Zombies are making a comeback. What used to be confined to horror movies played strictly in October can now be experienced year round. Classic movies such as “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead” have made way for countless remakes as well as new interpretations such as 2009’s horror comedy “Zombieland” and AMC’s hit “The Walking Dead.”
The American obsession with the supernatural, i.e. vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and zombies, has been around for centuries, dating back to our very colonization, which was influenced by tall tales and legends. However, despite our natural inclination toward the extraordinary and disturbing, the real reason we are so hooked on zombie movies, shows, books and games has nothing to do with zombies at all, but rather the ordinary people who are left to deal with them.
As with all good post-apocalyptic works, zombie movies are centered on the characters struggling to survive in the new world after civilization has been destroyed. And while we all initially tune into a good zombie show or movie for the thrill and gore of moaning, dim-witted, half-rotted human corpses trying to eat people, we become devoted followers for a much different reason. We almost instantaneously become deeply invested in the characters that have been unceremoniously pushed into a world so depraved and raw that we find it almost unfathomable. And despite these characters’ impending doom, we root for them to somehow survive and find happiness in what can only be described as Hell on Earth.
And it’s the same with literature. Acclaimed fictionists such as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe have been writing post-apocalyptic stories since far before the zombie fad came into existence. In Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, “The Road,” the appeal is the same. We are simply fascinated with tracking the decisions and morality of these characters who no longer have laws, rules, government, or society to depend on for guidance.
We would like to believe that we would never turn to cannibalism, kill entire families for food, or partake in any other of the horrific incidents common to post-apocalyptic fiction. In other words, we all want to be the Ricks of “The Walking Dead” and never the Shanes. However, the small voice of doubt and paranoia reminding us that humans have been known to commit terrible deeds in times of desperation sparks our interest and makes up our obsession with zombie entertainment.
Ultimately, it’s not the mindless, bloodthirsty creatures called zombies that scare us into coming back for more, but rather it’s the cunning and resourceful, but altogether desperate human survivors whom we should be afraid of as they reveal the potential for evil that lurks just beneath the surface of each of us overshadowed by years of tradition and societal conditioning.
