This morning I woke up from nightmares riddled with zombies
and poorly organized 5K races. Now for those
who know, the more terrifying dream contains the disorganized 5K business, but
that’s for another time. The zombie bit,
however, was understandably disturbing and somewhat sleep depriving.
Ever since I was young, I’ve had a deep love-hate
relationship with horror. Love it; can’t
watch it. Watch it anyway; toss and turn all night with my mind rewriting an REM storyline much scarier than the original.
Because let’s be real, the predictability of horror these days kind of
takes the punch out of it for some, and by some, I mean me. Only even if I knew where the story was going
while I watched, I still get punched with the unknown. All
night long.
Back to this morning…upon waking, I began ferreting out the
reason my brain went wonky with my own personal sucker punches. Lucky for me being almost intelligent, it
only took a few seconds to figure out why my brain was so disturbed while
simultaneously realizing a small victory of a fight almost forgotten: you actually
can break zombie rules and have that breach work for you.
Here’s an offending clip similar to what I saw right before
heading to beddie-bye:
These aren’t your ordinary zombies. These are fast
moving zombies. Zombies don’t move
quickly. They don’t. Ever.
Mostly because fast moving zombies are a major violation of zombie
rules.
You can be surprised by a zombie arm bashing through a
window and pulling you through it. They
can have that sense of surprise and strength.
You can be tricked into thinking your relative, now
zombified, is still in there, but find out you’re wrong because they bite a
chunk out of your shoulder.
You can outrun a zombie…wait. Not so in this new film. This fact would have old school critics up in
arms, believe me. (If you don’t, read
some of the commentary.) Zombie rules
are serious business.
Back, moons ago, I blogged the raging debate I had with my
youthful, creative writing cohorts over zombie rules because another student
had written a short story liberally busting up zombie codes of conduct. I felt it was a particularly well-written
story, and rule breakage actually made the story more believable, or at the
very least, more entertaining. I was basically
told at that time that maybe I was too old to
get it (fuck you, too, creatively-caged
babies) and that “everyone knows you
can’t break zombie rules.” “It’s just
not done.” “It’s the poorest of form.” “People have expectations”…yada yada yada. *eye roll*
Back to speedy zombies you can’t seem to outrun and who can,
en masse, overtake a city bus. Breaking
the rules makes this story scarier. Or apparently it did for my brain.
It’s the element of surprise, people. The unexpected. Humans, in general, don’t like that whole unforeseen,
total loss of control business. It’s why
movies like Halloween and Jaws scared the bejesus out of most
people.
I also suspect that’s why all we see now are copied themes
and remakes of old stories that originally made money. It’s an attempt to engage new blood to these
classic horror techniques, except the shock factor is done and dusty. Expected.
We know that as the sweet music is playing towards the roll of credits,
the arm will reach up from the grave and grab the woman's arm placing flowers there. We
know when the person finally kills the monster that plummets over the
cliff/balcony/stairwell that the body will be long gone by the time the
protagonist leans over to take a look-see.
Those rehashed stories are certainly safe money makers, but BOOORINGGGZZZZzzzzzz.
Perhaps people like the security conventional tactics
provide? We sure seem to like to know,
and control, the outcome of things. Fast
moving zombies put us out of our element.
They make us more scared because we can’t determine where we’ll end up,
or if we’ll survive. Heroes of our own
life, we’re not sure we have the smarts, strength, and speed to move faster and
with more endurance than the most adept, threatening zombie in our world.
Broken rules make us feel…unsafe. Still, a broken rule is anything but boring. Breaking the rules shakes people up a
bit. Makes stories scarier. Or funnier.
Or sadder. But infinitely more interesting. That goes for the stories of our lives, too.
We’re forced to grow, to think more creatively with more
cunning, compassion, and character.
Trained to follow the rules, we have to be courageous enough to step
outside of the box while dealing with our own bus-dumping, fast moving, flesh
eating “monsters” that’d sooner suck us into their daily catatonic abyss of
blah than allow us to wrench ourselves free and become something far more
intriguing to ourselves and the rest of the world.
I may or may not need to see World War Z in the theater, though if not, I suspect I’ll watch it
on video at some point (best when my mate doesn’t have to get up early since
he’ll be dealing with my catastrophizing dreamscape). I’ll watch because I have a sincere appreciation
for the disregarding of rules…especially of the zombie variety.
And finally, to that guy from my English 415 class, wherever
he is now, we were right, dude. Screw
the zombie rules! Rule breakers unite!!!
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