Pondering the Undead

On last Monday, Hubby and I went to see the new movie Zombieland. It was exactly what I expected it to be and, disregarding the rough language and some of the rather gross scenes when the zombies were eating, I liked it. And I find it hilarious that the main character is played by a guy who just finished releasing to video a movie called Adventureland, that is completely unrelated to Zombieland. Can you imagine those two side by side on your resume?

I was thinking the other day, it seems like there have been a lot of zombie movies in the last couple of years. In 2004, Shaun of the Dead was released as well as Dawn of the Dead, the movie it played off of. A second one, Dawn of the Dead 2, came out even more recently.

Last year, I Am Legend came out with all its creatures. 28 Weeks Later came out in 2007 following the 2002 28 Days Later and I just saw that a new one, 28 Months Later is supposed to come out in 2011 with all of its rage infected zombie like citizens.

Army of the Dead comes out next year. I remember laughing as I put Flight of the Living Dead on the shelf at our store. And not too long after that, George A. Romero's: Survival of the Dead. What about Island of the Living Dead? Or Mutants that came out this year? And don't forget the multiple Resident Evil movies.

In fact, if you want to get some chuckles, you can go here and check out a pretty long list of zombie movies.

In just about all of these that I've seen, the zombie's are caused by some airborne viral infection which is then transferred by a bite or such. The victim's body is then controlled by some instinct or something else and the essence of civilization and personality is dead and gone.

There seems to be a lot of concern about things like this caused by a virus or some rapidly spreading infection. I find myself wondering where that came from. Maybe we take the whole cleanliness, sensitive skin, allergy thing a little too far.

Could our society be hypersensitive about cleanliness? Honestly, how many of us don't think we can live without Purell or Germ-X now? I'm not against cleanliness and don't even try to bring me a child with a stomach virus to babysit! I'll pretend I'm not at home.

But I have to wonder if we don't go a little overboard with it sometimes.

Or is it the zombie thing? What is so fascinating about a zombie that we can't get enough? Is it the mindlessness or the lack of control? Maybe it's the eating other humans thing. I'll admit it. There have been a few people I wouldn't have minded attacking but not to eat -- just to beat senseless. Are you automatically a zombie if you drive someone to beat you senseless?

It's a vicious cycle. I can't figure it out.

So many questions....arghhh.