Damn, that was a great post Miller! I am in awe.
[QUOTE=Zebra]
I was Chanel surfing the other day and on one of the Spanish language channels there was a movie of Lucha Libre or Masked Wrestlers fighting zombies. .
[/QUOTE]
“Chanel surfing”?
You were using perfume?
To cover up the zombie stink, mayhap?
[QUOTE=RickJay]
Variations on the theme have also been employed, such as the film “28 Days Later,” where instead of the walking dead, people were infected with a virus that turned them into mindless killing machines, but the jist of it was the same.
[/QUOTE]
Thing is, though, the concept only works if the cause of the phenomenon is supernatural. If there were a virus like that and you caught it . . . you wouldn’t live 28 days. In fact, you’d probably die of thirst or hunger in a week or two. Think about it.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
A popular setting for horror fiction, movies, horror-themed games and the like is the ever-useful Zombie Apocalypse. In a zombie apocalypse, the world is unexpectedly overrun by swarms of the living dead, moaning, shambling zombies who go around eating the living.
Zombie Apocalypse fiction usually features a number of plucky survivors attempting to survive in a world full of hideous, cannibalistic ghouls. Many movies, usually named “(Noun) Of the Dead” have been made on this theme, and virtually every horror writer worth mentioning has written at least one story about a world filled with hungry zombies. There’s even a book out now that serves as a how-to guide for dealing with hordes of flesh-eating corpses, featuring detailed instructions on constructing zombie-proof shelters, engaging in zombie elimination missions, and the like; if there is anything about dealing with homovorous undead, this guy thought of it. It’s a weird book.
Variations on the theme have also been employed, such as the film “28 Days Later,” where instead of the walking dead, people were infected with a virus that turned them into mindless killing machines, but the jist of it was the same.
I’m wondering where all this came from. Did someone just come up with the idea and then everyone else ran with it?
[/QUOTE]
In a world gone mad with economic down turns, car bombings,WMD’s, missing white women, rampant obesity, Anna Nicole’s Unsurprising Death and Whose her baby’s Daddy? I am thankful for the Real Issues of life like THIS being asked.
This Magnificent Question is the kinda genius that keeps me subscribing to The Dope year after year.
I bow to your greatness, sir.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Thing is, though, the concept only works if the cause of the phenomenon is supernatural. If there were a virus like that and you caught it . . . you wouldn’t live 28 days. In fact, you’d probably die of thirst or hunger in a week or two. Think about it.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t think of any movies of the zombie holocaust genre that have involved any supernatural elements. I’m sure there are a few out there, but almost invariably, the zombie plague is either wholly unexplained, or the result of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong.
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus]
That’s funny because me and a friend were shoooting the breeze one day and we had an idea for a movie about Zombies, but not the George Romero Zombies, No these zombies would be just like regular people, and the fact that people wouldnn’t stay dead was causing all sorts of problems with resources and there was also whatever -ism one could have against zombies (metabolism?). We actually saw it as a comedy.
[/QUOTE]
I haven’t seen it yet, but I believe Robin Campillo’s [URL=]Les Revenants [2004] more or less fits your bill, even if it may be more a [melo-]drama than a comedy.
And that film in turn sounds like it could’ve been very loosely inspired by Will Self’s 1991 gently comic short story “The North London Book of the Dead,” in which a forty-ish man discovers that his mother, though deceased and cremated, is enjoying an afterlife in a modest basement apartment in a rather dull neighborhood in Crouch End. These living dead are zombies, but they’re perfectly ordinary – even banal – in their behavior. Their society is self-administering, with its own telephone book, real estate agents, and so on.
A key difference between the short story and the film might be that Self’s [un]dead aren’t assimilationist, per se – they’re content to avoid their loved ones, live in unfamiliar neighborhoods to prevent their discovery, and not advertise their true nature.
[QUOTE=Zebra]
I was Chanel surfing the other day and on one of the Spanish language channels there was a movie of Lucha Libre or Masked Wrestlers fighting zombies. It was called 'The Castel of ?" I wish I had seen the whole movie. It was really fun.
[/QUOTE]
Santo contra los zombies? (1961)
[English version: The Invasion of the Zombies]
But more likely it was *El Castillo de las Momias de Guanajuato *
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273144/
Regarding the “mummies” of Guanajuato:
http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/group/guanajuato.htm
And all that reminded me that in 1932 besides White Zombie, the original *The Mummy * was also released, AFAIK Lugosi’s zombies were more related to the zombies from Haiti (slaves in a trance, the people not quite really dead) I do wonder if the Mummy’s walk and mood at the time of reanimation was the influence for future undead behavior.
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
And all that reminded me that in 1932 besides White Zombie, the original *The Mummy * was also released, AFAIK Lugosi’s zombies…
[/QUOTE]
Nitpick: The Mummy was Karloff, not Lugosi.
[QUOTE=Tengu]
Nitpick: The Mummy was Karloff, not Lugosi.
[/QUOTE]
I know.. that came a little bit confusing. I meant to say indeed that in White Zombie Lugosi’s Zombies were walking around like in a trance, Karloff’s The Mummy was more (Romero) zombie like when it got out of the sarcophagus.
BTW if you have the time and the bandwidth, you can check the original White Zombie in Youtube, (warning: terrible sound quality)
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
I know.. that came a little bit confusing. I meant to say indeed that in White Zombie Lugosi’s Zombies were walking around like in a trance, Karloff’s The Mummy was more (Romero) zombie like when it got out of the sarcophagus.
[/QUOTE]
OK, that’s clearer. Gotcha. Nitpick retracted.
[QUOTE=Miller]
I can’t think of any movies of the zombie holocaust genre that have involved any supernatural elements. I’m sure there are a few out there, but almost invariably, the zombie plague is either wholly unexplained, or the result of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong.
[/QUOTE]
If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards.
[/QUOTE]
What’s your point?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards.
[/QUOTE]
Ooh, ooh, I know! He’s a plant!
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
Ooh, ooh, I know! He’s a plant!
[/QUOTE]
No, no, plants die without water.
[QUOTE=Miller]
What’s your point?
[/QUOTE]
That zombies cannot exist except by means supernatural or practically indistinguishable from supernatural.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
That zombies cannot exist except by means supernatural or practically indistinguishable from supernatural.
[/QUOTE]
I kinda think “zombies aren’t real” is a given for threads like this.
[QUOTE=Miller]
I kinda think “zombies aren’t real” is a given for threads like this.
[/QUOTE]
My point is that you can’t even make a “realistic” SF film about living pseudozombies, such as 28 Days, and actually have it be realistic.
(Going back to an earlier discussion)
As far as I Am Legend goes, I can’t say I hold out too much hope for the plot of the movie. I can, however, say that I expect it to be visually stunning.
I’m biased, however. My cousin Pat’s the art director.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
My point is that you can’t even make a “realistic” SF film about living pseudozombies, such as 28 Days, and actually have it be realistic.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for clearing that up. I’m sure it was a source of great confusion for many of us.
Re the Serenity variant:
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
…In later years, the Reavers become the Boogieman for those who live out on the Rim, occassionally attacking ships and small colonies, raping, killing, and eating most (if you’re very very lucky, in that order)…
[/QUOTE]
[spoiler]Hmm… if I’m very very lucky, I’d rather be killed first, raped, and THEN eaten. Or maybe, (if I’m in a whimsical mood that day,) killed first, then eaten, and then raped, but I’m not so sure about that.
Or are you implying that nobody is ever lucky enough to be killed first??[/spoiler]
