Tag: Zombies

End of World Subcategories: Campocalypse Now! (The Wacky Apocalypse)

August 8, 2017

Grumpy cat     Armageddon isn’t supposed to be funny…or is it? The fact that there are enough films, tv and literature to create an actual funny end-of-days category says otherwise. I mean – the end of the world is a pretty big, scary topic, and we, as humans, actively seek catharsis, so it makes pretty good sense this would be a bonafide class of its own.

My earliest example of this was Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which basically begins with the end of the world…and starts out swinging: the Dolphins leave Earth, thanking us for the fish, because they are supreme beings who know the planet is about to be blown up because it’s in the way. And wacky hijinx ensue. Also in the 80’s, we were treated to Night of the Comet, teenagers survive the tail of the comet only to have to deal with all the humans who were turned into zombies because they were outside when the comet hit. There is, of course, a mandatory scene where the teenagers go to the deserted mall and play dress up.

More recently, we’ve gotten the Simon Pegg gems Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End, (and oh my god, I would LOVELOVELOVE to see Simon tackle a mash-up dystopia of Hunger Games, Handmaid’s Tale and Divergent) parodying self-absorbed UK hipsters during a zombie apocalypse and alien invasion respectively (and hilariously) and a rash of really recent television series, such as The Last Man on Earth, No Tomorrow and You, Me and the Apocalypse.

I have to confess: though I think most of these are funny and clever, with the exception of You, Me and the Apocalypse (and maybe because, in addition to its being comedic, it was also EXTREMELY DARK), I haven’t tended to enjoy them as much alpacalypseas their more serious older sisters. What can I say? I’m attracted to dark. I’m attracted to bleak. Mostly because it makes our current life seem less so. But considering the way things are headed in contemporary society, that may just be a matter of time, (nuclear war with North Korea? Coming soon to a west coast near you! Anthrax outbreak via ISIS? Coming soon to New York City! Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-present specter of climate change, likely coming soon, period!) and another thing I enjoy about the more serious shows is they are partly instructional. And of course, there’s the gallows-humor aspect, and always another opportunity to examine ourselves as human beings, and see those things that make humanity great…and not so great. What do you think?
Books: The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaday, Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Movies: Zombieland, This is the End, Dr. Strangelove, Wall-E, Idiocracy
TV: Aftermath, iZombie, Z Nation, The Tribe

TRAILERS! WALKERS! A Giant Tiger!

July 21, 2017

the-walking-dead-season-8-release-date

Okay, so, full disclosure for my 3 followers, this has been an INSANE week (in a good way – SO many creative projects to tend to, and even a job interview to prepare for next week with the word “artist” in its title!!!), and I don’t feel I can give a full, thoughtful post on the current End of World Subcategory I’m tackling (ALIEN INVASION!!! Stay tuned…), but didn’t want to blemish my track record of posting at least once a week by taking a complete break.

And I just watched the recent trailers (unveiled just today at San Diego Comic Con!) for The Walking Dead and its little sister, Fear the Walking Dead:

Fear The Walking Dead 3rd mid-season premiereTrailer

The Walking Dead Season 8  premiere Trailer

Suffice it to say, I’m brimming with geeky excitement and anticipation for all the upcoming post apocalyptic carnage and badassery to come. I will try to keep my commentary brief, but:

FEAR TWD:

1.) Not sure if it’s because it’s original (not based on previous source material, other than its sister show), but I love that there aren’t any comic book spoilers ever.

2.) Also because it’s original and perhaps partly due to current times, FEAR is tackling social politics waaaaay more than TWD, and it’s spot on, timely and pretty savvy. I really appreciate how sometimes, instead of going in the predictable direction we are used to from TWD, Fear does a complete 180.

3.) The snippet where Madison comes face-to-face with Daniel in the storm drain! Can’t wait for that reunion.

4.) It’s looking like, instead of a Governor/Prison scenario, the native people and survivalist compound folks will form some kind of union (that will likely be tenuous, given that Troy is a sociopath, for one) and help each other, at least for awhile.

TWD:

1.) Looks like some great heroic speeches by Rick and Maggie…I kinda want Ezekiel to RECITE Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech in its entirety at some point, because he is amazing, and it would be awesome, and it would totally work, since the character was a stage actor before the zombie apocalypse!

2.) BIG badassery from all our favorite folks. Daryl returning to being badass and blowing shit up instead of weepy, emo Daryl (pleasegodplease) sorry – I am a perv for Mr. Dixon.

3.) Was looking for the beach ladies, but didn’t spy them. I have to think they’ll show up again sooner or later, because why else would they have spent two episodes on them?

4.) Jesus and Morgan getting into it? WTF? Morgan saying “I don’t die”, means he’ll probably die.

5.) And…are they trying to psych us out with that ending? Is Rick going to wake up from his coma and discover it was ALL A DREAM??? That is awesome and sucks, all at the same time.

There you have it. Some impressions. This nerd girl can’t wait for September 10 and October 22 respectively!Fear The Walking Dead Season 3B, Photo credit: Courtesy AMC

Too Close For Comfort: Current Times & The Postapocalypse

June 28, 2017

FlagI’m gonna take a little respite between End of World Subcatogories (back to that next time!) to ponder something I’ve been stewing on for a bit, particularly since a friend of mine tagged me on this particular tweet:

Screen Shot 2017-06-27 at 11.26.13 AM

Whilst it specifically mentions dystopian fiction (the Societal Breakdown!), I would say I’ve had many more Disturbing Thoughts regarding postapocalyptic and disaster fiction as well since the advent of the wormhole this country seemed to collective fall into on November 8th of last year.

Depending on the day, it feels like we will either explode in some kind of nuclear conflict with North Korea, with all the unhinged tweetings of this creature who is supposed to have the best interests of every American in mind (fat chance) (I still can’t put his name after the word “president”), or plunge headlong into something resembling The Handmaid’s Tale at the hands of our current vice president. And then there is the very real and imminent threat posed by climate change/global warming. You don’t have to be a scientist to believe this…we are rapidly approaching the tipping point of no return.

I used to find this sort of fiction cathartic – not sure I can fully describe why, but it has something to do with “Oh, it’s just fiction – as bad as things might be, we’re not THERE yet”…because I don’t think I’ve ever felt this close to THERE as I have over the past few months. And thus, my interest in this type of story has shifted a little…rather than being as completely cathartic as it was before, I look to these movies, television shows and books as a means of instruction, really. What are these people doing in these simulated situations that I could learn from, in the very real possibility of the Sh*t Hitting The Fan for real.

From Walking Dead, I’ve learned not only how to kill a zombie (it’s gotta be the brain!) but which weapon tends to be better in this type of apocalypse. Guns work, of course, but they’re SO loud!Better to use something like a katana, a crossbow or a barbed wire-covered baseball bat: they’re quieter, and get confiscated less. And that the following skills are better than currency: hunting, farming, healing.

From The Stand, I learned to trust my gut – especially when it comes to my dreams. From The Last Ship, I learned that in an outbreak, one should keep one’s distance from others as much as possible.

From most dystopian fiction, I’ve learned that if something is amiss with the way things are being run, don’t ignore it, don’t go with the flow. Resist early, resist often, enlist like-minded people to your cause and fight tooth and nail to keep the freedoms and benefits you have.

From nearly ALL postapocalyptic fiction, I’ve learned one HUGE fundamental thing: other survivors can be your source of greatest strength and your biggest enemies, because the collapse of civilization brings about all sorts of opportunists who size you up according to what they can take from you. Darwinism at its most base, I suppose.

Oh. And if I start talking about what I’ve learned from speculative, climate-change scenarios, I’m going to start crying.

Would love to hear why this type of fiction appeals to you, and what, if anything, you’ve learned from your experiences of it!

 

 

 

End of World Subcategories: The Zombie Apocalypse

June 7, 2017

3-The-Walking-Dead

Probably (and arguably) the most popular of our postapocalyptic guilty pleasures, if box-office totals and ratings are any indication, and one that has, in particular, gained ground in the last decade is:

The Zombie Apocalypse. Okay. So. Full disclosure: I didn’t have a whole lot of respect for this subset of the genre until recently. I mean: I’m a vampire girl. I cut my teeth on The Vampire Lestat and The Lost Boys. Zombies, on the whole, just don’t make for that fascinating or cunning of a monster. They’re dead, and pretty gross, so it’s hard to feel much empathy or compassion for them. And honestly, if it’s only one or two, they’re pretty easy to take out, especially if they’ve been undead for awhile and are in an advanced state of decay.

I mean, not that I didn’t enjoy The Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead (and all their exponentially campy sequels and remakes), but the reasons I had a good time had less to do with the quality of the movies and more to do with the people I watched them with. There also was a bit of philosophy going around that zombie fiction tended to be hotter during Republican presidencies (mindless hordes) while vampire fiction tended to be hotter during Democratic presidencies (compassionate bloodsucker), which was always kind of interesting. And of course, now we are in the unprecedented time of the demigorgon, but I digress – that is a tale for another time, and may, indeed, predicate an ACTUAL apocalypse.

The zombie movies I traditionally liked best were the ones that tried to do something slightly different, like 28 Days Later and its rapid-moving rage zombies & Shaun of the Dead, high comedic parody about a group of extremely self-absorbed friends who are more interested in their interpersonal drama than they are aware of the world falling apart around them.

Also: zombies straddle genres: if you look at horror as a subset of Speculative Fiction, and Post-Apocalypse as a subset of Horror, zombies can either squarely fall under Horror, in the further subset of Monster, or Outbreak. For my purposes, I am discussing the Outbreak variety, since that seems to be more likely to result in some sort of global collapse, though below, I will give share my favorite zombie Monster fiction as well.

At any rate, I still didn’t find them to be that interesting a monster, and all around me, zombie culture was exploding: zombie walks, zombie survival courses, zombie video games, zombie birthday parties, you name it. The Walking Dead became the highest-rated cable show, and they were even having Walking Dead parties on Good Morning America. I wasn’t interested.

Then, I read some friends a short, postapocalyptic play of mine (plague-related apocalypse – think more The Stand than anything zombified), that featured a mother talking about her deceased daughter, Sophia. Both friends immediately asked me if I watched TWD. I sighed, rolled my eyes, impatiently said no, and told them why I just wasn’t interested. They pushed me further, saying TWD was more about the post-apocalyptic world that just happened to have been brought about by zombies.

I still was hesitant, but then found myself with some free time the next week…binged the first 5 seasons over two weekends (felt like I’d been sucked into the Zombie Apocalypse myself!), and was, of course, rabidly hooked. The walkers (love that they are NOT called zombies here) were still not that interesting in and of themselves, but some of the things the show has done with them are pretty innovative, from the different ways to kill them, to people keeping their undead loved ones alive or being faced with having to kill them, to weaponizing them in some truly unique ways, did capture my interest, and of course, a television series has more opportunity for long-ranging character development, so I became attached to the dwindling core of main survivors and intrigued, as my friends had said I would be, by the world presented in the series, and the opportunity to examine how human beings cope with not only global, societal collapse, but also with repeated trauma and ensuing PTSD.

My takeaway is this: Zombie apocalypse, while difficult for survivors, would be a great season of rest to heal the planet, and start to reverse climate change. If one manages to survive the undead and the opportunistic living, tempers the waves of repeated PTSD and ends up in a relatively peace-loving and somewhat democratic community, once the zombies finally start dying off (I mean, they have to rot into liquid and bone at some point, right?), the world left behind is likely quite beautiful, from a nature perspective, and maybe an opportunity for humanity to rebuild anew. Thus, as something to live through, I’d prefer it to the nuclear variety.

Other examples of Zombie fiction:

Books: The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, Cell by Stephen King, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Movies: The Serpent and The Rainbow, Night of the Comet, the Resident Evil series, World War Z, Quarantine

TV: iZombie, Z Nation, Fear the Walking Dead, The Returned/Les Revenants, Resurrection

You, Me & The Postapocalypse

May 13, 2017

When I was in 8th grade, The Day After aired on television. It was the junior high equivalent of a water-cooler topic – we were ALL talking about it beforehand, and we were definitely all talking about it the day after. As a movie, it wasn’t the most perfect example of speculative fiction, but it served as great fodder for classroom discussion (especially in the middle of the cold war!). I remember a friend and I, during summer vacation, creating our own fictional bunker in case of nuclear war – we’d spend hours just figuring out how long we’d have to stay underground, who we’d like to bring with us and what kind of sewage/water/food systems we’d have to subsist on.  The Day After was probably my formal introduction to the subgenre, likely the first I’d thought of it, and was the kickoff to a lifetime’s fascination.

Sub-genre of what, you ask? Is apocalypse/aftermath fiction horror? Is it science fiction? I’ve long had a fear it will become science FACT. I like the umbrella term “Speculative Fiction”. Under its wings, you might find Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, etc. And I suppose, depending on the type of apocalypse, you would then go on to put things under those subcategories…zombie apocalypse might fall under horror, whilst robots destroying the world might fit better with Science Fiction.

​In high school, I read my first Stephen King novel, The Stand, which tells the story of a world decimated through a superflu plague. Another of my friends had also read it, and we spent hours on the phone each night imagining what we might do in such a scenario, where we might travel, what and who we might bring, and how we might rebuild society. Obviously, I was hooked.

Several decades later, I am no less fascinated and intrigued by the different iterations of fictional apocalypse, and have happily devoured many television, film and book tales with varied and imaginative end times. I’ve even written a couple of post-apocalyptic plays. And there is no shortage of end days’ paranoia, given the current political situation and global climate, to think about. Climate change anyone? Nuclear war? How ‘bout some Ebola?

Right now, my intention is an entire apocalyptic blog on the subject and of course, all its potential subcategories, because, though I have very little control over things unfolding on the world stage, at least I can have some control over this.  I’ll discuss zombies, aliens, asteroids, WWIII, acts of god, no Armageddon is off limits, and maybe I’ll throw in speculation about how one might survive such a thing, and even discuss putting together different sorts of survival kits for your more run-of-the-mill cataclysm. I’ll make book, film and tv recommendations on each subcategory, because lord knows I’ve consumed a lion’s share!

If this is your thing and you’re intrigued, feel free to take a look! And if you have any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas on topics you might enjoy reading about within the subject, please feel free to share your feedback.