#50 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: Vampire Hunter Club Live

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably been drooling in anticipation at the release of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on DVD, the movie of the book written by that guy who thought of taking public domain works of literature and making money by inserting the word “zombie” into every other sentence.

You may even have heard of the press event launched to promote the DVD, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: Vampire Hunter Club Live, a game put together by the minds behind our favourite Zombie LARP. Regular readers will be familiar with my previous zombie LARP adventures, from my heroic death during the tragic tale of Team Scavenger, to our first doomed foray into Station Zero at the Friar’s Walk Mall, to the Zombie LARP Christmas Carol, where we learned that Morris dancers are apparently way more badass than any of us thought likely, in such a way that some narrow-minded people may believe, ahem, completely broke the game.

But that was all a long time ago. This time, rather than assembling yet another team of doomed comrades and leading them to their death, I joined the staff at the event, playing one of the evil vampires that were being hunted. As a result I was given food and travel expenses that were ultimately paid for by Fox, so I’ve finally sold out and everything I say from here on in is probably suspect.

Grant Howitt, one of the game designers behind this and Zombie LARP, has already written an excellent blog post on the things he learned designing and running the game. And Alex Hern has already written an article for the New Statesman on his experiences playing a vampire hunter, and we have no wish here to duplicate content already provided by that fine publication.

So today I’m going to tell you some of the things I learned as a vampire, intermingled with a couple of player stories we’ve received from some LARP virgins.

Vampire Lesson One: Talking With Fangs Is Really Hard (And A Bit Racist)

The whole point in being a vampire is that you receive eternal life, superior strength and otherworldly beauty, but that it comes at a terrible cost. Many vampire stories are vague about just what that cost is (Do you really believe in a soul anyway?). Well, having walked in a vampire’s shoes I can tell you what that cost is, and it’s not worth it.

Eternal life, eternal beauty is great, but trying to do that with two massive prosthetic fangs crowding the front of your mouth completely ruins the whole thing. After I’d had my make-up applied and my teeth glued in I discovered to my horror that becoming a dark creature of the night meant I could no longer pronounce my Rs or my Ss. My speech had taken a form that was hideous, and yet somehow familiar. Before long it dawned on me. In my efforts to speak clearly with those fangs in my mouth, I was apparently doing some sort of weird Fu Manchu style Chinese accent.

I spent the remainder of my preparation time before the game saying “The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plains” in a desperate attempt to learn how to speak normally in case any Asians turned up to the game.

Interlude: The story of Ryan Sullivan

I had a great time at the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Live Vampire Hunt (ALVHLVH).

I had no idea what to expect when I arrived. All I knew was I wanted to get my hands on a weapon and head out on the first expedition. I didn't have to wait long until a shotgun was put in my hands and a brave doctor - discernible by his white lab coat - was leading an exploratory mission out into the dark.

After checking the several small rooms we passed, didn't want to fall victim to a simple ambush on the first outing, we arrived on the Dancefloor; which would become one of the bloodiest battlefields of the evening. Here we found a solitary vampire who retreated before our awe-inspiring awesomeness. So we gave chase to the little hellspawn!

This is when I had my first lesson in "don't underestimate a vampire." He'd lured us right back to the nest of vampires. One had turned to eight. We beat a hasty retreat to the Dancefloor and the battle began. I quickly ran out of ammo and had to abandon my team-mates temporarily to reload. This action was noticed by a bystander and my bravery, or lack thereof, was quickly pointed out to me.

Once I was rearmed I returned to the fight and helped to save a fallen comrade and dispense of the undead horrors. We returned to the safe house as heroes, laying waste to four of the vampire scorn. That was only the beginning.

A plan was forged by Leo, the maker of plans. We were to plant a bomb in the heart of the vampire nest and cleanse this place of their foul stench once and for all. My ammunition had long been spent and I went onto the battlefield armed with nothing but a single bandage to aid any injured companions. It was terrifying, the feeling of complete vulnerability.

Soon a brawl broke out and I pulled a man from the front lines to administer the aid I could, lest he fall to the dark host and become one of them. My comrade had dropped his weapon in the commotion and the demons were close to swiping it. I wrestled it away from their cold dead hands and looked in awe upon the Axe of Abraham Lincoln. It was glorious.

With our forefather's axe in hand and Leo's excellent plan, victory was assured. Our group was separated by a last ditch ambush from the vampires but they were too late and they knew it. We closed the door on the safehouse to hear the explosion boom above us. It was over. The night was safe once more.

Vampire Lesson Two: People Don’t Object To Being Sent Into Certain Death As Much As You’d Think

The Vampire Hunter game took place in two sessions, with two very different and distinct feels. The first game could be best described as, well, a total and utter blood bath. The players swarmed out into the abandoned nightclub, armed with NERF shotguns or, as Zombie LARP veterans call them “No way are you sending me out there with one of those, I want to try and make it through this game alive!”

We did our best to give them a fighting chance, but before long the vampires found ourselves surrounded by Thralls, the unwilling, brainwashed slaves we’d made of murdered vampire hunters. Thralls are discernible by several qualities. First, the red bandage wrapped around their arm to signify their allegiance to the undead. Two, that they are totally useless in a fight unless you can procure a weapon for them. Three, that although they’ve fallen in battle, they’re still paying to be here, so despite being your army of obedient minions, you also have to make sure they’re having fun.

With so many dead, many vampires soon found themselves with far too many thralls under their command, and it was hard to give them all fascinating and engaging tasks to do. So when in doubt it wasn’t uncommon to tell them to just charge head on into a front line of axe wielding survivors. What was quite spooky though, was the sheer enthusiasm the thralls seemed to have for what would inevitably turn out to be a short and sticky death (especially given the fact that seriously, players never, ever, ever learn to pull their blows).

Interlude: The Tale of Rebecca Cosgriff of Books Becca Buys

Having never before attended a 'livegame', I wasn't quite sure what to expect when me and my (coerced) friend turned up to Islington Metal Works. I wasn’t massively reassured when I was ushered inside amongst some leather-clad compatriots to sign a liability waver.

Only slightly deterred, we congregated inside the main room of the metalworks (furnished with a rather fetching faux train carriage/burger van) to hear the welcoming speech from our hosts, Serious Business. Promptly informed that we were not to expect mere immersive theatre but a live action horror game to solve and participate in (cue clammy hands), we were let loose with strict instructions to hit only from the chest down and try not to seriously maim anyone.

What followed was at least 30 minutes of general standing about feeling confused and, if I’m honest, a bit left out. Some people had obviously attended similar events before and got straight down to de-coding baffling messages strewn around, and volunteering to take the limited weapons on a scouting mission. Those of us not so sure of ourselves were left behind with nothing to do and no weapons to brandish for quite some time. I understand that this sort of game involves proactivity but it would have been nice if some of the cast members had engaged with those of us obviously standing around looking baffled, and ensured that everyone had a turn being led through the labyrinthal metalworks on an mission (my group were selected to get nuked up and taken out into the field, only to get forgotten about and left, tempted to give up the ghost and just order a burger).

With only about 30 minutes to go my friend and a couple of other lost souls decided to just go for it, grabbed a weapon from a cast member and got involved. I have to say it was a lot of fun, despite stubbing my toe and screaming, in a way that would have made Buffy turn in her grave (before being hastily resurrected), trying to run away from the hissing, prosthetic-clad un-dead. We managed to merge with a more experienced group and I was soon responding to frantic calls for “MEDIC” and bashing away at some poor(presumably) underpaid actresses with a foam axe. Bliss.

The whole thing struck me as a terrifying medium between Secret Cinema and the London Bridge Experience, and all in all I had a good laugh and met some nice people. But my experience would have been much more positive with a bit better organisation, a few more (working) weapons and some effort to include people not so sure of themselves, or at least introduce some ‘getting to know you’ activities before things kick off so the n00bs can team up with the pros.

I can’t say I’m a live action simulation convert, but I definitely would consider giving it another bash (literally) when the Serious Business has a bit more experience.

Vampire Lesson Three: It Is Mankind That Is The Real Monster

The second game had fewer players, but more alarmingly, they got organised. Where’s in the last game if Grant and Mary wanted to shit the players up they just had to send a couple of us running and screaming into the safe room to watch them scatter and panic, this time we’d run into the safe room to meet a barrage of NERF darts and axe-blows.

Listening to the referees and the human NPCs we kept hearing how terrified the players were, but as a vampire you would see only death. Instant, violent death.

And then came my moment to shine.

One of the elements Grant and Mary had added to Vampire Hunter to differentiate it from Zombie LARP was the introduction of Interrogations. A vampire would be dragged kicking and screaming into the safe room, tied to a chair and questioned for valuable information that the players would need to progress. As a vampire you were given two pieces of information, and a “trigger” that would cause you to spill everything.

My compatriot in previous LARPs, Alina, for instance, played an agile, parkour-esque vampire who would tell you everything if you threatened to damage her legs. Within seconds of being taken into the room someone had chopped off one of her legs and she sang like a canary.

We assumed the players had done their research, and so I was looking forward to seeing what would happen when I went in. The interrogator dragged me into the safe room, and before I was even tied to the chair... they started hacking my legs off. Now this wasn’t my trigger, so I just had to limp over to the chair and continue the interrogation, and throughout I was slashed at, had things chopped off, and threatened.

But worst of all was the look in their eyes. People who I’m sure I’d love to meet socially were clearly really, really enjoying the torture. Like, a lot.

When they finally got all the information they could from me, I was brutally killed and tossed back out into the corridor, and I don’t mind admitting it was something of a relief.

When this blog started we used to play a regular drinking game of apocalyptic movie tropes, one of which was “mankind is the real monster”.

It is my friends. It definitely is.

Thanks to Lynsey Smith for letting me use her photos of the event. See the whole gallery here.

#12 Night of the Comet: 80sest Apocalypse Ever?

A return to form this week- I watched a zombie movie, now I’m going to write about the zombie movie. In the process I may make dick jokes. In case you haven’t worked out how this works yet: This blog will contain spoilers.

It just so happens that this week, 27 years ago, a special star shone down on the Earth, angels gathered over a certain expectant mother, and shepherds were told to visit a certain hospital, but decided not to. For that was the week I was born, and to mark such a momentous occasion, this week we’ll be looking at a movie from the year of my birth: Night of the Comet.

So, let’s trek back to a decade when shoulders were padded, videogames were 8-bit, hair was big and there wasn’t a problem in the world that couldn’t be solved with a power ballad.

Does Looking for Freedom count as a power ballad?

The 80s was kind of a weird time for horror movies. On the one hand, this was the era that gave us the phrase “Video Nasties” (which referred to a medium for watching films stored on clunky cassette tapes roughly the size of a paperback book), it saw the release of true classics such as Romero’s Day of the Dead, The Shining, Evil Dead, Hellraiser and Poltergeist (which one day I’m going to see all the way through without switching the telly off and going to bed with the lights on), it also arguably perfected the “Teenagers getting picked off one by one” genre with Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13^th (incidentally- am I the only person in the world who is genuinely excited by Scream 4?).  Then there was this bizarre sub genre of horror movies.

I’m talking about your Gremlins, your Lost Boys, and this one, Night of the Comet. These were undeniably horror movies, seeing a Gremlin shoved into a blender, or a young Jack Bauer convince someone to eat maggots were gross enough to ensure that. Night of the Comet doesn’t shirk either on the gruesome zombie make-up front. Each of these films received a 15, 18 and 15 certificate in the UK respectively.

And yet, there is something undeniably family friendly about each of these movies. It’s not just that the special effects have aged, or that we’ve become desensitised enough to let our eight year-olds play Splatterhouse.

The eighties got there first

There is something about these movies that makes them feel like they’re part of the same world as E.T. and The Goonies- where everything from government conspiracies, to treasure hunting gangs, to, yes, the undead, can be defeated by plucky kids with BMXs and an extensive comics collection. These are the kind of movies that you probably wouldn’t take your kids to see, but if you had to pick something for them to sneak a look at behind your back, these would make a good choice.

In Night of the Comet, we know from the very start that Reggie is a badass, not just because she has a boy’s name, but because she clearly rules the high scores of a video arcade machine. Sure, later we learn about the army dad who, like all responsible parents, taught his girls to know their way around an automatic weapon, but the association between video gaming and real life badassery is already there- despite the fact that videogames lacked the high definition graphics, realistic physics and open world/sandbox gameplay that makes videogames such effective post-apocalypse training tools today. The main characters, sisters Reggie and Sam, have normal, eighties teenager problems, slacker boyfriends, uptight bosses, bitchy stepmoms.

Also, that sweater cost $80

Now, looking at the material we’ve reviewed over the last three months, I think I’ve adequately demonstrated that, although being one of the pulpier genres, the zombie apocalypse movie is also an excellent platform for talking about politics, human nature, and social issues. This isn’t one of those movies.

The zombies aren’t an unexplainable horror, or the dreaded consequences of the atom bomb, genetic engineering or consumerism. They’re brought about by Earth passing through the tail of a comet. If there is a deeper meaning to this movie, it is that sunglasses are only ever worn by badasses, or evil people.

It plays fast a loose with the zombie rules in ways that even Peter Jackson would think was a bit much- the disease is progressive, but zombies are seen who can talk, fire guns, and (Spoiler) although it is in a dream sequence, two zombies are even seen riding motorcycles. At the same time, the film digs into the box of tropes normally associated with the genre- we have the “Hey everything in the mall is free!” montage, we have military scientists who start out as a rescue party but turn out to be the bad guys, and although they’re never really under siege, they do spend an awful lot of the movie holed up inside that radio station.

If your zombie survival compound doesn't have this much neon, you're practically dead already

This is also a great film for one liners, and I think everyone should watch it just so we can bring “I’m not crazy! I just don’t give a fuck!” into the common parlance.

And, intentionally or not, it does bring up perhaps the most frightening question posed by the zombie apocalypse. If the entire human race had been reduced to dust twenty seven years ago, alien archaeologists would have judged our entire civilisation by what we were like then.

Thank God we've come so far in the mean time!

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had a round of the drinking game, so here goes. They’re not exactly under siege, but since it’s been a couple of weeks I’ll let you take a shot for them being holed up in the radio station. The people coming to rescue the heroes are dangerous (they want to drain their blood) and incompetent (they all got infected because they left the ventilation system on their bunker open) so two shots for that. As an addendum to that mankind is the real monster (one shot). And Robert Beltran, still years away from donning a facial tattoo and joining the crew of Star Trek: Voyager, does run into a kiddy zombie, although in a fun twist, he doesn’t kill the kid to show how brutal you have to be to survive after the apocalypse (two shots).

#6 I Am Legend: Writing About Monsters

Yes, I made it back from London. It was a close run thing. In the tube stations it was hard to tell who was human and who was zombie, so I just swung my cricket bat at anything that moved until I made it to the exits. Ended up holing up in a pub called the Camden Head, where, as luck would have it, they were holding an evening of poetry, comedy and spoken word entertainment (I assume because the TV was no longer broadcasting). I won’t bore you with the details of my perilous trek back to Norwich, where somehow civilisation is managing to continue pretty much unaffected. All I’ll say is that on the coach trip I was able to enjoy rereading the excellent novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It’s a novel about the last human being, fortified in his own home, desperately fighting off hordes of vampires.

So, spoiler alert. No, seriously, spoiler alert. If you have any plans whatsoever to read this book, do it before reading this article because I am going to give away the ending, and it’s of the Planet of the Apes is Earth/Bruce Willis is a ghost order of spoilers. The book is only 160 pages long, you could easily finish it in a weekend, so go away and come back when you’ve read it. You’ll thank me.

I’m sure some of you are saying “Chris, don’t worry about it! I’ve already seen the film starring Will Smith!” and to those people I shall politely suggest that you read the book anyway, while quietly damning the creators of that film to the circle of hell reserved for People Who Completely Miss The Point.

Go read the book. I’ll wait.

....

Have you read it yet? Good. No, it’s okay, no need to thank me. Yes, I’m sure Will Smith is very sorry too.

So, I’ll be honest, this is going to be a hard one to blog. There’s a tonne of things I want to talk about with this book: The way it sets up a whole genre and subverts it at the same time, the difference between Horror Fiction and Science Fiction and how zombie fiction in general, and I Am Legend especially, nestle in the crack between the two, why there are some books you really ought to read twice.

Let’s start by talking about horror and science fiction, because nothing is as worthwhile as arguing about genre definitions. Someone (I can’t remember exactly who and Google is letting me down) once described Night of the Living Dead as a science fiction movie disguised as a horror movie. I’ve already mentioned that George A. Romero nicked the idea for Night of the Living Dead from this novel and the sci-fi passing as horror quote applies just as well to this book. The monsters are vampires with pointy teeth who come by night to suck your blood, but have a dread fear of garlic and the cross (or Torah if it’s a Jew vampire), they are creatures straight out of the Bram Stoker tradition.

Yes. Once again the Atheists have doomed us all.

But Robert Neville, now that there is no one left to make fun of his name, systematically goes through everything we know about the vampire, the sucking blood, the aversion to sunlight, even the magically turning to dust when staked, and finds rational explanations with a microscope and a supply of text books.

I could totally become a self-taught bacteriologist if everyone else would just die!

My argument for I Am Legend as sci-fi in horror clothing comes from elsewhere though (although the chapters devoted to describing bacilli and spores certainly help- it’s better than it sounds). In his musing on the horror genre, Danse Macabre, Stephen King describe the horror genre as a “Republican in a three-button suit”. Sure, the conservative has a werewolf-life second identity, scratch the skin and there’s a monster underneath, but really, the monster is there to show us what a monster isn’t. Horror shows us strange and terrible things to that we know what normal is, and it’s not a huge coincidence that most of the time those strange terrible things happen to be about sex.

I would argue, probably with a pint in my hand and at a volume slightly above what the other pub goers are comfortable with, that science fiction does the opposite of this. From Star Trek, to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, to my own book that I’ve just remembered I haven’t plugged for several weeks, science fiction is a genre that tells you that your definitions of right and wrong are an arbitrary line in the sand, your universal truths are provincial custom and your sense of what’s important comes mostly from a lack of perspective.

At first glance zombies, and the vampires of I Am Legend, seem like the perfect horror villain. There’s a reason why they’re such popular enemies in videogames, and it’s not just that zombies don’t need that much in the way of AI (Turns out, they do). It’s that, even more so than Nazis and aliens, you can mow down hundreds of zombies without hesitation or remorse. In virtually every zombie movie, including the ones we’ve looked at so far, hesitation to smash in zombie brains is seen as at best, not understanding the gravity of the situation, and at worst dangerously irresponsible.

I Am Legend is no different. He spends the first few chapters of the book sharpening stakes to hunt the sleeping vamps by day while they sleep.  By the end of the book hunting for Cortman, one of the more persistent vampires, is Neville’s “relaxing hobby”. The necessity of killing off the vampires is never questioned, although at one point early on, when Neville is still experimenting to work out the “rules” for these vampires, he reluctantly asks himself why he always does his tests on women. Because when you’re the last living human being there’s nobody to stop you being a creepmeister.

Then he meets Ruth, another survivor (Or Is She?) and suddenly after three years Neville lives in a world where there are opinions other than his own. One of things that shocks him most about this girl (Who he absolutely does not want to sleep with at all, no sirree) is her response to his clinical and emotionless descriptions of killing the vampires. He’s surprised when she describes it as horrible, but dismisses it like a true zombie survivalist with “One gets used to these things”. He’s incredulous when he finally brings himself to ask “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Of course (and I’m saying of course because you followed my warning at the beginning of this blog, and read the book, and so this entry will hold no surprises for you) it turns out that the vampires aren’t quite the soulless stake-fodder they’ve been made out to be. While the reanimated dead are fair game, Neville has also been killing living people who have been infected by, but not yet succumbed, to the vampire disease. To those infected survivors it Neville who is the nightmarish monster, coming like a vampire and taking them as they sleep through the day. So, like the vampire, Robert Neville becomes legend.

Oh? You thought it was because he blew himself up with a hand grenade? Well, that’s poetic too... I guess...

At the climax of the book, as the infected survivors slaughter the vampires as they fight their way to Neville’s house, Neville sees them through the eyes of a monster. He is appalled by the casual brutality and violence they inflict on the vampires, and is heartbroken when they finally kill Ben Cortman. But Ruth reminds him, “Did you ever see your face when you killed?”

This is what makes I Am Legend a science fiction novel, rather than a horror. In science fiction, when the horde of monsters finally get hold of you, they crowd around and shout “Look! There’s the monster!” When the toothy, many eyed abomination comes face to face with you, it says “You look gross.”

I Am Legend is a subversion and a commentary of the horror fiction that came before it, and in even more effective commentary on the genre it inspired. But for what it’s worth, I think this novel’s sympathy for the monster is something that has passed right through the DNA of the zombie apocalypse. Romero made his movie after reading I Am Legend as a book where: “There’s this global change and there’s one guy holding out saying, wait a minute, I’m still a human. He’s wrong. Go ahead. Join them.” Through all Romero’s movies, and his many imitators, you’ll find at least a little sympathy for the zombie, and see the survivors becoming something a little bit less than human.

It’s Valentine’s Day, so eat a heart-shaped liqueur chocolate for each of these. Because nothing says romance like gorging yourself while reading something on the Internet.

The characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building, eat a chocolate. The people coming to rescue you are more dangerous than the zombies? Well, they’re not really coming to rescue you- eat a chocolate.  Mankind is definitely the real monster, eat a chocolate, hell, take two. The zombies are walking dead (One chocolate) but that’s the only Romero rules chocolate you get for obvious reasons. Oh, and the monsters are never referred to as zombies, on account of how they’re vampires, so take two chocolates for that.

Until next week, you’re ALL legend.

#2 28 Days Later: Measure of a Zombie

This blog will contain spoilers for the movie 28 Days Later. Also, Romeo and Juliet die at the end.

Is 28 Days Later a zombie movie? This has been a subject of much debate among people who care about this sort of thing. So I’ve decided that now I’ve got a blog, I can end this argument once and for all, because nothing puts an end to a controversy like somebody writing a blog.

Well, let’s start by going right to the source- Danny Boyle, who directed the movie. He’s gone on record to say: “I keep saying, ‘It's not a zombie movie, everyone. It's not a zombie movie!'… They're infected. They're not zombies."

Other masters of the genre agree. Simon Pegg, writer and start of Shaun of the Dead and that zombie-themed episode of Spaced has chimed in describing 28 Days Later as “an excellent film misconstrued by the media as a zombie flick” but which actually features “rabid propagators of a virus known as "rage".”

A lot of zombie purists will agree. The argument is that the Infected sprint about like Olympic Athletes desperate to get to the loo and they aren’t dead. If we go by the definition of zombie listed in our zombie drinking game rules, your throat will go dry.

I’m Right- Everyone Else is Wrong

The reason I’m calling on such high authorities as the director of the film, and famed zombie nut Simon Pegg, is that I want to make it absolutely clear what calibre of people I am more right than.

28 Days Later is a zombie movie, and the infected are zombies. Deal with it.

Don’t get me wrong, like many geeks one of the few things that brings me more pleasure than sci-fi and fantasy, is getting really anal about sci-fi and fantasy. If you ever want to see what I look like when I’m really irritated, describe the Daleks as “The robots that fight Doctor Who” (The Daleks are the mutated aliens in armoured travel machines who fight the Doctor). Distinctions like that are important because they change the story. It matters whether the baddies are creatures who used to be like us, or machines made by someone like us.

But in 28 Days Later, while the infected are clearly different from George Romero’s creations, the story DNA is right there. Let’s start with the drinking game shall we?

Our merry band of survivors spend the last third of the film with some soldiers who are under siege in an old country home(One shot) where it turns out, that the people they have gone to for rescue are more dangerous than the... ahem, “infected” (One shot) because it turns out mankind is the real monster (One shot). On their way to find rescue, our hero, Jim, has to kill a kiddy... ahem, “infected” (Two shots).

In fact, it’s worth pointing out that the scene with the kiddy infected is almost beat-for-beat identical to a scene in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The survivors stop to refuel; one of them stupidly wanders off on his own into the building, and is forced to kill a murderous child (or two). (To be fair to Danny Boyle, he has admitted that “There are certain things in that we did that I didn't even realize were complete steals from Romero.”)

Still, the novel I Am Legend will lead you to drink quite a few shots under the drinking game rules as well, possibly more, since the monsters Robert Neville is fighting off are technically dead, but they are explicitly vampires. One of the texts Alex Garland and Danny Boyle openly admit to nicking from for this movie was Day of the Triffids, which will also see you downing a few shots, but even I’m not going to make the case for walking plants as zombies.

"Fools! Don't you realise? If we combined out powers, this wretched planet could be ours!"

So I’m going to have a make a better case if I’m going to crush all Internet debate on this subject forever (and I will settle for nothing less).

Spread the Love

Under the movie’s own terms, there are certain things that don’t really make sense for people who are just supposed to be really, really angry and bleeding a lot. If I was that pissed off I’d probably by laying into anything that moved, but several times during the film, the Infected don’t seem to have the much interest in attacking one another. When an enraged horde of Infected chase the survivors’ taxi until it’s out of reach, the hyper-violent, super-testosteroned nut boxes don’t immediately start kicking the shit out of each other. Instead, they give up running, and just watch the taxi slide out of view.

They were bitten by a chimpanzee infected with the half-arsed virus

When the infected soldiers are charging round the mansion at the end, looking to spread the love, two of them meet and instead of biting each other’s faces off, they stand around, sniffing the air and looking for someone less gore-splattered to attack.

This doesn’t make sense under the movie’s premise that these people are all just really pissed off, but it does make sense in the framework of the zombie movie, where the zombies’ behaviour is all geared towards making other people into zombies.

I would argue that this, more than anything else, is the most useful definition of a zombie: Something that used to be human, that as had all traces of intelligence and humanity permanently wiped away, and is now driven to spread this condition to others.

Simon Pegg’s argument for the Romero zombie as the only “real” zombie is that zombies “personify our deepest fear: death”. Except they also personify consumerism, or in Shaun of the Dead, couch potato culture, or the mob mentality. Over the years vampires have come to represent our fear of sex, the corrupt aristocracy, drug addiction, and being creepy glitter-saturated stalkers with promise-keeper rings. But regardless of whether they turn into bats or have a fetish for leather, whether they’re soulless demons or the victims of some sort of bloodsucking-based STD, we all know a vampire when we see one.

Zombies can be just as flexible, and it’s worth remembering that the original definition of a zombie has nothing to do with Romero’s creeping hordes. Traditionally, a proper zombie is an individual raised from the dead by Vodou witch doctors using a special type of cucumber, and is interested less in eating human flesh than serving his master.

Meanwhile, in Night of the Living Dead, you won’t once hear the word “Zombie”. In fact, that’s it. I’m adding it to the list.

Does anyone actually call the psychopathic, bloodthirsty hordes “zombies”? If no, take two shots.