One point on how the zombie's have morphed:

It seems to me that as these monsters have been SPED UP--and they are sped up in many of the recent zombie films and remakes--they became more honestly terrifying, and the space for social and allegorical commentary and reflection closes down somewhat. They become more like action movies. The viewer is forced or at least encouraged to share the "siege" mentality of the humans opening fire on the clumped non-white masses and...you can see where this is going. There can almost be genocidal undertones in some of these films. Like we're machine gunning our way to cut through the revolting crowd on the way to the embassy, to catch the last chopper out.

I forget which one it was--maybe the remake of Dawn of the Dead--but one of these recent films featured clips of crowds of Muslims bowing down in group prayer sessions during the opening credits...setting up Muslims as a kind of precursor or comparison to the zombie-outbreak.

Mike I would agree that the zombie vibe has changed over time. Night, Dawn and day of the dead are all about the collapse of society and people struggling to survive after its breakdown. Zombies are never the primary enemies in Romero films -we are- in all its incarnations the state, racism, the military - people's inability to work together is what emerges as the truth in his movies.

These days its not unusual for people to criticize Romero's later films for being politically didactic. Many fans don't want to politics of a zombie pic they want something new. I can understand that. In Zach Synder (300, watchmen) spirited remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead in 2004. Synder's film is entertaining and fun and was a financial success to boot. But the film lacks any social commentary. It lacks the weight of the Romero films. And Danny Boyle's non-zombie zombie film 28 days later. 28 days was a also widely hailed by the art house crowd and manages to crib the first 3 Romero films, paralleled in the 3 acts of his film while failing to say anything new.

Yet I think zombie and post-apocolyptic fiction and films also speak to a deep disconnect people have with society and a desire to "start over." To try and build something new. Robert Kirkman's comic the walking dead, now a smash hit on AMC network pays homage to the Romero films. The British tv mini-series deadset which takes place on the set of a reality TV show is very good too. Both use its serialized format of TV to go beyond the collapse of society that takes place in most zombie movies and show us more about the human condition.

Radical Eyes - both the remake of DotD and 28 Days use real footage of people engaged in a variety of activities including rioting and praying to illustrate the wide spread global collapse of society. The prayer scene you mention is in the credits of the remake of DofD. i don't think the film maker was attempting to say anything about muslim culture at all.

Zombies do in fact move fast and some run on the original Romero films. The first zombie in the cemetary chases Barbara and runs after her. they also use tools. And in Dawn of the Dead the climb latters. And in day on shots a gun. Still the use of all out running zombies seems to be hollywood's desire to turn zombie movies into action flicks.

Mike E

<i>I’m curious do people agree that the zombie vibe has morphed too? </i>

Since I was a kid I've always been a big fan of sci-fi and horror movies.You are right,Vampires used to be considered malevolent "creatures of the night".

I think vampire movies in past days having a different set of public morality codes also had seductive and erotic components to them which took place more subtly beneath the surface.At the movies or in the <i>drive-ins</i> Teenagers were fascinated and somewhat thrilled at seeing the spectacle of dark spooky castles,the blood,the vampire bites,the predatory attacks on mostly young female victims.

To me,Vampire and (zombie) movies these days are not very subtle,not as innocent as they were in past days.Now,the focus is on sensationalist blood,guts,sadistic torture and violence...really pathological anti-social stuff..
example- Rod Zombie type movies..


Alienated teenagers living in a capitalist society with an inherent cruelty which Lenin once characterized as "Metropolitan brutalty"...frequently look to vampires as romantic sympathetic "heros" rebelling against a fucked up world.The whole "Twilight" fad is huge.

I'm sure the ruling class much more prefers teens to idolize and emulate vampires,zombies and werewolves than working class heros or communist fighters.

The closest sci- fi fantasy type movie(Russian filmakers have done some pretty interesting stuff)I can think of which has has certain communist messages as subtext would be "Avatar".

"Robo-cop" and "the Omen" also had some pretty cool anti-corporatist angles..(corporations as tyrannical menacing evil conglomerates of fascism)..

Since Werewolves have been mentioned, I must now drop a plug for the 1933 novel by American Communist, GUY ENDORE.

It's called WEREWOLF OF PARIS.

The novel is set in and around the Paris Commune. (!) And draws out implicit and explicit parallels and ironies between the ruling class butchery of the Communards (and through wars generally) and the "horror" story of the Werewolf murders.

It's also a great read. A quirky smart psychologically complex work.

Amazingly it was a #1 NY Times best-seller in 1933...but in the weeks when FDR closed the banks (!). Meaning that sales were not what they would have been. The book may not even currently be in print, but you can find it via used book-sellers.

Endore in 1934 would write an amazing, experimental, revolutionary historical novel about slavery and the early Haitian Revolution, BABOUK. A major thematic current throughout BABOUK is that the really brutal horror show of modern times is capitalist imperialism. This book was re-issed by Monthly Review in 1990 and should still be available; I highly recommend it!

P.S. I have written extensively on both of these works--they figured prominently in my graduate work--if anyone would like to read more about them...

Saoirse,

I didn't mean to suggest that the film-makers here are "intending" to target Muslims as the bringers of doom, but merely that some of the ways that the "global collapse of society" is imagined in these works is racialized, in a way. And that this taint may be seen in (some of the) depictions of the zombies themselves...Hollywood's morphing of zombie films into action flicks may not be without ideological consequences, no?

I think the pattern is most American films is the complete absence of any social critique as Saoirse pointed out, both due to the saturation of the myth (the American dream...) and its resulting despondency, have created a cultural void in which both the Zombies and Humans are interchangeable monsters and it almost doesn't matter who the hero is -- and this twisted logic doesn't have the consciousness to desire alternatives or ways out, but rather only desires the final extinction of <i>everything</i>.

Another aspect which is often forgotten about zombie films, and Romero's films in particular is that one of the largest themes is one society literally devouring another. I also agree that most zombie films are really about how people regroup and carry on in the midst of an event or catastrophe.

In regards to zombies having morphed over time, I think that it is the case as many new writers and film makers have taken Romero's ball and run with it, exploring all different kinds of avenues, some of which aren't as in depth or as good as others, but as a zombie-fanatic I dig most all of them. But at the same time the essential "bones" (being a story of heavy social messages, theories,etc., that in any other genre might not be able convey its message to as wide an audience)of zombie films have stayed the same. I guess what I'm trying to say with that is it would be very difficult, not impossible, to depoliticize zombie films completely.

If anyone's interested about politics in horror films they should check out "American Nightmare" and "Nightmares in Red, White and Blue", the first takes pivotal horror films (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, etc.)and contrasts them with the times they were made in (Vietnam War, Civil Rights, My Lai). The "Nightmares in R,W and B" traces horror films evolution from the 20's to about 2005 or so and how horror is one of the most overlooked but most useful vehicles for telling tales of social change, exploring social significance.

"Romero’s Living Dead zombie movie series, six films long, codified most of the zombie rules just as Bram Stoker did for the vampire in Dracula. Zombies are slow, stupid, relentless, and always hungry for brains, and though they can be destroyed with a bullet to the head, there are just too many to shoot since zombies turn all their victims into aggressors."

Actually, zombies don't eat brains in the Romero movies. It wasn't until 'Return of the Living Dead' that this was introduced.

Good article!

Red Fox @10 beat me to it, but yeah, Romero zombies have always pretty willing to eat whatever living flesh of the living they can get their hands on. The zombies in the "Return of..." series (to which there have been 5+ sequels) have always been slapstick and over the top, "send... more... paramedics."

Romero's newest, Survival of the Dead is basically a western that is set in a post apocalyptic zombie world... so if that's your thing, I recommend.

Others have stated it already but it's mostly been the focus of the more political of zombie movies to have the real focus on the surviving humans and not so much on the zombies --sort of a "learn to cooperate or die" vibe. I think that's something that definitely can't be stated enough and one of the reasons I dig zombie flicks.

When *don't* communists discuss zombies. The Old Man spoke of dead labour, in the form of constant capital, rising from the grave to consume living labour(though he called it vampire-like). I haven't read "Zombie Capitalism" yet, but I'll be reviewing it this week.

I never thought of the Borg as being communists. They are interelated to machines. They are mindless and totally utilitarian, withought any culture. They addapt in from other cultures and swallow them up as a giant conglomerate that combines the human brain with technology. It seems more a statement of technoledgy than of human collectivism. No communist talks of absolute collectivism intil there is NO individuality left. Collectivism is for the needs of production and the survival of society.
Today we have intimate relations with people we never meet, are constantly in touch with people through cell phones and computers can no be implanted into our bodies. We are never alone. That's not communism, it's capitalism.

Radical Eyes wrote:


<blockquote>
"It seems to me that as these monsters have been SPED UP–and they are sped up in many of the recent zombie films and remakes–they became more honestly terrifying, and the space for social and allegorical commentary and reflection closes down somewhat."</blockquote>



hmmm, I've noticed this trend, but I have also seen it politicized. For example, there were scenes in 28 Weeks Later where masses of zombies and non-zombies were sprinting down a huge street, only to be gunned down by the US military, posted on top of large buildings. And out of that process, some GIs decided to frag the other GIs to stop that massacre. Quarantine did some similar things. While I think you are on to something, sometime the new forms also give rise to new (quite radical) political analogies.