Saturday, September 10, 2011
America and Zombies, whats up with that?
-Trailer for the "Rezzurection" download content for Call of Duty Black Ops.
Blogger and classmate David Beirne wrote about the recently released video game "Dead Island", which in turn inspired me to write a little about zombies myself: why are they so popular?
I guess it's just another form of horror. Horror flicks have always been popular in America, and zombies are just one of the many monsters haunting those films.
Zombies have definitely not been in just film, though. Resident Evil has been a staple video game series that has been around since I was a child, and has evolved on it's own with the times. Nowadays, we got a bunch of zombie games, all with different play styles (some fast, some slow, usually having some big boss zombies thrown into the mix).
Zombies are even one of my favorite creatures in the card game "Magic: The Gathering", a trading card game based around defeating your opponent with sorcery.
I think it is fair to say that zombies may be America's most popular creature of horror at the moment. In the past it might have been aliens or vampires (definitely not vampires right now..) but for now zombies it is. What will be our next favorite creature of the night? I'm not too sure. As it is, I will accept and enjoy our zombies, in all of their shapes and sizes (I'm sure they have many great smells as well).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I completely understand why you would want to pretend otherwise, but vampires are way more popular right now than zombies. Werewolves, too. Zombies were the creature of the week around 2006 or so when Shaun of the Dead made them go from "kinda cool" to "really funny," thus making them completely acceptable to talk about. But times change, interests fade, and Twilight rules the world right now. It's an unfortunate reality, but you can't deny that its reality.
ReplyDeleteI think vampires tend to be more popular. In general, it's the supernatural aspect of these creatures that draw people in. They'll always be popular.
ReplyDeleteAnd zombies will always scare the crap out of me.
Well, at least zombies can still be called one of the horror genres mainstays? That damned book series has made zombies and werewolves more popular but..has stripped the awesomeness right out of them along with it.
ReplyDeleteTwilight is not about vampires, they do not die in the sun, they do not drink blood, and they do not run from crosses, Holy Water, or stakes to the heart. It's not about werewolves either, they were not bitten nor are they subject to the moon, NOR are they wolf-man hybrids, they can't just change to that many rules. It's more about clowns than it's about Vampires and Werewolves.
ReplyDeleteAlso zombies have been around so long, and I think video game versions bastardize the zombie genre, it's no longer about the horde, the face that you could get one or two or in good conditions maybe a few dozen, but if there are 100,000 survivors, that means there are 5.9 BILLION zombies, you can never win, that's the horror of zombies. But now the boss zombies, specialized zombies that explode, or run, or spit.
Sometimes I feel like a zombie when using the internet, I think people can realy relate to zombies and that's why we see them so much in the media these days. Additionally, I am looking forward to the anual Zombie Walk in downtown plattsburgh!
ReplyDelete