We continue our discussion about the slow-walking dead with Brendan Hay. Brendan was a headline producer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a contributing writer for America: The Book. More recently, he’s written for The Simpsons, Frank TV, and The Mighty B! A lifelong comic book fan, Brendan also wrote and created the mini-series Scream Queen for BOOM! Studios and is writing BOOM!’s newest series, Eureka, as well as an original graphic novel for Oni Press, due out in 2010. He also co-wrote the book Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit? Brendan resides in Los Angeles with his wife, playwright and freelance writer Jennifer Chen, and their three-legged cat, Bentley.He has seen more zombie films than... why don't I just let him tell you.
DL: How many zombie films do you think you’ve seen?
BH: Hmm, let’s see… five by George Romero, three remakes of Romero’s movies, two by Lucio Fulci, three from the Return of the Living Dead franchise, the two 28 (Blank) Laters, Dead Alive, Re-Animator, Shaun of the Dead, Black Sheep, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Cemetery Man, Night of the Creeps, Night of the Comet, Night of the Living Dorks, Creepshow, Pet Sematary, Shadow: Dead Riot, Dead Heat, Planet Terror, Versus, Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town… wow, this list is getting longer than I expected. So I guess to save time: a lot. I’ve seen a lot. And that’s not even counting movies that fall into a zombie-ish grey area, like The Evil Dead or The Omega Man or Weekend At Bernie’s.
Yet, there are so many more I want to see. For example, I still need to watch Shock Waves, featuring the awesome combo of Peter Cushing and Nazi zombies.
DL: What elements make for a superior zombie film?
BH: Any combination of three or more of the following: a solid story, social commentary, genuine scares, inventive gore, funny gore, a zombie animal, unexpected decapitation, batshit crazy acting, a zombie baby, George Romero, that moment at the end where the surviving humans sadly realize they’re the real enemy, any Lovecraftian themes, a glowing green goo or serum, a zombie dance number, and Tom Savini.
DL: What is the Citizen Kane of zombie films?
BH: George Romero is without a doubt the Orson Welles of zombie films, but you can make solid arguments for either of his two best works, Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead. It’s much like the debate over The Godfather or The Godfather, Part II. Both are classics, but do you honor the film that changed the entire genre and set the rules for everything that followed, or do you choose its more ambitious follow-up? I slightly prefer Night, finding it scarier, but Dawn did open my eyes to just how much fun an anti-consumerism allegory could be.
DL: Is Plan 9 from Outer Space the Plan 9 from Outer Space of zombie films?
BH: Actually, because Plan 9 is pretty hilarious in its awfulness, I’m instead going to go with House of the Dead by latter day Ed Wood, Uwe Boll. That is a black hole of celluloid.
DL: I had the pleasure of seeing a zombie film with you, Black Sheep, a hybrid from New Zealand, where the zombies are actually sheep. How do you feel about films that deviate from the zombie mythos like this, or to a less extreme extent, like the fast moving zombies of 28 Days Later?
BH: I’m all for it. I’m no purist. I fully believe that without innovation, a genre will die out. So if it’s scary or interesting, I’m on board. Black Sheep was one of the funnier recent spins on the zombie movie, so I very much enjoyed it. In fact, at this point in time, I’m more interested in seeing ridiculous variations like that than yet another retelling of “people trapped in a remote location with zombies.”
I will say, however, that I prefer slow moving zombies. In marching so slowly at their victims, zombies seem scarier to me. Maybe it’s because they come off as more confident, less needy. Also, “rigor mortis” just sounds freaky, and if you’re running, you ain’t got rigor mortis.
Our trilogy ends with the next post, where we discover what Joe the Plumber’s fate would be were he in a zombie film, whether or not Rob Zombie is actually a zombie, and Brendan's top five zombie films of all time.
