Dead Snow (2009)

Apparently, in Norway, vacationing medical students are as puerile as American high school students, or so we are led to believe by the first half of Dead Snow, a recent Norwegian horror flick. In the film, a group of young people trek to a remote cabin in the frozen mountains. What they don't know: the region is the home of a large group of zombified Nazi soldiers from the '40s. Written by Tommy Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen, and directed by Wirkola, the film is adequate zombie fare but seems internally inconsistent at the same time.

The first half of the film does not inspire much confidence in its quality. The young protagonists gab away like American teenagers, generally being obnoxious and certainly not acting like presumably more mature medical students. They engage in that staple of the postmodern horror movie: referencing popular culture and films with similar situations, mostly American horror films from the 1980s (including the mostly forgotten April Fool's Day). One character does, however, have the sense to wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a long ago Peter Jackson film. Watching the first half of the movie, though, it seemed indistinguishable from late 1980s horror film rubbish. How else to characterize the scene in which Chris (the generically hot Jenny Skavlan) and the rather goofy Erlend (Jeppe Laursen) have sex in an outhouse?

But then something happens.

As the film progresses, and the film abandons the carefree exploits of the medical students and evidence begins to suggest that strange things are afoot on this mountain, the tone of the film changes. It becomes much more interesting, and characters are forced to make desperate choices and live with their consequences. Suddenly, the film becomes more than just a recycled American teen slasher movie. One medical student, Martin (Vegar Hoel), initially suffering from an inexplicable fear of blood, must quickly overcome that phobia when bitten by a zombie. Another character, Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), chooses to force a deadly avalanche on the snowy mountainside rather than let a zombie take her. However, the boldness of the characters in the second half of the film doesn't match with the juvenile actions of the same characters at the film's beginning. Aside from the sudden appearance of a monstrous horde of zombies, there is no more meaningful explanation for the dramatic transition in character and in tone. Would that the characters had started out a bit more developed and seasoned in the first half of the film, the second half would feel a bit more earned.

Mythology wise, there's not much to the film. It's never really explained how the Nazi soldiers from the 1940s actually became zombies (or why, after six decades, their uniforms remain so well preserved). There's clearly some connection to a boxful of trinkets in the cabin, though it's unclear why the zombies are attempting to retrieve it. Whether that holds some key to their zombification, or whether it may allow them to again become human, is never quite explained.

But, if you're curious, be patient, and wait until the second half of the film before giving up on it.

Five Questions After Watching Zombieland

This past weekend, I watched Zombieland. Written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and directed by Ruben Fleischer, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, all as survivors of a plague that has turned the world into a horde of zombies. It's a fun flick, though at times, it seemed it didn't know what it wanted to be. Rom zom com, a la Shawn of the Dead? Modern zombie action flick, a la the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead? Or the hipster flick, Adventureland (also featuring Eisenberg), but with zombies? I enjoyed the film, as I do most zombie movies, but it prompted the following five questions which deserve answers.

1. Jesse Eisenberg finds himself in the Michael Cera role in his films: the geeky, socially awkward young man who fumbles about with women. Do you think that Eisenberg, when he realized that he was up for a part in zombie flick, thought to himself, "Gee whiz, finally a film in which I won't play a geeky adolescent?" Guess again: Eisenberg plays Columbus, whose social awkwardness is prominent in the film and in fact serves as a key plot component. (To boot, his introverted nature prompts his personalized set of survival rules in the zombie-infested world.). He develops a crush on Wichita, played by Stone, with whom Eisenberg has zero chemistry.

2. Prior to the zombie apocalypse, Columbus attends college in Austin, Texas, where he spends most of his time hidden away from the world in his apartment on his computer. He first learns of the zombie menace from "406," his generically hot blonde neighbor (Amber Heard), who he inexplicably refers to by her apartment number. Apparently, Columbus and 406 have developed a platonic friendship in which he consoles her after she experiences some type of emotional hardship. He fancies her, but she uses him solely as a prop. In a flashback, we see the two of them on his couch, he pining away for her, she relating a story about an unusual homeless man who bit her. They fall asleep on the couch, but when he awakes, she is a full fledged zombie, who proceeds to chase him around his very, very large apartment. Knowing a bit about the sizes of apartments in Austin, Texas, I can say that no college student could effectively elude a zombie for as long as Columbus did in an average sized apartment. The problem: His apartment is far, far too large for any college student, much less one in the Texas capital city. What gives?

3. Further, how does a film in which the protagonist is a college student in Austin not take place in Austin, or even have a single scene set in that city? The film opens in Garland, Texas, which the narrator sees fit to dismiss as post-apocalyptic in nature even before the zombie apocalypse.

4. Much ado is made of the characters' attempt to make it to Pacific Playland, an amusement park in Los Angeles. When they arrive in the City of Angels, though, there are very, very few zombies. They see a handful on the streets of downtown L.A., which seems puzzling, due to the city's size and population. Later, when Wichita and her young sister, Little Rock (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin) arrive at the park and activate the carnival lights (which serve to attract the walking dead to that location), less than a 100 zombies appear. Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the United States. Where are all the zombies?

5. Skilled zombie killer Tallahassee (Harrelson) craves but one thing in the film: a Twinkie. He spends much time looking in abandoned grocery stores for this snack cake, suddenly elusive in the new zombie world. Can you imagine the product placement meeting between the producers and Hostess? "Uh, yeah, our psycho zombie killer character, played by Woody Harrelson, really wants a Twinkie to help him cope with all this killing of the undead. Can we use your logo and reference your products?" Um, okay.

Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (1987)

Having recently watched again some of the more well known flicks directed by Peter Jackson, I decided to watch his first release, Bad Taste, from 1987. Basically, Bad Taste is a zombie flick, although the "zombies" are actually aliens who, at the risk of great discomfort, transformed themselves into human form. Much is owed to George Romero and his Living Dead trilogy. Viewing Jackson's incredibly low budget film, as well as the making-of documentary which accompanies it on the DVD, really illustrates how far Jackson has come as a director. For Bad Taste, Jackson constructed his own Steadicam at the cost of $15, and he baked the masks of the creatures in his parents' kitchen. Compare that to the $300 million the studios gave him to create the three installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy. The documentary is inspiring to the would-be filmmaker, as Jackson's ingenuity (and his utter skill at stretching a dollar to the maximum degree possible) is showcased to a great degree. If he could do so much in the way of crude special effects with so little money, what could an aspiring director do with equally meager funds for a film which did not require special effects at all? (The documentary also has clips of Jackson's earliest home movies, including some footage from a film called "World War Two," which Jackson made as a pre-teenager. Sorry, I can't bring myself to say "tween.").


My first introduction to Jackson's oeuvre was in college when one of the members of the crew at the student television station screened a double feature of Jackson's films. In so doing, he exhibited the violent gross-out puppet extravaganza, 1989's Meet the Feebles, and the equally disturbing 1991 film, Dead Alive. Soon thereafter, I saw the excellent Heavenly Creatures from 1994 (which was my first introduction to the lovely Kate Winslet), and after that, I trekked to see The Frighteners (which featured the one, the only, team-up between Jackson and Michael J. Fox) after work on the first day of its release in 1996. I think I was the only one present in the theatre for that showing. When I heard that he was going to direct the Tolkien trilogy, I was skeptical -- indeed, I was almost certain that it would fail, as fantasy has never really been a successful genre at the box office. I wondered what would happened to the second two installments if the first chapter tanked. Would they release them? Would the studio funding for post-production dry up? Who knew? But, obviously, failure was not meant to be for the trilogy.

And to think, it all began in 1987, with the release of the, well, bad, "Bad Taste."

See here for the Ultimate Bad Taste Fan Site (and here for the original version of that site).

Living with the Dead #1, #2, and #3 (Dark Horse Comics)

"Hold on . . . you're surrounded by about a zillion blood-sucking, brain-eating, friggin' walking-dead zombies and you don't like to be around guns?" - Betty Davis, to Whip and Straw, fellow survivors in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, in Living with the Dead #2 (Dark Horse Comics, Issue Date: November 2007).

Published by Dark Horse Comics, the series is written by Mike Richardson, with art by Ben Stenbeck, letters by Clem Robins, cover art by Richard Corben, cover color by Dave Stewart, design by Kristal Hennes, and edited by Scott Allie, the three issue Living with the Dead limited series is yet another attempt by an indie comic publisher to milk the zombie genre. So often has this well been revisited that its novelty not only wanes, but congeals. In perpetrating this narrative, writer Richardson tells the tale of Whip and Straw, two lunkheads whose prospects in life were no doubt elevated by the end of the world. In their post-apocalyptic metropolis, they visit the local mall and take to their city rooftop to perform as Bucktoof, the last remaining band in the city. (Interestingly, Whip and Straw's names are not provided at all in the first issue of the series, a careless omission indeed in the grand scheme of things.).

In a city infested with zombies, Whip and Straw have learned to assimilate. When venturing out into the city by day, they wear makeshift hockey masks and act as if they too are undead. This tactic fools the teeming masses of walked dead, and the creators of the series have attempted to capitalize on this plot point by including a "zombie survival kit" with each of the three issues of the series. The kit, which is a paper hockey mask one can cut from the centerfold of the comic, is accompanied by a legal disclaimer on its use:

Warning: Dark Horse Comics takes no responsibility, and makes no guarantee that this mask will save you from an attack of the living dead. Furthermore, wearing a mask does not guarantee safe passage through zombie-infested areas. Please refer to the actions a to the actions taken by the characters in this book, and practice moaning the words "Brain and "Flesh" in public areas. Dark Horse Comics takes no responsibility for the looks you will receive for utilizing your Living Dead Disguise.

How clever.

The issue that is to come between these two best friends is not unfamiliar. In establishing this conflict, Richardson recycles a plot not from comics but from sitcoms: Whip and Straw begin to stab each other in the back over issues large and small upon the appearance of Betty Davis, a woman they both come to admire. She is a tattooed hipster and the last remaining female in the city, leading to the tagline of the series: "Two boys, a girl, and seven billion living dead!" Davis is feisty and a bit self absorbed, but she captivates the two male would-be heroes, who rescue her from the mall in which they find her and then attempt to woo her. The two risk their friendship - and each other's lives - just to be in the same room with her. Ultimately, though, upon finally realizing they she is a threat to their cozy existence, they toss her from the rooftop into a pack of zombies, thereby resolving the issue of the day.


The aforementioned comparison to a sitcom is apt not just with respect to the tone of the series, but also its scope. This is not an epic tale of survival, as is The Walking Dead, the fine series by the famed Robert Kirkman. Of course, this series does not aspire to be a such, but its tired premise and overly familiar romantic sub plot are derivative of prior narratives which themselves were derivative of what came before them, as well. The question: To invest the time, energy, and effort required of a three issue comic series these days, why refrain from an attempt at something fearless and inventive? Dark Horse Comics provides no answer to that question.

28 Days Later (2003)

Permit a heresy: George Romero, director and grandfather of the zombie horror film, never fulfilled the promise of 1968's Night of the Living Dead. With that film, he created frightful genre capable of both startling chills and social commentary. But its sequels simply could not capitalize upon everything that made the original so innovative and captivating.

1978's Dawn of the Dead offered some keen social observations on consumerism with the undead reflexively wandering through malls as if instinct demanded it. But at 139 minutes, the film moved at a pace as slow as the zombies it depicted. With 1985's Day of the Dead and 2005's Land of the Dead, Romero illustrated his apparent belief that the genre's evolution could only be brought about only through the zombie's discovery of his or her own individuality. But the manner in which Romero explored such Cartesian zombie thought processes was as cinematic as a dry academic thesis. In horror films, zombies eat their victims' brains; they realize the potential of their own brains.

But the younger directors now trafficking in zombie pictures realized that to make that genre frightening again they must replace the plodding uncertainty of Romero's zombies with a new rage and speed. The notion that slow zombies have lost their scare value is hardly new. Ten years ago, on March 19, 1997, Dennis McLaughlin reviewed the Doctor Who serial, "Dragonfire" on the rec.arts.drwho Usenet newsgroup and asked: "Why do zombies have to move so slowly? Fast zombies are much more likely to capture their prey, aren't they?"

Good questions.

Pioneering that new "fast zombie" direction was British director Danny Boyle with 2003's 28 Days Later (which, technically, is not a zombie picture as it depicts victims of a rage virus).

Jim (Cillian Murphy) runs from a fast zombie set afire, in 28 Days Later.

28 Days Later chronicles the effects of a bio-genetically engineered disease, or rage virus, which has ravaged London and turned those it infects into gruesome zombies. As the film begins, Jim (Cillian Murphy, just a few years shy of his role as Scarecrow in 2005's Batman Begins), awakens from a coma four weeks after the disease begins to spread. Finding no one in the hospital, or anywhere else for that matter, he discovers that he may well be alone in London, now an empty metropolis. He, like Tom Cruise in the Times Square sequence of Vanilla Sky, strolls through the vacant city streets and past familiar landmarks. Following the conventions of the genre, Jim stumbles upon other survivors who have banded together in the aftermath of the zombie infestation, including characters played by Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley, Brendan Gleeson, and the young Megan Burns. They attempt to make their way from London to the countryside, where they encounter a number of seemingly friendly military servicemen (led by future star of Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston). But like most soldiers in such films, they prove to be as much of a threat, if not more, than the undead. By film's end, the group of survivors has dwindled, and there is no clear salvation for humanity.

Jim (Murphy) walks the empty streets of London in 28 Days Later.

As a director, Boyle was once applauded for Trainspotting and Shallow Grave and later forgiven for the trespasses that were The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary. With this low budget horror flick, he took a risk by shooting on digital video, of all things, and casting mostly unknown actors as the leads. However, the digital video effectively dramatically conveys a sense of isolation, immediacy, and gritty realism. He eschews well choreographed action sequences and computer generated special effects and opts for a jerky verite camera style. In his review, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott observed that the film has some roots in the Danish Dogme95 movement, a nod to cinematic minimalism and truth. Scott wrote:

[T]he most haunting moments in "28 Days Later" . . . have little to do with social allegory, graphic horror or cinematic shock tactics. The movie, shot in digital video by Anthony Dod Mantle (who has worked with Dogma 95 disciples like Harmony Korine, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier), sometimes has an ethereal, almost painterly beauty. The London skyline takes on the faded, melancholy quality of a Turner watercolor; a field of flowers looks as if it were daubed and scraped directly onto the screen. Thanks to Mr. Mantle's images and Mr. Boyle's unexpected restraint, the middle section of the picture, though punctuated by mayhem and grimness, has a pastoral mood, and the actors, unwinding from the stress and panic of London, are allowed to be warm, loose and funny.

Today's viewers are are so accustomed to formula that any device that still shocks or startles is welcome. For Boyle and his cinematographer, less is more, which in 2003 was a re-emerging trend in horror and suspense thrillers. Hollywood had rediscovered that what the viewer does not see is far more frightening than any multi-million dollar computer generated monster. Both Alejandro Amenábar, who directed The Others, and M. Night Shyamalan, who did Signs and before that The Sixth Sense understood this principle (although Shyamalan has allowed his initial successes to cloud his judgment in later projects). In 28 Days Later, "the infected," as they are known, are very much like the humans they once were, except for their glowing red eyes, rage, and obsessive hunger. They are like us, and shot on digital video, they are all the more scary for it. Accordingly, Jim's quest to free himself from their clutches is actually suspenseful. In accomplishing that task, Boyle did something remarkable.

But, alas, Boyle would not return to direct the sequel, 2007's 28 Weeks Later. Sticking around only to executive produce that film, Boyle was replaced at the helm by 29 year old Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, then known mostly for 2001's excellent Intacto. But the sequel lacked much of what made 28 Days Later a vibrant success; gone were the stark realism of digital video and the novelty of the fast zombies (which had featured in the 2005 remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead). Romero, for his part, may have learned his lesson but overcompensated: In February of 2008, he will release Diary of the Dead, an alleged reboot of his franchise featuring the struggle of young filmmakers in a world of zombies. As pleasant as it might be to see zombies descend upon a gaggle of pretentious film majors, 67 year old Romero may be forcing himself to err on the side of the young and hip in a desperate attempt at relevance. Boyle, meanwhile, spent some of 2007 suggesting the possibility of a third and final installment of his franchise titled, of course, 28 Months Later.

These days, everybody has to have a trilogy.

Crawlspace #1: XXXombies

"Our first arc, the four-issue, XXXombies, is a concept cooked up with special guest collaborator, Tony Moore, the original artist of The Walking Dead. It was actually born during a late night phone chat as Tony and I were discussing the state of the comics industry. I'm sure you won't be too surprised to learn the idea of zombies and porn starts started off as a joke. Then we started rolling around some ideas about how to make something like that work and within ten minutes we'd fallen in love with it." - Rick Remender, "The Crawl Space," Crawl Space #1, (Image Comics, Issue Date: October 2007).

That's right, it's come to this: zombies versus porn stars. Written by Rick Remender, with art by Kieron Dwyer, story by Remender, Tony Moore, and Dwyer, colors by Lee Loughridge, lettering by Rus Wooton and with a cover by Dwyer and Moore, Crawlspace #1 begs the question: is it possible for something of the exploitation genre simply to go too far in its efforts?

As this is but the first issue of a four part series, readers see only the initial outbreak of the zombification of California and the first reaction of the pornographer protagonists (who, having locked themselves in a large home for several days to shoot a number of films, are quite unaware of the apocalypse which has befallen their fair city/state/nation.). The central characters include: a sleazy/crazy porn director desperate to complete a number of films in order to meet the demands of some type of sinister criminal overlord, a young actor and actress (both of whom are new to the business and naive and not unlike a more sordid version of Martin Freeman and Joanna Page's characters in Love Actually), the father of said actress desperate to liberate her from the perils of pornography, an arrogant and obnoxious porn veteran who believes himself to be God's gift to everything, and a henchman of the aforementioned overlord dispatched to ensure that his employer's investment is protected and well served. With this lot, it is not difficult to predict which of these characters will be ultimately devoured by the advancing horde of walking corpses. Whatever narrative you have concocted in your head based upon these character descriptions is, alas, probably accurate.

Zombie comics (a form of deathsploitation, perhaps) have flooded the market in recent years, and each creative teams attempts to put its own spin on the premise. Unfortunately, in the wake of the genre's popularity, the creative spin has become a mere gimmick, giving rise to slight variations on a theme that should have been left unvaried. (In the 1990s, at the multiplexes, cinemagoers suffered through movie that began as pitches like "Die Hard on a Plane," "Die Hard on a Boat," and "Die Hard on a Bus," and now, comic readers confront "Zombies Doing This," "Zombies Doing That," and of course, "Zombies Doing The Other.").

The consequence is that zombie genre has devolved into a lengthy game of schlocky one-upsmanship. Creator A attempts to shock and awe with his zany idea, sending Creator B on a quest to find something more shocking and awing, and so on, ad infinitum, ad naseum. This leads to such things as Zombie King #0, in which a zombie copulates with a cow, and now Crawlspace #1, in which a porn star films a scene with a zombie who she mistakes for a colleague merely strung out on drugs. That's entertainment?

Shocking is not necessarily a synonym for bold. As a series, The Walking Dead is compelling because it explores not just the ravages of the zombie apocalypse but also the emotional toll on the men, women, and children who were (un)fortunate enough to survive its arrival. That series' protagonists are not stock characters or props waiting to be slain. They fear their new world, they long for the past, they fight, they flee, they suffer. Unfortunately, this existential human element is lacking from most of today's zombie comics, which typically eschew character development to show girls in tight t-shirts and jeans running from the dead and the violence and death that will ultimately ensue from such a chase.

This is not to say that zombie comics can't be fun and silly. But can there be no meaning in the exploitation genre? Is all gimmick and premise with no additional substance? If not, then the genre was already pornography, even without the presence of pornographers. Sigh.

Happy Halloween.

Stephen King's Cell

Newsflash: Last year's Stephen King novel, Cell, is not very good.

Prior to reading his attempt at zombie fiction, it had been quite some time since I had purchased a new King book. (In fact, it was Christmas of 1989 when I received and read The Dark Half.). I should have stopped reading his mighty tomes in the 1980s, but I could not resist the temptation of purchasing a King book about a zombie apocalypse. What can I say?

Sadly, the book offers merely the typical zombie motifs (stereotypes?) and adds little to the genre. King tries to add a twist by calling them "phone-crazies" (an awkward name the creatures earned because their transformation into the undead or living dead or walking dead was prompted by an electromagnetic pulse sent out by cellular telephone). If you have seen any zombie films (whether they be the old school George Romero films or more modern quick paced ones like 28 Days Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake, you have little reason to turn to King's latest offering of pop horror. You get the same flurry of action and confusion following the immediate aftermath of the post apocalyptic event, the same grouping together of dazed survivors (who, throughout the course of the narrative, prove to be more flinty than they seemed, or who perish due to their failure to prove more flinty), the same initial inability to cope with the sudden transformation of the world, and of course, the germination of an idea or scheme to thwart the zombies (at least temporarily). As zombies have become trendy in comics and film, the formula remains the same (with only Danny Boyle of 28 Days Later and the Shaun of the Dead guys truly adding something along the way). King really adds nothing to the equation (which is not surprising as he was last innovative during the Reagan years).

What struck me while reading the book, though, was not the plot's deficiencies or lack of originality. It was the realization that King is not a very good writer. That may not be news to you, dear readers (and I can't say that I am surprised, either) but for those of us who really haven't read his work since the dawn of the first Bush presidency, it is of note. Perhaps I am a more mature reader than I was in the winter of 1989 (I hope). Perhaps King was better in the late 1970s and early 1980s (when he was young, new to the publishing industry, and still hungry for mega-success rather than routinely churning out books en masse). The same thing happens to aging rock stars, why not aging writers? Or maybe, and perhaps most likely, he was never anything more than a guilty pleasure and I didn't notice during my youth in the 1980s.

The dialogue in the book, which is obviously important to any narrative, is stilted and awkward. Crafting good dialogue is very, very tricky. King's dialogue is just odd. People don't speak as he presents them , and it is obvious. Some authors write dialogue the way they themselves speak, or the way they think they do, or worst of all, the way they themselves write (and not speak). King's attempt at clever dialogue is even more stilted.

If you've made it this far into the review, you may be wondering, why bother to make the statement that King is not a good writer? Isn't that akin to a multiparagraph entry on the sky being blue, grass being green, or Kevin Smith being overrated? Perhaps. But really, what I find disturbing is that it is evidence of a trend. Nostalgia, aided and abetted by the onslaught of media and consumerism, resurrects many, many things which were popular when we were young. Without fail, those things that are brought back into our lives inevitably disappoint. Whether they be television shows, movies, or whatever, the things we enjoyed during our youth turn out to be embarrassments when we revisit them decades later.

Oh, well. That's what I get for buying pop fiction, right?

28 Weeks Later

Arriving on DVD last week was "28 Weeks Later," the sequel to 2002's inventive "28 Days Later," the fearless and inventive Danny Boyle directed digital video zombie thriller set in a London overrun by humans infected with the rage virus. With a different director, and slightly altered stylistic approach, the sequel initially caused me worry, although it delivered in a way that few modern horror films do. But is that really saying all that much?

Perhaps my only complaint is the film's use of the "familiar zombie" motif. Don't bother Googling that phrase as I just made it up to describe a zombie film's use of a recurring zombie to heighten tension, drama, and fright. In "28 Weeks Later," this part is played by Robert Carlyle, who begins the film as a cowardly husband who leaves his wife to die in a cottage on the outskirts of London in the aftermath of the initial viral outbreak. The film then flashes forward several months, and Carlyle is reunited with his two children, who were safely away at boarding school during the events depicted in the first film. Their reunion takes place at a U.S. Army run facility through which citizens are being repatriated back into England. Ultimately, after a number of plot developments I'll excise for my purposes here, Carlyle is infected and begins another outbreak of the virus. The thing is, Carlyle keeps reappearing and pursuing his children as they attempt to escape the facility and the U.S. Army's zealous attempt to exterminate all those who are infected as well as those who simply might be. Again and again, Carlyle resurfaces until a final encounter in an abandoned subway station, where he has somehow tracked his children and their remaining protector, though it is far from the original facility. How did he find them? Coincidence? Happenstance?

I think not.

The problem with this device is that it elevates the zombie character into a identifiable villain. Zombies, by their very nature, are anonymous members of an advancing horde of corpses. If we individualize them, they lose that which makes them the most frightful. Certainly, there is some drama and horror to be had in watching a character become infected and briefly chase his former friends and family. But allowing that to continue throughout and over the course of the film dilutes the concept and strays too close to the slasher-film genre where an all too familiar enemy keeps coming and coming and coming until the narrative's end.

Other zombie films have made attempts to individualize the zombie. In George Romero's rather dull 1985 film "Day of the Dead," we see the theme carried out to its extreme as a captured zombie regains some of his personality and relearns his human response system. Building upon that, in Romero's far more recent "Land of the Dead," a single zombie essentially becomes the ringleader of a throng bent on attacking a fortified city. Romero seems fascinated with the natural evolution of the zombie, from its origin as an anonymous corpse to its elevation to some type of primitive sentient being. I think, therefore I eat brains?

Of course, I'm a zombie movie heretic for preferring the fast moving zombies to the slow dull plodding ones of Romero's films. I'm really only a fan of Romero's original 1968 "Night of the Living Dead," which is the grandfather of the genre and as suspenseful as can be. Its first sequel, "Dawn of the Dead," was intriguing in parts but way too lengthy and slow moving for my tastes (and by today's standard's the anti-consumerist message couldn't be more heavy handed). And yes, I know that technically, "28 Days Later" and its sequel are not technically zombie movies as the films are about a virus with infects the living, not the dead.

Oh, well.