 |
| Braaaaaains! Or meat! Whatever we get to first! |
Last week I had a epiphany. I was sitting in my gaming cave, lights off, fighting off some Las Plagas in Resident Evil 4 HD when my cousin logged on and we started taking down some undead with paddles in Dead Island. And it was sometime during a mission to grab some champagne for this drunk chick in a bungalow that I realized, hey, I just went from playing a game with zombies to playing another game with zombies! And then it it hit me. The game I was playing before RE4? Plants vs. Zombies!
My God.....
We've hit the Zombie Singularity!
All kidding aside, zombies feel like there freaking everywhere. From games, to movies, and even books, I feel like everywhere I look someone is beating in the head of some undead miscreant. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. Who doesn't love zombies? Back when I was a wee lad, my friends and I used to regularly contemplate the pros and cons between blunt vs. edged weapons in a zombie apocalypse all the time. That's normal, right? Although I really think we're hitting a glutenous point with walking undead, I thought it was time to look back at my own personal zombie timeline and find the most influential forms of media which contributed to my love of zombies.
 |
| Oh Michael, look at what you became! |
Year: 1982
Before he got all creepy, I loved Michael Jackson as a kid, and I think it all started with Thriller. It wasn't a movie or a game, but a music video, that introduced me to the idea of the walking undead slowly lumbering towards you to munch on your brains. With one coming after you, not a problem. But soon they're all around you and you're cornered, left with nothing to do but wait and watch for your coming demise.The non dancing sequences just conveyed the right sense of foreboding and horror which make zombies so great. Hate to admit it, but Thriller was the start of it for me.
 |
| This image will be burned into my brain until the day I die. |
Resident Evil 1 & 2
Year: 1996 & 1998
I'll never forget the first time I got a glimpse of the first Resident Evil. I was 11 and at my cousin's house when my older cousin, Richie, popped this bad boy in with the lights out. My other cousin Dave and I just watched in awe. The setting and music was uber creepy. The controls and camera angles were tight and constricting. And then we came across the first zombie chomping on Kenneth from Bravo team, turning him into "a shadow of his former self." I would never forget that scene. That experience. What made that game so impressionable and the classic it is today is how well Capcom recreated the things which make the zombie scenario awesome. It's that mix of desperation and survival, scrounging everything you can and doing your best to make it count. Although I hated it, the best thing that game did was requiring an ink ribbon to save, taking away the comfort from even the most basic function you got with gaming by that point. I was definitely hooked.
When Resident Evil 2 came out, I moved my Playstation into the living room to play it because that room got more light. It did everything the first did, but better, and I was on edge the entire time. I would almost say I didn't even enjoy the experience, but I had to play. I had to see things through with the characters till the very end. I ran through both Leon's and Clare's missions, both their second missions, and even went through Hunk's and Tofu's. Never before had a game affected me so much, even if was by scaring the crap out of me. Just speaks to it's quality.
 |
| This probably won't be good for business. |
Year: 2002
Wha...wait a minute. They can run?! Just when I thought I understood the genre, 28 Days Later mixed up the known conventions at the time and delivered such a perfect zombie flick that I think it was clear that the genre was evolving. All it took was just a little tweak of a fundamental part of the formula to make it all feel new again. What I especially loved was the depth that that movie had. The psychological transformations and messages that arose when Jim and the others were stuck in the house with the soldiers gone mad. The lines were blurred between good and bad, questions regarding the nature of man were hinted it at, and it was one of the first times I thought that the zombie genre can have more going for it that visceral anxiety. That it could be symbolic of mankind as well.
 |
| One should be in every hotel room in the country. |
Year: 2003
I got this while starting my first semester in college and everyone always had to pull it off my shelf when they spotted it. While they were always there, this book really played up the "rules" aspect of the zombie genre, which was and is still endlessly fun to talk about and debate. Blunt vs. Edge? Where are the best places to hold up? What are the best strategies for ensuring long term survival? The guide was the holy grail of zombie scenarios and did a great job putting to print all the funner aspects of the genre, giving seeds to movies like Zombieland and other works in the genre that show, just like everything else, there are the "right" ways to do things.
 |
| Auhaaaaaaaaaa! |
Year: 2008
Not exactly groundbreaking or revolutionary since it wasn't the first to do space horror, but the original Dead Space has been one of my favorite recent additions to the zombie genre. Yes, I know the Necromorphs are not exactly the same, but the soul of the zombie scenario remains intact and provided me one of the best edge of my seat terrified experiences since the original Resident Evil. The isolation on the Ishimura was palpable and falling into the shoes of Isaac Clarke was both endlessly nerve wracking and satisfying. I had just finished my masters and was stuck at home while I looked for work when I played it. It was a tough period of my life, but Dead Space made just a bit more tolerable. Could be worse, I told myself, I could be stuck in space with clawed monsters trying to dismember me. Dead Space 2, while not having the same flair since it's a sequel, was thoroughly entertaining although I never plat'ed it (stupid hardcore mode!) and I can't wait for the 3rd. I also really love how well the universe has been built up, with the animated movies and spin offs to give everything context. It's a zombie universe done right.
So are zombies getting played out? Probably to some extent, but I'll take if over vampires or some other lame cliche. Zombies are a selling formula because the genre and concept speak to the instinctual fears everyone has: isolation, anxiety, conflict with the form of the threat, etc. And just when you think you know everything about it, things come along like 28 Days Later and Dead Space which give it just enough of a new flavor. Needless to say, I can't wait to see where the genre will go in the future.
Honorable Mentions:
Zombieland
Shaun of the Dead
Dead Snow
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
House of the Dead (arcade game, not movie, you psycho)
They Hunger Half Life Mod
World at War Zombie Mode
