Dawn of the Dead George A. Ramero gave the zombies metaphorical meaning whether it was for racism or Communist paranoia the walking dead where all ways more than just lumbering flesh eaters but now their just a 'cool' way to make a 'cool' idea even 'cooler', 'man'.
Take Marvel Comics for example, ''Do you know what would make all the cool, old school Marvel characters even cooler?'' asks one of the House of Ideas top creative types, ''no what?'' replies another equally creative type ''what if they where all zombies'' he concludes as his colleagues head implodes with all the 'coolness' that's just went super nova inside it. And so Marvel releases the Marvel Zombie books to great cheers of ''COOL!''.
Another zombie comic that came out a couple years before Marvels cool fest was The Walking Dead this benefited greatly from it's creators obvious love and understanding of Romeros earlier work. Computer games have also been over run, from the scary Resident Evil series to the schlock horror of the new LasVagas set Dead Rising 2.
Then there's the comedy zombie, Fido, Zombieland, the forth coming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Shaun of the Dead which gave us the term Zom-Com. These reanimated ideas like the computer games and comics fluctuate wildly from great to awful with the zombies involved ranging from effective to pitiful novelty.
The trend that gnaws on the brittle bones of the genre most however is when 'zombie' is paired with the word Nazi. Since 2008's Outpost there have been 3 more films with the same 'cool' idea. If only those damn fascist, mass murdering, genocide loving, would be world conquerors had been undead flesh munchers then we'd have real reason to hate them. The latest to use national socialist dead folk as it's protagonists is A Chance in Hell Going purely by the trailer it's not up to much and like most things zombie probably seemed like a good idea at the time but in the cold light of day isn't really that...cool.

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