There is nothing sadder than a long and loving relationship
coming to an end. You can look back through the years with rosy tinted glasses
and think, “We had so much fun. We had so much in common. Where did it all go
wrong?” You look to the other half of this relationship and you barely
recognise what is there, right in front of you anymore. Feelings of contempt
and exasperation have now drowned the emotions of adoration and exhilaration,
and there is nothing you want more than just snip it clean off like a wilted
and dead flower.
When you have been in love since your childhood, it is
painful to come to terms with the feelings of growing apart. The hardest thing
to ever face is that it is time to let go and move on. I’m an adult now and I
can see clearly that it has come to this. I can no longer dwell on the glory
days when everything was new and so breath-takingly adventurous; I can now
behold the reality in all of its disappointment. No longer can I keep kidding myself
that I can learn to fall in love again, that all we need is time and we’ll find
that spark again. No amount of booze will twist my vision into a gaudy kaleidoscope
of wonder.
Sorrow floats, my friends.
Wait, wait, wait. Back up a second. You think this is some
sort of “Woe is me! My beloved doesn’t love me anymore!” swan song? You
actually think I would clutter up this temple to the horrific with that kind of
teenage girl, tear-stained journal plea for your pity? Oh dear, sweet reader, I
thought you, above all others, knew me better.
No, this is not a mere mortal relationship that I have grown
enough to mourn. This is me finally coming to terms with the fact that it is
time for me to break up with the undead. Get your coat and hat zombies, it’s
time for you to go home and it’s a long cold walk back to the graveyard.
Let me rewind back a few years, many years….many, many
years, when I was just a wee tiny horror pup. Zombies had always had that spicy and slightly
musty voodoo flavour that came from appearing in old black and white Bela
Lugosi titles; this is how I knew them. I knew that the only real way one could
be disposed of was to catch it, then fill its mouth with salt and sew it shut….right?
Then, at a weekly outing to the neon and flickering cathode mecca that was the video
store, I discovered something that would completely alter my view of zombies,
something that would spark a decades-long love affair. My sweaty little paws
had found the now legendary Return of the Living Dead. That was it, it was love at first viewing and
an obsession was spawned.
DO YOU WANT TO PAAAAAAAAAARTY?! Oh, yes, actually! Yes I do! Return of the Living Dead 1985
It followed me from Scotland to England then all the way
back to The Great White North. It shambled by my side through countless
romantic relationships. It kept me distracted from my studies in high school,
college and university with its adorable decaying flesh and cute, little,
hungered groans. It was there happily munching on brains on every lunch hour at
every job I worked. I was “That gal that really likes zombies.” When it came to birthdays and Christmases,
friends and family alike knew that if the gift was in anyway zombie related, it
was a sure fire success.
Then the outbreak happened.
In March of 2004, after years of neglect, the zombie
returned. Two films from either side of the Atlantic premiered in one month: Dawn
of the Dead and Shaun on the Dead. Both
films took the same subject matter, but each approached in an entirely
different context. Dawn was the reimagining of the Romero classic with a huge
Hollywood budget and angry, steroid stuffed zombies that are now referred to as
“runners”. Shaun was the polar opposite: a romantic comedy set within in a
zombie outbreak written and directed by a pair of zombie genre nerds. Both were
huge successes and in turn sparked the tidal wave of animated corpses that
would following their wake for what is now shambling towards nine years.
"Just look at the face: it's vacant, with a hint of sadness. Like a drunk who's lost a bet.
" Shaun of the Dead 2004
The thing about zombies is that they are an easy target; anyone
can smear a little dirt and a little blood around their chops and SHAZAAAM!!
Zombie. This was something that the film industry, both the big execs and the
little man caught on to with lightning speed. The popularity of the zombie exploded into ridiculous
heights, something it had never done before, knocking its “sexy” undead cousin,
the vampire, down from its crushed velvet throne of everyone’s favourite
monster. It wasn’t just the movie makers that had latched on to this unstoppable
corpse: there were comics, there were books, there were music videos, there
were songs, there were video games…they had infected every single media
available. It didn’t matter where you looked the infection had taken hold and
was just claiming more and more victims with every day that passed.
At first I was thrilled. This little subgenre that I had
been so desperately in love with for so long was finally getting the attention
I thought it deserved. All those old flicks I had spent digging my way through
the most precarious of archaic video stores to find even a bootlegged copy of,
were now getting a proper release on DVD with multiple discs and features and
neat boxes and ZOMG ALL OF THE THINGS!!! It was like I was being rewarded for
championing the little, rotting guy for so long. People started coming to me
for recommendations since they had been swept up in this wave of putrescence
and there was me riding the very crest of it on a surfboard made of tattered
human flesh.
But, it was a deadly momentum that continued to stumble at a
terrifying velocity. Zombies were turning up everywhere: kids’ shows,
advertising campaigns, food and beverages, clothing lines, kids’ toys, phone
apps…and even in porn. Movie after movie was being churned out with every
available and able hand jumping on to that bulldozing bandwagon. Anything that
had been written on the subject of zombies was being snapped up to be adapted
into film and television and none of it was particularly good.
Zombie baby....really? it was all going so well too. Dawn of the Dead 2004
I can pinpoint the exact moment when the disillusionment
began to set in, thank you George A. Romero for Land of the Dead or what I now
call “The Beginning of the End”. This has been something I have been battling
with for quite a while and the over exposure to zombies has left me feeling
apathetic to each and every “new” zombie related release. AMC’s The Walking Dead has to be WAY up there with
the afore mentioned Land of the Dead in terms of massive disappointment. Like with Land, I was so incredibly excited
for its existence, I was a huge fan of the comics, so even just the notion that
it was going to be there, on my television screen in full colour glory was
pants wetting exciting….then I watched
it. Sure it’s pretty and the makeup designs for the creatures are just stunning,
but the one thing that made the comics so incredible seemed to have vanished,
the human face. It just feels like yet another zombie thing with a bunch of
people you know are either going to be eaten by zombies or turn on each other. Yaaaaawn….
No, no matter how pretty you are, no more love for you Walking Dead zombie lady. The Walking Dead 2010
As with any thing of a horrific nature, once you see it in
full daylight for an extended amount of time, it loses whatever it was that
made it frightening. It’s happened with vampires, once they were monsters of
legend that came in the night to feast upon unsuspecting innocents then taint
them into godless creatures in their own image: now they are pretty boys with
wounded hearts that sparkle in the summer sunshine as they play baseball and
sip a skinny no fat Starbucks latte. Zombies can now run, think, learn, fall in
love and now with the new release Warm Bodies (a film based on yet another “young
adult” book…ew) they too can be pretty. Not very monstrous at all, is it?
So as my facebook is swamped with my friends all getting their
frillies in a twist about the new season on Walking Dead starting tonight, I
have come to the very sad and long time coming conclusion that it’s over. That
final headshot rings clear and my decades long love affair with zombies has
come to a close.
At least I still have werewolves.
