Seriously, check this out:
Episode 1 of The Walking Dead. Watch it. Love it. (ZOMBIES!!!!)
Showing posts with label zombie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zombie. Show all posts
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A gripe I have had about horror movie monsters for a while...
I am not talking about crappy horror movies like Skeeter or the many many (many) shitty Italian horror movies where the monsters are basically "guy with messed up face, possibly undead, maybe", but many good movies.
Off the top of my head, The Lost Boys, From Dusk 'Til Dawn and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead are offenders. The gripe? Once you turn into a monster, the human body apparently turns into pudding. Harvey Keitel points it out in FDTD, in fact, explaining that the vampires are squishy. The other two, in my opinion, much better movies don't bother to explain any rationale for it, we simply are expected to think that if you have something vaguely pointy and shove it at another human (or former human) that it will pass straight through them like a hot fork into Jell-O.
In case you are wondering what I am referring to; in the Lost Boys, when the Frog brothers and Corey Haim sneak into the vampire lair, a skinny 13 year old manages to put a thick, kind of blunt wooden stake right through Bill S. Preston, Esquire's sternum with about as much effort as sticking a knife into a hamburger. I m not suggesting yu try that exact thing, but just as a test, find the exact center of your chest. It's pretty hard isn't it? Now try to push your finger through it. Go on, I'll wait.
Still here? Good. If not, well, then I am wrong , but you are dead and can't complain. If you are still alive, though, that is because your sternum (the bone right over your heart that keeps your ribs from flailing like a Half-Life zombie's) is thick and hard, specifically to protect you very-important heart from being poked and therefore killing you. This is very important to would-be vampire hunters, since if we assume that vampires are real (they aren't, take off the black makeup...) and can live for centuries, we can assume that A. they are NOT made of pudding and would laugh off your retarded attempt to poke them to death with a pointy stick (seriously, no monster could be considered scary if this was a valid way to kill one) or B. they are made of undead tapioca, but would likely draw on their hundreds of years of not being dead to maybe put on some armor, or at least a thick sweater.
For zombies, it is their head. In the new Dawn of the Dead, the husband from Medium stabs a zombie in the chin with a broken croquette mallet and it comes out the top of his head. Holy SHIT. Be careful if you brush your teeth too hard, you could wind up with a splitting headache. (I am building a laser in my basement; once the book is published I am starting a new career as a Bond villain) The original had a zombie meeting his maker by getting a flathead screwdriver slowly ground into his ear.
I guess once you die, your skull turns into an eggshell. Except they can be repeatedly beaten with little or no ill effects; it's just once the stabby things show up, monsters turn into warm butter. I realize this is an easy way to make them not-too-daunting, or to get the character out of a corner they are painted into, but come on folks. At least they didn't do anything silly like give a nurse a shotgun.. Oh Wait...
Off the top of my head, The Lost Boys, From Dusk 'Til Dawn and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead are offenders. The gripe? Once you turn into a monster, the human body apparently turns into pudding. Harvey Keitel points it out in FDTD, in fact, explaining that the vampires are squishy. The other two, in my opinion, much better movies don't bother to explain any rationale for it, we simply are expected to think that if you have something vaguely pointy and shove it at another human (or former human) that it will pass straight through them like a hot fork into Jell-O.
In case you are wondering what I am referring to; in the Lost Boys, when the Frog brothers and Corey Haim sneak into the vampire lair, a skinny 13 year old manages to put a thick, kind of blunt wooden stake right through Bill S. Preston, Esquire's sternum with about as much effort as sticking a knife into a hamburger. I m not suggesting yu try that exact thing, but just as a test, find the exact center of your chest. It's pretty hard isn't it? Now try to push your finger through it. Go on, I'll wait.
Still here? Good. If not, well, then I am wrong , but you are dead and can't complain. If you are still alive, though, that is because your sternum (the bone right over your heart that keeps your ribs from flailing like a Half-Life zombie's) is thick and hard, specifically to protect you very-important heart from being poked and therefore killing you. This is very important to would-be vampire hunters, since if we assume that vampires are real (they aren't, take off the black makeup...) and can live for centuries, we can assume that A. they are NOT made of pudding and would laugh off your retarded attempt to poke them to death with a pointy stick (seriously, no monster could be considered scary if this was a valid way to kill one) or B. they are made of undead tapioca, but would likely draw on their hundreds of years of not being dead to maybe put on some armor, or at least a thick sweater.
Corey Feldman's anti-vampire weapons are rendered useless by a douchey piece of clothing.
For zombies, it is their head. In the new Dawn of the Dead, the husband from Medium stabs a zombie in the chin with a broken croquette mallet and it comes out the top of his head. Holy SHIT. Be careful if you brush your teeth too hard, you could wind up with a splitting headache. (I am building a laser in my basement; once the book is published I am starting a new career as a Bond villain) The original had a zombie meeting his maker by getting a flathead screwdriver slowly ground into his ear.
I guess once you die, your skull turns into an eggshell. Except they can be repeatedly beaten with little or no ill effects; it's just once the stabby things show up, monsters turn into warm butter. I realize this is an easy way to make them not-too-daunting, or to get the character out of a corner they are painted into, but come on folks. At least they didn't do anything silly like give a nurse a shotgun.. Oh Wait...
Friday, September 17, 2010
Terror has a new face (and it is Zombie Fanboys)
The chapter outline is done;
And that means exactly jack-squat right now, but it will have more significance soon, don't you worry.
On to the main point of this post.
I have been toying with this for a while and I figured now I would take a little time to address some people I offended last month when this article ran:
7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly)
I was verbally beaten, mercilessly, by the most dedicated fanboys in the world (apparently), the zombie fanboy. They come in many flavors; Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, even 28 Days Later. But the most virulent, rabid, and scary of them all are the Max Brooks Zombie fanboys. Holy shit, those people would cause a Muslim terrorist to give pause.
In case you are unfamiliar with his work, Max Brooks is the author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, two very clever, well written and interesting works of fiction. I make that distinction since the hardcore fans of his books seem to have missed the "story" part of the term "story book" and jumped right in to buying water purifies, canned food and (God help us) guns.
Now, many of the people who posted comments said, and I quote, "the author apparently never read The Zombie Survival Guide", which was actually pretty astute; I had never seen a real copy of it until the day after the article ran. Much like all of thepsychopathic virgins fans who commented on my article, I enjoyed it immensely. Unlike them, I understood that it was a work of fiction, lovingly created by a fan of the genre.
Much to my continued chagrin, I wound up taking many of their comments personally, despite being well aware of the fact that reading comments is one of the many things HP Lovecraft tried to warn us against in his many works documenting the horrors of the universe. They are like the might Cthulhu, and if you view them, you will go insane and babble for eternity. Or, you know, you will make a complete asshat out of yourself and start trading insults with obsessed 13 year olds over the internet. I chose the latter. (I chose wrong)
A few points I would like to address briefly;
The movies The Crazies(The original and the remake) and both of the 28 Days Later movies are "zombie movies" in the fact that they follow the similar themes and tropes; doomsday scenarios where humans are turned into monsters that propagate by turning normal people into the same thing.
I was writing about undead. And not Max Brooks's undead (or as some truly bewildering fanboys called him, Mel Brooks. I am serious, look it up), but the walking corpses of the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead, the single greatest Zombie movie ever made. Pretty much every convention we have stemmed from this one movie; the new breeds, the bite-spread super sprinter zombies gained popularity with the 2004 remake.
This brings me to another point; in the article I mention that biting is a horrible way to spread a disease. For the truly confused (and there were a lot of them) I would like to clarify; zombies biting is a horrible way to spread disease. I am well aware of things like mosquitoes and fleas. Yes I know biting spreads malaria and west Nile, and spread the Plague. But those were spread by insect bites, not zombies.
My final note; I totally get that people took the article personally. It was my fantasy, too, probably for longer than some of the offended have even been alive. But as the old web saying goes (and I will burn in hell for writing this, I am well aware); Arguing over the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics; even if you win, you are still a retard.
And that means exactly jack-squat right now, but it will have more significance soon, don't you worry.
On to the main point of this post.
I have been toying with this for a while and I figured now I would take a little time to address some people I offended last month when this article ran:
7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly)
I was verbally beaten, mercilessly, by the most dedicated fanboys in the world (apparently), the zombie fanboy. They come in many flavors; Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, even 28 Days Later. But the most virulent, rabid, and scary of them all are the Max Brooks Zombie fanboys. Holy shit, those people would cause a Muslim terrorist to give pause.
In case you are unfamiliar with his work, Max Brooks is the author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, two very clever, well written and interesting works of fiction. I make that distinction since the hardcore fans of his books seem to have missed the "story" part of the term "story book" and jumped right in to buying water purifies, canned food and (God help us) guns.
Now, many of the people who posted comments said, and I quote, "the author apparently never read The Zombie Survival Guide", which was actually pretty astute; I had never seen a real copy of it until the day after the article ran. Much like all of the
Much to my continued chagrin, I wound up taking many of their comments personally, despite being well aware of the fact that reading comments is one of the many things HP Lovecraft tried to warn us against in his many works documenting the horrors of the universe. They are like the might Cthulhu, and if you view them, you will go insane and babble for eternity. Or, you know, you will make a complete asshat out of yourself and start trading insults with obsessed 13 year olds over the internet. I chose the latter. (I chose wrong)
A few points I would like to address briefly;
The movies The Crazies(The original and the remake) and both of the 28 Days Later movies are "zombie movies" in the fact that they follow the similar themes and tropes; doomsday scenarios where humans are turned into monsters that propagate by turning normal people into the same thing.
I was writing about undead. And not Max Brooks's undead (or as some truly bewildering fanboys called him, Mel Brooks. I am serious, look it up), but the walking corpses of the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead, the single greatest Zombie movie ever made. Pretty much every convention we have stemmed from this one movie; the new breeds, the bite-spread super sprinter zombies gained popularity with the 2004 remake.
This brings me to another point; in the article I mention that biting is a horrible way to spread a disease. For the truly confused (and there were a lot of them) I would like to clarify; zombies biting is a horrible way to spread disease. I am well aware of things like mosquitoes and fleas. Yes I know biting spreads malaria and west Nile, and spread the Plague. But those were spread by insect bites, not zombies.
My final note; I totally get that people took the article personally. It was my fantasy, too, probably for longer than some of the offended have even been alive. But as the old web saying goes (and I will burn in hell for writing this, I am well aware); Arguing over the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics; even if you win, you are still a retard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)