What is a Zombie?
What is the Zombie Apocalypse?
What is the Best Z.A. Preparedness Plan?
What is the Best Zombie Movie?
What is the Best Zombie Novel?
What is the Best Zombie TV Show? (Like you have to ask. . .)
What is the Best Weapon Against Zombies?
What is the Best Fragrance to Wear for the Z.A.?
What do Catholics Think of Zombies?
What Good Are Zombies to the New Evangelization?
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Glad to see an update of Pseudo-Tricortricius' Quaestiones Disputatae de infernalibus creaturis Zombiis nuncupatis.
ReplyDeletePart of the undone work of Vatican II.
I'm afraid I have to beg to differ re: the best Zombie movie. Your link is to the quite excellent 28 Days Later. While this is a very fine film, the danger in the movie is only zombies by analogy, not zombies as such. To be sure, it inaugurated a new "take" on zombies (viz. the "fast zombie") seen in such films as the remake/revisioning of Dawn of the Dead. Even so, for the full zombie experience, nothing beats the original Romero Night of the Living Dead (which, incidentally, although the undisputed origin of modern, Hollywood zombie lore, never calls the creatures zombies, but rather ghouls, in light of the fact that, like the ghul of Arabic folklore, are demons of the graveyard that feast on the flesh of the dead).
ReplyDeleteIf 28 Day Later is disqualified b/c the "zombies" aren't really zombies, then why isn't NLD disqualified for the same reason? To quote an expert in the field, ". . .although the undisputed origin of modern, Hollywood zombie lore, [Romero] never calls the creatures zombies, but rather ghouls. . ."
DeleteSo, we might say--by way of compromise--that NDL is the best ghoul movie and 28DL is the best fast zombie movie?
:-)
I suppose it depends on whether we want to deal with the quiddity of the zombie or not. After all, I think that zombie, in later-20th century to 21st century lore is precisely a *dead* body which is, paradoxically, nonetheless animate, and possesses an insatiable desire to eat the flesh (or, in the [noun] of the Living Dead series and its impact on pop culture, as opposed to the more orthodox [time of day] of the Dead lineage derived from Romero's Night of the Living Dead, *brains*) of the living, then what are called ghouls in NLD are in fact zombies, and the infected in 28DL are only zombies by analogy. If, however, we are dealing with the question of *genre* rather than quiddity, then I agree that 28DL is indisputably a "zombie movie", whatever the (meta)physical status of the infected. (By way of a parallel, while the creature(s) in Alien and Aliens are the same thing, in terms of genre, I would call Alien a horror movie while Aliens is a sci-fi/action/thriller.)
ReplyDeleteNice distinctions! Thomas would be proud.
DeleteSo, basically, you're saying that I'm right.
Yes, folks, these are the kinds of conversations Fr. Dominic and I used to have while walking the cloister after lunch in Rome.