To Run or To Shamble...

That is the question.

--or--

That always confused me. (For fans of "In Living Color")

So, it's been a while. I said it would be. It's not like I didn't warn you, intrepid reader.

But, here we are now. Entertain us. Or something like that.

Anyway, a friend, and fellow gamer, recently pointed me in the direction of a little indy zombie flick called Dead Snow. I sat down to watch it, and had a thought. --No, my head didn't explode.-- And the thought was thus: Running zombies kind of suck.

GASP!

What's that you say? I'll say it again -- RUNNING ZOMBIES SUCK.

They aren't zombies anymore. You might as well write a story where the city is overrun by rabid wolves, because that's pretty much the equivalent. Thoughtless eating machines that pursue you without thought of personal injury. Hell, they don't even seem to get winded. But, the point of the zombie is not to be supernaturally quick, or even vicious. The zombie is about the horde. An implacable force of dead that outnumbers the living, made up of creatures that could be the guy next door, your best friend, your sister, even your significant other. The Other is us.

Don't get me wrong. I loved 28 Days Later. And there was definitely a sense of "The Other is us" there as well. But I've never considered that to be a zombie movie. As I define a zombie, the rage carriers of 28 Days... are significantly different. They aren't dead. The pre-requisite to being a zombie is death. If it's not a reanimated corpse, it isn't a zombie.

Now, certainly, there are others that would argue that this point is merely semantics, but, for me, it's non-negotiable. Sure, you can't put a rage carrier down immediately with a single shot to the chest, but, eventually, that bullet will get the best of them. On the other hand, a zombie, through the grace of whatever force it is that animates their lifeless corpse, can continue indefinitely with a hole where a lung used to be. Unstoppable. Implacable. Like Michael Myers when he was simply "The Shape". To my mind, that is what makes a zombie truly frightening.

Of course, a single shambler is laughable. Even two or three are almost pathetic. It makes for much more kinetic film making when you're being chased by a handful of runners down a dark, dank corridor. I'll be the first to admit that the parking garage sequence in the "Dawn of the Dead" remake is pretty bad ass. But, the fear in that scene, the frisson, if you will, derives from the more kinetic tension of being chased, not from the fact that what's chasing them is an unstoppable flesh eater. And, with shamblers, chase is a relative term. It's more like, everywhere you turn, you find more, and more. The fear is both visceral, and abstract. Something akin to claustrophobia.

I suppose this speaks to what the modern audience wants from a horror film. Perhaps I simply find myself behind the times in my desire for a more psychological approach. Maybe I'm desensitized by the media, but blood and gore, and being chased down a dark hallway isn't enough for me.

Until next time, my solitary reader, I'll see ya when I see ya.