Welcome back to slanderoid’s Monster of the Week series, a series where I dutifully publish a new post every single week, no matter what the date on the last post says! On an unrelated note, I’m thinking that I might change the name of the series to “Monster of the Month” and change the frequency of the posts to match – for no other reason than to keep regular readers from being desensitized by the constant onslaught of mind-blowing articles. I don’t know, I still prefer “Monster of the Week”. Call your local government representative and let them know what you think! In the meantime, let’s talk about this week’s monster:
Zombies*
Horror media has leaned into zombie stories so hard that it’s no longer a crutch, it’s the ground that used to hold up a wall that used to hold up a crutch. From throwing zombies into classical literature (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) to, essentially, retconning classic stories about different types of monsters to feature zombies instead. (I’m looking at you, I Am Legend, the major motion picture, you abominable piece of shit.) I can’t stand zombies, and I’m surprised anyone still tolerates that garbage.
Is anyone actually scared of zombies anymore? No matter what “unique” name you call them by – runners, bleeders, walkers, stalkers, or gawkers – they’re all the same dipshit bullet magnets regurgitated from some equally dipshit writers that can’t seem to think past the most basic tenets of horror.
No, not all zombie stuff is bad. I’m notoriously a huge fan of Resident Evil, after all. (You can check the first post in this series if you don’t believe me.) It’s just that there are only so many times you can use mindless, hungry morons and still have them be scary.
Even creators seem to be tired of this crap. When was the last that normal zombies were the focus in a mainline Resident Evil game? (Not counting the remakes, that is!) Resident Evil 3? Or Resident Evil: Code Veronica, if ya nasty? Since then, the enemies have moved away from zombies toward something closer to just fucked-up-guys. The last two entries have hardly included zombies in any capacity; instead, they’ve revolved around mold people and werewolves.
Hell, even that popular book/movie, The Girl with All the Gifts decided to pose the question: “What if zombies were just normal people but, like, sometimes they bite?”
Even zombie media doesn’t want to be about zombies anymore. I think that’s why most of them never use the word “zombie”. Seriously, I think the creators are embarrassed about it. But, boy, they sure don’t want to make anything else, either.
I’m not sure exactly when things changed. I guess it was probably about the same time that Night of the Living Dead burst through the boarded-up window of our collective psyche. I can’t deny that that movie is a classic – I’ve seen it plenty of times myself. But that’s the problem with classics, isn’t it? When one comes around, everyone and their ugly-ass mama has to copy the winning formula ad nauseum until the audience gets sick of it.
I believe this is happening now. The Walking Dead was finally, mercifully killed off a couple of years ago after eleventy spinoffs, a comic series that probably went on for way too long, and a baker’s dozen video games (including a particularly abysmal one released just last year). It’s no longer part of the zeitgeist, thank tiny little baby Jesus. And even though The Last of Us is still going strong with its TV adaptation, I think people are finally starting to see through the whole “human drama story – PLUS ZOMBIES!” schtick. Or, at least, they damned well should be. I mean, how many ways are there to say, “if some seriously bad shit goes down, everyone is going to rape and murder each other.” I think we’ve gotten the point. Humans were the real monsters all along, blah blah blah, and all that other boring crap.
In fact (no I’m still not done), I think this fascination with tribalism and the “brainless, murderous other” has done some serious damage to our collective minds. If you don’t believe me, grab a stopwatch and try a little experiment for me:
- Go to www.youtube.com
- Find a channel about someone who does literal, actual zombie D-day prep
- Time how long it takes for them to drop a racist dog-whistle or complain about democrats
The first video I clicked on got there in forty-eight seconds, or twelve seconds after the opening ad, depending on how you want to count it: https://youtu.be/WwrBYcYoa-M?si=wnkVmwkkQT-Qg36w&t=36
Okay, now I’m done. As you can probably tell, I have a lot of whiny feelings about zombies. I’ve been holding this shit in for a long time, and it’s finally time to drop trou and let it out.
…Oh, fuck! I’ve spent all this time poo-pooing on bad monsters. I forgot that this was a “Monster of the Week” post… and I haven’t even talked about the “Monster of the Week”!
*Ahem* Right, so…
Zombies*
What if I told you I knew the secret to making zombies scary again? And, in fact, this type of zombie has been under our noses the entire time? And they’re one of my favorite monsters? You don’t believe me? Here, come closer and I’ll let you in on the secret. A little closer. That’s it, get good and close to the screen. There, that’s good.
The secret is: stop making stuff about zombies and start making stuff about zombies*.
…Oh. That doesn’t tell you anything. My bad. There is one key difference between the two: zombies only have a drive for consuming living flesh but zombies* are automatons for some leader that has zombified them and transformed them into helpless slaves.
Yes, my solution to making zombie stories better is to use traditional zombies* in them. I’m talking about voodoo, necromancy, White Zombie shit.
Zombies have become too predictable – but zombies* are never predictable. They are just as fickle and susceptible to human emotions as the person controlling them. And that fallibility makes them ten times more frightening to me than the unwavering animalistic instincts shown by the modern zombie. A swarm of nearly invulnerable freaks is so much less spooky when they’re just hungry guys than if they’re under the direct control of someone who hates Mondays and they’re all out of Sundays.
Plus, you know how monsters are supposed to represent some fact of human existence? Like how vampires are associated with sex and werewolves represent loss of control? Well, zombies* handily represent the putty-brained idiocy of the masses. In a time filled with misinformation and AI content farms, it’s time to strike while the iron’s hot. In the right hands, that story could be BM-inducingly scary.
Just imagine: a horde of unthinking, unwavering drones that will stop at literally nothing to carry out the will of their bokor (the person who commands them) regardless of what harm might befall them.
Or, since the original Haitian zombie legend was a product of deep-seeded fears about slavery, we can use them to explore the topic of modern slavery. Maybe a look at a prison in a society where it has been legalized to sentence criminals to zombification if they’re found guilty of a crime? Or even a story about a mysterious benefactor who helps people in exchange for a few years spent zombified? These are just couple off the top of my head. I think this myth has a lot of juice that has yet to be let loose. And the present, with our current political and economic climate, is the perfect time to do it.
But I think that what we need most of all is to take a step back, look at the entertainment we’re being offered, and ask ourselves whether we don’t deserve something better than iterative, derivative bullshit. If you ask me, we sure as fuck do.
Sources:
https://retrofiedmag.com/more-human-than-inhuman-white-zombie-halloween-special/
https://apnews.com/article/photos-election-jan6-trump-washington-f69b5f03316eaef2044d520bc7ffe49a
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