Geophyrd
10-Nov-2006, 12:06 PM
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1943186,00.html
The movies that rose from the grave
It doesn't matter how deeply you bury them, the zombies always resurface. Max Brooks on why watching the undead has become part of our way of life
Friday November 10, 2006
The Guardian
Cutting through apocalyptic anxieties ... Evil Dead 2
It will never die! It may disappear for a while, stay out of sight, out of mind, but sooner or later it will rise again, and no matter what we do, or how hard we try, it will never, ever die. A zombie? Hardly, rather our own fascination with what popular culture now refers to as "the living dead".
Zombies have dominated mainstream horror for more than half a decade. They're everywhere: movies, books, videogames, comics, even a new Broadway musical adaptation of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. Not only have they replaced previous alpha-monsters such as vampires and werewolves, but are continuing to generate more interest (and revenue) than almost all other creatures put together. Given that several years ago the living dead were considered an obscure and largely underground sub-genre, it would not be an exaggeration to state that they have enjoyed a spectacular rebirth unlike anything in the history of modern horror.
Where did these creatures come from? Why are they so popular now? And when, if ever, will their reign of terror cease?
Although many cultures have their own myths concerning the raising of the dead (one going as far back as the epic of Gilgamesh), the word "zombie" can trace its origins back to west Africa. The legend involves a "houngan" (wizard) using a magical elixir to transform a living human into a mobile, docile and obedient corpse. The fact that this legend is deeply rooted in reality (Haitian zombie powder was discovered to contain a powerful neuro-toxin that caused a live victim to behave like a resurrected corpse) may explain why, when African slaves were brought to the Americas, European colonists also embraced the notion of the living dead.
For several centuries the voodoo zombie remained the staple of tall tales, stage productions, and even early Hollywood movies such as White Zombie (1932) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943). It wasn't until 1968 that up-and-coming film maker George A Romero gave us a whole new reason to be afraid. Night of the Living Dead replaced the image of a harmless voodoo-created zombie with a hostile, flesh-eating ghoul that swelled its numbers to pandemic proportions. This new ghoul was the result of science, not magic, specifically radiation from a returning space probe. This new ghoul could, likewise, only be dispatched by a scientific solution: destroying the brain or severing it from the rest of the body. This new ghoul obeyed no one, other than its own insatiable craving for living, human flesh. In fact, this new ghoul was only referred to throughout the movie as a ghoul. The word zombie was never mentioned.
Romero's revolutionary creation set the stage for an entirely new genre, the horror-apocalypse or "horocalypse" movie. Zombies would henceforth be associated with the collapse of modern society, a new form of walking plague that threatened to stamp out humanity. Gone were the days of suspense and darkness, of castles and swamps and remote, isolated violence. Zombies would now be waging all-out war across the silver screen, a tradition that has endured for almost 40 years.
Since the premiere of Night of the Living Dead, many have sought to capitalise on Romero's initial success. The Italian movie Night of the Zombie (1980) mixed a fictional storyline with real-life footage of cannibalism in New Guinea. A similar movie, Zombi 2, witnessed a battle between a corpse-like stuntman and an actual man-eating shark. One Japanese film, Wild Zero, attempted to combine the living dead with aliens, transsexuals and the Japanese garage band Guitar Wolf. Michael Jackson immortalised dancing zombies with his 1983 music video Thriller. And in 1984, Romero's former writing partner, John Russo, released the zombie comedy The Return of the Living Dead.
While all of these works enjoyed a loyal fan base, they remained largely a cult sensation until the turn of this century. The rise began slowly at first. Computer games such as Resident Evil and House of the Dead were becoming successful enough to warrant their development into movies. On the heels of those came Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and the remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which knocked Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ off the top spot in the US. Most industry experts predicted this was just a fad. Conventional wisdom predicted a short life for the living dead. Only that didn't happen. More zombie movies were produced, including Romero's own Land of the Dead. Resident Evil spawned a sequel, as did House of the Dead, and The Return of the Living Dead.
The literary world was similarly inundated with zombie fiction, as was the world of comics. New videogames such as Stubbs the Zombie and the mega-hit Dead Rising took their place alongside Resident Evil and House of the Dead. Even US television could not escape the walking corpses. Last year, Showtime's Masters of Horror series broadcast one episode with dead Iraq War veterans rising from their body bags to vote against the politicians that put them there.
Why now? Why such a sudden and ravenous obsession with ghouls? Could it be the zombie authors themselves and the new levels of sophistication they are bringing to the genre? Perhaps. This new generation of writers, directors, illustrators and programmers are the first to have grown up studying the works of Romero and his contemporaries. For them, simply recreating the monsters of their childhood was not enough. Their zombie projects had to either be faster, wilder, and, in some cases, even smarter. In some cases, they have surpassed their predecessors in all aspects. But this rise in product quality does nothing to explain society's phenomenal demand for the living dead.
The answer to that question lies not in fiction, but current events. The last six years have witnessed a bombardment of tragic events. Terrorism, war, viral outbreaks and natural disasters have created a global undercurrent of anxiety not seen since the darkest days of the cold war. It seems that just turning on the nightly news either shows some present calamity or one that might potentially befall us any day now.
Zombie movies present people with an outlet for their apocalyptic anxieties without directly confronting them. The living dead are a fictional threat, as opposed to tsunamis or avian flu. No matter how scary or realistic the particular story might be, their unquestionably fictional nature makes them "safe". Someone can watch, say Dawn of the Dead, and witness an orgy of graphic violence and destruction, but still know in the back of their minds that, once they switch off the TV, this particular threat will simply cease to exist, something that cannot be said for terrorist docu-drama Dirty War, or the classic nuclear nightmare Threads. Knowing that zombies can never really rise allows for a feeling of control, a rare and valuable thing these days.
No one can say how long this present undead explosion will be with us. Perhaps they will ebb with the current trend of global chaos. Perhaps, as the dust of this decade settles, and society returns to a semblance of stability, our macabre fascinations will return to more conventional monsters, forsaking flesh-eating ghouls for good old-fashioned werewolves or vampires. No one can say. What is certain is that nothing lasts forever. What else is certain is that the living dead might go away, but they won't be gone forever. They will simply retreat underground again, waiting patiently for the day when they rise again.
· Max Brooks is author of The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. He curates the Festival of the (Living) Dead, a season of zombie movies at the Barbican, London EC2, which opens on Tuesday
The movies that rose from the grave
It doesn't matter how deeply you bury them, the zombies always resurface. Max Brooks on why watching the undead has become part of our way of life
Friday November 10, 2006
The Guardian
Cutting through apocalyptic anxieties ... Evil Dead 2
It will never die! It may disappear for a while, stay out of sight, out of mind, but sooner or later it will rise again, and no matter what we do, or how hard we try, it will never, ever die. A zombie? Hardly, rather our own fascination with what popular culture now refers to as "the living dead".
Zombies have dominated mainstream horror for more than half a decade. They're everywhere: movies, books, videogames, comics, even a new Broadway musical adaptation of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. Not only have they replaced previous alpha-monsters such as vampires and werewolves, but are continuing to generate more interest (and revenue) than almost all other creatures put together. Given that several years ago the living dead were considered an obscure and largely underground sub-genre, it would not be an exaggeration to state that they have enjoyed a spectacular rebirth unlike anything in the history of modern horror.
Where did these creatures come from? Why are they so popular now? And when, if ever, will their reign of terror cease?
Although many cultures have their own myths concerning the raising of the dead (one going as far back as the epic of Gilgamesh), the word "zombie" can trace its origins back to west Africa. The legend involves a "houngan" (wizard) using a magical elixir to transform a living human into a mobile, docile and obedient corpse. The fact that this legend is deeply rooted in reality (Haitian zombie powder was discovered to contain a powerful neuro-toxin that caused a live victim to behave like a resurrected corpse) may explain why, when African slaves were brought to the Americas, European colonists also embraced the notion of the living dead.
For several centuries the voodoo zombie remained the staple of tall tales, stage productions, and even early Hollywood movies such as White Zombie (1932) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943). It wasn't until 1968 that up-and-coming film maker George A Romero gave us a whole new reason to be afraid. Night of the Living Dead replaced the image of a harmless voodoo-created zombie with a hostile, flesh-eating ghoul that swelled its numbers to pandemic proportions. This new ghoul was the result of science, not magic, specifically radiation from a returning space probe. This new ghoul could, likewise, only be dispatched by a scientific solution: destroying the brain or severing it from the rest of the body. This new ghoul obeyed no one, other than its own insatiable craving for living, human flesh. In fact, this new ghoul was only referred to throughout the movie as a ghoul. The word zombie was never mentioned.
Romero's revolutionary creation set the stage for an entirely new genre, the horror-apocalypse or "horocalypse" movie. Zombies would henceforth be associated with the collapse of modern society, a new form of walking plague that threatened to stamp out humanity. Gone were the days of suspense and darkness, of castles and swamps and remote, isolated violence. Zombies would now be waging all-out war across the silver screen, a tradition that has endured for almost 40 years.
Since the premiere of Night of the Living Dead, many have sought to capitalise on Romero's initial success. The Italian movie Night of the Zombie (1980) mixed a fictional storyline with real-life footage of cannibalism in New Guinea. A similar movie, Zombi 2, witnessed a battle between a corpse-like stuntman and an actual man-eating shark. One Japanese film, Wild Zero, attempted to combine the living dead with aliens, transsexuals and the Japanese garage band Guitar Wolf. Michael Jackson immortalised dancing zombies with his 1983 music video Thriller. And in 1984, Romero's former writing partner, John Russo, released the zombie comedy The Return of the Living Dead.
While all of these works enjoyed a loyal fan base, they remained largely a cult sensation until the turn of this century. The rise began slowly at first. Computer games such as Resident Evil and House of the Dead were becoming successful enough to warrant their development into movies. On the heels of those came Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and the remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which knocked Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ off the top spot in the US. Most industry experts predicted this was just a fad. Conventional wisdom predicted a short life for the living dead. Only that didn't happen. More zombie movies were produced, including Romero's own Land of the Dead. Resident Evil spawned a sequel, as did House of the Dead, and The Return of the Living Dead.
The literary world was similarly inundated with zombie fiction, as was the world of comics. New videogames such as Stubbs the Zombie and the mega-hit Dead Rising took their place alongside Resident Evil and House of the Dead. Even US television could not escape the walking corpses. Last year, Showtime's Masters of Horror series broadcast one episode with dead Iraq War veterans rising from their body bags to vote against the politicians that put them there.
Why now? Why such a sudden and ravenous obsession with ghouls? Could it be the zombie authors themselves and the new levels of sophistication they are bringing to the genre? Perhaps. This new generation of writers, directors, illustrators and programmers are the first to have grown up studying the works of Romero and his contemporaries. For them, simply recreating the monsters of their childhood was not enough. Their zombie projects had to either be faster, wilder, and, in some cases, even smarter. In some cases, they have surpassed their predecessors in all aspects. But this rise in product quality does nothing to explain society's phenomenal demand for the living dead.
The answer to that question lies not in fiction, but current events. The last six years have witnessed a bombardment of tragic events. Terrorism, war, viral outbreaks and natural disasters have created a global undercurrent of anxiety not seen since the darkest days of the cold war. It seems that just turning on the nightly news either shows some present calamity or one that might potentially befall us any day now.
Zombie movies present people with an outlet for their apocalyptic anxieties without directly confronting them. The living dead are a fictional threat, as opposed to tsunamis or avian flu. No matter how scary or realistic the particular story might be, their unquestionably fictional nature makes them "safe". Someone can watch, say Dawn of the Dead, and witness an orgy of graphic violence and destruction, but still know in the back of their minds that, once they switch off the TV, this particular threat will simply cease to exist, something that cannot be said for terrorist docu-drama Dirty War, or the classic nuclear nightmare Threads. Knowing that zombies can never really rise allows for a feeling of control, a rare and valuable thing these days.
No one can say how long this present undead explosion will be with us. Perhaps they will ebb with the current trend of global chaos. Perhaps, as the dust of this decade settles, and society returns to a semblance of stability, our macabre fascinations will return to more conventional monsters, forsaking flesh-eating ghouls for good old-fashioned werewolves or vampires. No one can say. What is certain is that nothing lasts forever. What else is certain is that the living dead might go away, but they won't be gone forever. They will simply retreat underground again, waiting patiently for the day when they rise again.
· Max Brooks is author of The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. He curates the Festival of the (Living) Dead, a season of zombie movies at the Barbican, London EC2, which opens on Tuesday