Fresh Hell

I'm making my way through the Werner Herzog boxset and enjoying it quite a lot. The last film I watched was his Nosferatu the Vampyre, which was pretty great - eerie, beautiful, occasionally (intentionally?) funny. A bit too much rat cruelty for my tastes, but things were different back in 1979.

I don't find vampires particularly scary. Or zombies for that matter. I think I've worked out the reason.

Most people have a primal fear not just of death, but of becoming a dead thing. They don't like corpses, which remind them that the human body is just a machine of bone and flesh. Vampires and zombies and mummies are scary because they're a corruption of the human form. It's a violation of the sanctity of humanity.

I don't find them scary because I don't hold the human body in such high regard in the first place. For me, becoming a member of the living dead isn't corruption or perversion or degradation of a sacred person, but more of a sideways step.

Admittedly, I've lived my whole life as a conscious being, with all the hope and dreams and communication and stuff. But that's not to say that becoming a mindless, shambling, flesh-eating monstrosity isn't just as valid a lifestyle choice.

If I saw a zombie that used to be a loved one, I wouldn't think "oh dear god, look at how that familiar form has been twisted and degraded". I'd think "huh - that's a fresh take".

I wouldn't choose to use my limbs, body and teeth in that way, but it's a reasonable tack to take.

In zombie films, a person gets bitten and the protagonists make an agonising choice. If, let's say, Bill gets bitten and begins to transform, they realise that he will soon be just a monster. Bill isn't really Bill any more.

In the films, it's presented as a terrible thing. But I'd just nod at Bill's transformation, as though he was showing off an experimental new hairdo. "Interesting new direction, Bill," I'd say, as I was torn to pieces.

Why should we limit Bill to a life of empathy and eating things other than brains? It's narrow-minded to expect everyone to conform to our notions of "normality" or "the proper".

J.J. Abrams took the much loved Star Trek franchise, gave it a twist and a new look, and presented it as something familiar but fresh. It's the same with zombies.

The comparison doesn't hold completely, or course. One is an unpleasant, soulless, inescapable eyesore...

AND THE OTHER ONE IS THE ZOMBIE HAHAHAHA NO-ONE SAW THAT PUNCHLINE COMING!!!!

Anyway, that's why I don't get scared by mummies and vampires and what-have-you. It's difficult for me to be terrified when I'm well aware that a zombie would make better use of my body than I do.