Zombies- Horror Research - F.O'C

(Opening scene from 1968 classic 'Night of the Living Dead)

1. Since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) the zombie genre has flourished rapidly both within Horror films and popular culture. But what are people's obsession with the undead brain eaters? Well a BBC article by Sean Coughlan called 'Zombie faces: Why are we afraid of them?' looks into this and what it is about them the living find so fascinating . According to his research, the closer a face is to a human's the creepier and more 'repulsive' it becomes before actually being a human's face. This creates the aptly named 'uncanny valley' which the sudden unnerving appearance of a face that's almost human. Therefore we can establish that the thing that frightens us most about zombies, is their direct resemblance to us and the prospect that we could ever turn into one.

2.  The 'Why everyone loves the zombie apocalypse' article by Jonathan Edward Brown discusses why the zombie apocalypse is so appealing to such a wide array of people. It was a very interesting read and I've discovered multiple ideas on the topic. Firstly people love the zombie apocolypse because they think they could survive it. We see it as a challenge that we'd love to try out and so we find ourselves envying characters like Daryl or Rick from the Walking Dead; characters who fight daily to just get food and live in constant fear. 

This illogical desire spawns from the prospect of ultimate freedom that we could never achieve in real life or even in other apocalyptic scenarios (Plague, Rapture, Fallout destruction). We get carried away with the vision that Hollywood and pop culture has engraved into our minds of prepping, travelling and being the 'hero' we all so long to be. We miss the obvious massive issues of no food, no clean water, death at every corner, zero sanitation, radiation from unmanned nuclear plant, and not to mention the huge amounts of death and misery required to fuel this strange fantasy of ours.

(Looting in 'World War Z'-Forster 2013)

 What we as viewers don't realise when thinking this is that, when looking at the fundamentals of these desires, we are really just wanting an excuse to rob, kill, brutally harm, maim and be isolated from the world. When looking at it this way we can see how twisted this all really is. Now we know that this isn't basic human nature so these influences must be being derived from other parts of our culture and society. So now we must ask the question; Is a society full of thieves and murderers 'really' what we aspire to be?

3. This video from YouTube highlights key ideas relating to zombies and why they appeal to us. According to this source it's not the zombies themselves that are frightening, it's the apocalyptic world that they create and the harsh survival instinct that humans adopt due to this. This is an interesting perspective on the sub-genre with TV shows like the walking dead evolving characters over time. However personally I believe our real fear of zombies is far less cryptic than this and is more the fundamental fear of being chased and being killed that keeps our hearts racing and our scary fix satisfied.