Our obsession with zombies is fascinating. Cities using a “Zombie Apocalypse” situation as training for police. 5Ks and Marathon runners being chased by people in zombie-garb for charity. Tests to see how long you would survive if there was a zombie apocalypse, rating your ability to survive and how you would specific situations.

Zombie lore has bled from religion to horror to pop culture, and in the past ten years has probably spread to an entirely new level of popularity. With Shaun of the Dead it reemerged in a hilarious way (if you’re ever having a bad day, watch Shaun of the Dead and you’ll feel tons better, I swear). I Am Legend scared the crap out of us with it’s rabies-like outbreak (and made us horribly sad at the possibility of zombie-pets - and yes, I cried a few times in that movie). Zombieland was fun and fantastic, giving us the basic rules for survival. The Walking Dead graphic novels and TV show go darker and pose the questions “What would you do?” “What lengths would you go to for those around you?” “Who would you become?” The Fight the Dead, Fear the Living motto reminds you that it’s not such a friendly neighborhood when everyone is fighting for the same resources (sidenote: if they kill off Daryl, we riot). Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide is awesome, and World War Z looks back at the history of the Zombie War in a post-apocalyptic world. Zombie lore has infected pop-culture in a way that it’s part of us now as society, the “what if” looming over our heads.

Now obviously there isn’t a zombie virus (but just in case, let’s just never splice rabies and the flu…please?), but the possibility of an ‘end of the world as we know it’ situation has led a lot of people to join Zombie Apocalypse Survival teams all over the country to learn survival skills and things that are actually pretty good to know - skills we’ve lost or ignored in the age of technology.  Are we actually learning and getting something out of zombies? Well, no, most people aren’t - and that’s fine. We have video games like Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead to entertain us in between seasons of our favorite AMC show. And Isaac Marion has written what Simon Pegg (Shaun of Shaun of the Dead fame and author of Nerd Do Well) calls “A mesmerizing evolution of a classic contemporary myth.” After we watch Warm Bodies (in theaters February 1st) while we wait for World War Z to come to the big screen, we can gross ourselves out with Planet Terror’s biological weapon created monsters. 

As a writer (of the fiction, non-monster variety), I’m excited to read Isaac Marion’s book, as well as see the movie based on it. I’m thrilled when I see something from an angle I haven’t seen regurgitated twenty times before, and in a Hollywood where remakes are the thing to do lately, I did a little cheer when a few seconds into the trailer of another zombie movie it was the zombie who is the main character and the narrative voice of the story. It’s a breath of fresh air into the zombie culture that has become heavily laden with the morose reality of an infrastructure collapse or possible pandemic breathing down our necks.

While I love the scary zombie and everything it questions about ourselves and society, a little something different isn’t anything to scoff at  - and why can’t we have a little fun?  So whether you’re a fan of the aimless rambler, the horde, or the hint of humanity zombie, there’s something for everyone in this living dead culture we’re in.

~Ash

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