10.5.07

Thinking: about Zombies (as you do)

It seems as though it's just been wall-to-wall zombies in my head in the last 24 hours.

Firstly I came across this song called re: Your Brains by a guy called Jonathon Coulton which is pretty funny. I must say that I'm tempted to have a crack at making another video for it using The Movies game as the World of Warcraft machinima thing doesn't quite do it for me in a song about guys in an office.



I've also read about a film being released soon which echoes Snakes on a Plane but replaces the snakes with zombies. (Which I actually think works pretty well - it takes one of the zombie movie fundamentals (hiding) and cuts that option back to virtually nothing). It was initially called Plane Dead but the title has now been changed to Flight of the Living Dead. (Classy). (Update - apparently the idea pre-dates Snakes on a Plane)

Here's the trailer.



One of the things that I've been thinking about with the zombie genre (for those who don't know, I have long harboured the desire to make the ultimate Aussie zombie pic) is the current reliance on the use of a virus as the zombifying agent. It makes a lot of sense in many ways - particularly in growing the zombie population through bites. (The scariest thing about zombies - given that they are generally slow moving and fairly brainless - is their sheer weight of numbers).

Plane Dead/Flight of the living dead continues with this idea but I'm really wondering if there is another way. Viruses in the form of HIV, Ebola, SARS and Avian Flu are prominent fear factors these days so it makes sense but is this all starting to repeat on itself.

I dreamt about zombies last night as well - being the plucky hero type I was never in any real danger (I like my adventure dreams) and I think I was actually trying out a few ideas as well. Nothing great unfortunately but it's nice to know that the unconscious is still ticking away on the problem.

Waking up this morning, I turned on the radio (Newsradio of course) to hear about the likely imminent retirement of Tony Blair. Fairly unzombie-like news you would think right - but then the leader of the opposition over there, David Cameron, described Blair's party as "the government of the living dead."

Now there's a movie idea.

I particularly liked the way the BBC news story wrapped up the issue -

Mind you, perhaps he should study the "Living Dead" horror films more closely.

No matter how many of the zombies you kill, and no matter how gory their end, they just keep on coming.

And take your eye off them for a moment and they eat you alive.

A lesson for all of us perhaps.