DL: Can you explain your fascination with zombies?
BH: Three reasons:
1. Part of why I love horror as a genre is that, when done well, it’s all about allegory. Horror movies allow filmmakers to inventively tackle everything from politics to gender issues to the human condition. And to me, zombies are horror’s richest “metaphor monster.” There are so many ways to utilize zombies: they can represent the past or repression or slackers… they’re a blank canvas.
2. And if the previous reason was why my intellectual answer, this is my dumb one: zombies provide amazing opportunities for gore. Other movie monsters just bite or stab their victims, but zombies will devour you! And they’ll keep trying to eat you no matter what harm you do to their bodies! This combo allows talented directors and special effects artists to craft some of the creepiest, the craziest, and even funniest visuals ever seen on film.
3. The titles. The zombie genre has some of the most visceral titles ever. How can I not be curious to see something titled, say, Night of the Living Dead? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, Zombie Strippers?
DL: So there is a social or political subtext; they're not just an excuse for gratuitous gore?
BH: In the best ones, you get both, a message AND gallons of fake blood! All of George Romero’s zombies movies contain deeper subtext: Night is about 1960’s racial, gender, and generational divide, while in his more recent films he’s tackled the Bush administration’s fear-mongering (Land of the Dead) and how YouTube is desensitizing America’s youth (Diary of the Dead). Joe Dante made a fantastic short film a few years ago too, titled Homecoming, that used zombies to criticize Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Again, in the right hands, zombies make for a great metaphor.
DL: Was there a zombie a-ha moment in your life?
BH: Like many folks, I think my love of the genre began with Night of the Living Dead. In middle school, I started getting into horror movies thanks to Tales From The Crypt and Stephen King. During that time, I caught Night on my old black and white TV one night on PBS. Watching it alone in my bedroom, I was freaked out. Unlike so many other horror movies I’d seen before it, Night felt real.
DL: I recently watched The Honeymoon Killers again and it has that same feel. It’s very unsettling.
BH: Analyzing it now, I think it’s because the movie is so wonderfully unpolished, almost presented like a documentary at times. It was like I stumbled onto some old newsreel footage. I was used to movies like The Lost Boys, so seeing this matter-of-fact take on society falling apart and monsters eating human flesh… I was both deeply disturbed and totally hooked.
DL: Though I personally find zombies kind of scary, they don’t really seem to be much a threat. A strategic strike to the cranium with a dull shovel and they’re toast. But what makes them even less of a threat is the way they lumber after their victims. Couldn’t you just jog away from them? What makes them so fearsome?
BH: To me, it’s their overwhelming number that’s scary. Technically, yes, you could jog away from them, but then the question is this: where do you jog? In a good zombie movie, the zombies are everywhere. They’re not just that one lone serial killer or vampire; zombies are legion. As such, they create a terrifying feeling of no escape. No matter how many you kill, more rise up to hunt you.
Also, zombies are pretty much a sign of the apocalypse. I mean, one of the basic rules of life is you live, then you die. But with zombies present, those rules become null and void. Life as we knew it is no more. Game over, man.
Oh, and personally, cannibalism tops my “Things that make my skin crawl” list, so that also probably has something to do with my fear of these flesh-eaters.
Stay tuned for the sequel, where we will discover how many zombie films Brendan has seen, what makes a good zombie film, and what is the Plan 9 from Outer Space of zombie films.
