MovieChat Forums > Zombie Night (2013) Discussion > Same zombie formula, victims victimize t...

Same zombie formula, victims victimize themselves


All zombie movies, good, bad, and fair, use much of the same formula.
Human soon-to-be-victims-to-be-turned-into-zombies make themselves easy targets for zombies because of their own weaknesses.

1) Inability to accept that a dead loved one is no longer a human but a mindless apex predator that must be put down immediately but they hesitate or refuse and allow an zombie loved one bite them.

2) Allow inchoate panic and fear to drain all strength and ability to resist, just standing there screaming and flailing their arms weakly about.

3) In every zombie movie it takes a long time to discover that zombies must be shot in the head.

4) Instead of banding together, in every zombie movie, survivors have to fight among themselves, leaving themselves more vulnerable to being surprised and overwhelmed. Survivors allow typical human flaws of greed, anger, envy, and selfishness to undermine their survival.

5) Inability or refusal to learn critical lessons about dealing with or fighting off the walking dead.

P.S. We all love zombie flicks so much because it's a safe horror, meaning, zombies can never exist for real. Just as the laws of physics cannot be broken for example, reaching and exceeding the speed of light, the laws of biology cannot be broken. No beating heart to pump oxygen-giving blood, and brain death after ten minutes of oxygen deprivation all mean no such thing as zombies, ever. Zombies horror fantasies exist because humans have had to confront our own mortality and death, sometimes unnatural and violent, for countless millenia. The fear of not resting in peace and the violation of our bodies after death is what gave rise to prehistoric fears of the walking dead.

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Yeah. Agreed. I've never seen a zombie movie in which NOT ONE character was worth pulling for. NOT ONE chracter that you didn't hope would die. NOT ONE chracter that didn't get someone else killed and then whine about how you should help *them*. The little kid, for example, basically got his entire family killed. His mom....lets the neighbors all die, she could have opened the door....but then demands that they save her and her son who, as said, got his entire family killed? And then, she runs off and leaves them all to die AGAIN and then AGAIN demands that they save her son who, for the third time, got his ENTIRE FAMILY KILLED. They save him, at the risk of all of their lives AGAIN, and he turns on the damned toy that could have gotten them all killed again.

This was one of the only really original zombie flicks in the past decade, I mean as in it follows a single family etc and has a definite end, and yet it's probably the worst zombie flick I've seen in that same decade span. This one REALLY cheesed me off in ways that I can't even begin to describe!

The Dead is coming on. It's one of the best zombie flicks ever so I'll have to cut this short.

Great post, Jeff!

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You're welcome, VartanD, for the compliment. Why can't imdb posters be more like you and me, no immature trolls venting their tantrums and insecurities?

THE DEAD was a really good, zombie flick. I was surprised that it was actually an independant, economical budget movie filmed in Africa. I went to the theater in 2010 to see it. I had to drive far because the theater release was so limited. I was not disappointed. THE DEAD left me uneasy because of its overwhelming atmosphere of dread and despair. The message was that NO WHERE, day or night, were you safe in apocalyptic Africa. There were simply too many undead walking all over the bush outback, villages, towns...everywhere. You couldn't even count on finding a decent safe place to sleep for the night. It was just a matter of time. Still, I give this movie three stars out of four, which means, 'good'.

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The Dead had surprisingly good zombie makeup for such a low budget indepedent film. You should read the accounts of the filmmakers. They had several close encounters with danger while filming from bandits.

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Have you guys caught "the Dead 2, India"? Liked it a lot, too! Very understated, very easy to enjoy flick. Made some popcorn and ate Raisonettes while sipping a 2 liter Coke classic from my "special" cup :)

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