Low budget? Dawn of the Dead had nearly double the budget of Halloween, which was released the same year, and also more than 1980’s Friday the 13th. Return of the Living Dead’s budget was nearly double that of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning the same year.
None of the films I named were direct to video, and all of them had at least a fair amount of publicity. Return of the Living Dead introduced the whole “brainssss” concept, fercryinoutloud. Roger Ebert called Dawn of the Dead “one of the best horror films ever made.”
I named the ones from the 70s because I remembered all the t.v. and radio ads for them from when they first ran. I graduated in 1978, and grew up in a small town that only had one indoor screen and one outdoor screen. We didn’t get cult films. We didn’t get small releases. We didn’t even get all mainstream films. But we got those.
And as for big stars, well it just wasn’t common for “big names” to appear in any horror films, other than a handful of blockbusters.
I don’t think it’s a quibble to think that, for something to be a zombie, it at least has to be dead, first. That’s kind of fundamental to the concept. The “zombies” in Doom don’t even look dead - they’ve got glowing eyes, but otherwise resemble normal humans. They’re also not significantly harder to kill than a human, succumbing rather easily to being shot in the chest. Oh, and they use guns.
But, yeah, wikipedia calls them “zombies,” so that’s the important thing.
So it had a bigger budget than two other low budget horror movies?
I’m not sure what that proves.
Well, that’s kind of my point. Traditionally, horror’s been a bit of a ghetto, and the zombie movie a small subgenre of that ghetto. Now, we get giant Hollywood budgets and A list stars. Why is that? What changed, and why have zombie movies, of all things, been at the forefront of that change?
I think the facination isn’t so much with the zombies themselves. It’s watching society unravel and collapse because everyone who would normally be doing their job running everyday stuff is instead shambling (or sprinting) around killing or infecting everyone else.
FWIW, I include rage-disease films like in 28 Days Later or The Crazies as well as posessed undead films.
Personally, I find vampire stuff dull. They are usually about some brooding immortal, his relationship issues with some girl and sometimes having to deal with the stuffy and pretenteous beurocracy of vampire society.
Sure there are. The possessed soldiers are officially, per id, known as “zombies.”
That being said, just because Harris apparently used the one once means jack shit. No one ever claimed that zombies disappeared from public consciousness after 1985, just that they were less common. I honestly have no idea what you’re getting at, Came in like a Wrecking Ball.
One of the debates in this thread is that zombie culture can lead to detachment from other humans and even violence against them. Columbine seems like a perfect example.
My original question concerned reasons for the current popularity of zombies in our culture. Are you saying that one of the reasons is Columbine? I’m not really asking about the effects of zombies on the culture–that’s coming at it from the other side.
Also, I’m not sure I share your interpretation that someone has argued that zombie culture leads to detachment and violence. I interpret more like detachment and violence can lead to zombie culture.