This made my day. My favorite Snyderism was the time someone was interviewing him about Sucker Punch and they asked him what the plot is and he couldn't answer.
I kinda want him to do it, because the way he consistently misinterprets stories makes me really curious how that would affect an Ayn Rand novel. Also, he said this: "“‘The Fountainhead’… It’s still important to me, but it’s a really touchy subject right now,” said Snyder. “People will think it’s hardcore right-wing propaganda, but I don’t view it like that. I just think the story is super fun and crazy and melodramatic about architecture and sex.” That just screams "I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about"
Fun Fact: Robespierre and the Jacobins (the name for the most leftist members of the French revolution) actually supported the Haitian Revolution and even passed laws that outlawed slavery and granted full rights to Black denizens of the French Republic. However, when Napoleon came to power all these laws were rolled back because he wanted that sweet, sweet sugar money. You can learn all this and more in Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James.
The Jacobin club had a range of viewpoints and internal disagreements within themselves. They were indeed all Radical and in no way Moderate, and in the specific context of that time all "Left Wing" in the original definition of opposing absolute Monarchy. But as far as Economic Policy goes, they included both Capitalists and Socialists and Robespierre was not one of the Socialists.
Some Night of The Living Dead facts: -It's main source of inspiration was I am Legend, which had similar monsters but it was explained in the beginning that the monsters were actually vampires that were so blood-starved that they lost all sense of self. This actually makes me wonder how audiences eventually settled on "zombies" as the go-to term. It's probably a racial thing considering everything else this video talks about -The ending was Duane Jones's idea, because to him getting "accidentally" shot by police ostensibly there to save other survivors was a more realistic ending than getting rescued by them. This is still true to this day.
A lot of languages have some variation of 'zombie' integrated by now, but a hundred years ago or more, depending on the language, a lot of them had zombie-like and vampire-like creatures in their legends, but used the same word for both. Sometimes it was a regional variation, sometimes there was a distinction between them as if they were different types of vampire, and sometimes it just depended on an individual's superstitions. That's what I remember from my research anyhow.
So, what I've been told about how "Zombie" became the term used for the creatures in Night of the Living Dead, and this is apocryphal as I dont speak with any authority, is that "Zombi" or something like that, was the Italian localized name for the original Dawn of the Dead.
zombies = endless remakes of the same media over and over, rather than new (well, relatively new*) stories (*everything "new" is based on/inspired by other stuff that came before it, but like)
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 original art doesn't mean something that has nothing to do with any other art that existed before. The artist who create is someone who learned from other. Original means something artists create with their own mind without copying others. But most artists are inspired to create art, inspired by something that existed before.
@@TheMogul23 It's a thing lots of people say sincerely, and have done for a long time. _Venture Bros._ might've been the first to do it more ironically though, I'm now kind of curious...
@@eliquate I will say that there are some extremely talented effects artists working on the gore and gross zombie stuff. If only their work wasn't being wasted on such a boring, awful show.
Not really, I don't think Nolan created any negative cinematic trend, let alone everyone along with Snyder who's not even close to the same level of skill. He's been influential and has made some bad movies but what trends did he start exactly
ehhh I don't think one director has the power to ruin any genre or idea. of course he can make a shit version of it, but it's only ruined once people market the fuck out of that shitty version.
We forget that the movie is only remembered because we went to see it. We’re the ones that shamble to Snyder movies and yet we are the same people who call them zombies
George Romero has said in interviews that he didn’t think he was making a zombie movie, because he was familiar with zombie movies from before Night of the Living Dead, and he recognized that it was an entirely different thing.
Fun fact: France was the first to abolish slavery within the borders of the nation proper (way back in 1300!) and also the first to abolish slavery in its colonies, though only temporarily before Napoleon re-instituted it. Didn't stop them from being right bastards to their colonies, though.
Some really good zombie movies: Train to Busan, The Girl With All The Gifts, KL Zombi, Shaun of The Dead, Pontypool, Wyrmwood, and Little Monsters. I hope people will try out some of these. They’re my favorites. Mix of old and new and serious and funny.
I tend to agree (especially re: 'Shaun... Dead'). I'm currently enjoying Zomboat! - has a Shaun-vibe. I agree with Matt entirely - except I'm never sick of scary stuff - including a well-made zom-com.
The idea of a once human 'monster' suffering the contempt of humankind as a metaphor for humanity's inhumanity to other is also present in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, at least through modern lens
This became a sort of memetic thing for a while, culminating in Max Brooks's _Zombie Survival Guide_ (which I think was another nail in the coffin, personally). So many people got all survivalist about the concept (presumably germinating with people seeing Romero's movies and others, and going "Hmm, what would I do?" and snowballing) that it eventually became a concept that was oriented entirely *around* the idea of survivalism for most of popular culture. I hated that book and that entire approach, and it only got worse after it was published.
I mean, I have no idea what you mean! that scene from the Bad Day of the Dead is accurate to the gay experience... I too randomly start recounting my gay awakening at any given moment to whomstever is listening because I too like being very icky to the hetereroes. Anyway time to go sachay into the ever hungry, shuffling mass that is the algorithm!
I want to see a zombie movie where a gay man gives that whole "I first knew I was gay" speech, but instead of a joke it's, like, a human moment of longing and empathy that shows that our heroes still have a connection to the world that was lost.
THE GEEK CLUB Yeah, like, it could be about how he thought that coming to terms with his homosexuality was the biggest struggle he’s ever faced, and how zombies almost seem blasé in the face of systemic oppression. I’d love to see that. A gay zombie movie badass who’s gone through enough shit to not be intimidated by the walking dead.
It's strange, everything we know about the character who is disgusted by the story in that scene suggests that he's being set up to be a villain. In any other zombie movie he would be. If filmed differently (and more plausibly) this sort of scene could have been used to make the gay character more sympathetic and the other guy more hateable. I can't help but wonder if it was written that way in the original script before Snyder got his hands on it and said "this guy's awesome, let's give him a heroic death."
It could have been a moment where the sheer pettiness of the world they once had was lain bare, when him being gay was considered a problem. Seems all the more absurd when society has collapsed and you need the help of anybody you can find.
And I'd like to see them all not only accept him for it, but realise how pathetic and pointless all their previous prejudices now show themselves to be in this desperate situation, and how making a community for people in danger just trying to survive is the most noble of humanity's aspects, and how his experience with that would be invaluable to the group.
I love how Max Brook's "World War Z" (no real relation to the awful Brad Pitt film) actually catches all of the positive aspects you mention here and uses them well, and it's a shame it's a film we'll never see.
Interestingly, Max Brooks' "The Zombie Survival Guide" hews really close to the conservative tone of later period zombie stuff, just by focusing on the concrete logistical challenge of a zombie outbreak. It's all about weapon choice and analyzing locations for tactical holdout viability and stocking up on canned goods, which is the stuff conservative "prepper" style zombie movies always present as the most important to optimize, with human emotion and attachment being mere distractions. I don't think this is deliberate, I just think it's a natural consequence of focusing on zombies as a THREAT rather than a THEME.
I heard a kid in a Batman suit say "MARTHA" and while it was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen, I just felt fucking sad that child wasn't like... I dunno--"I AM BATMAN" or something actually cool to say.
Original Dawn Of The Dead I think is my favourite film, I don’t know exactly why it works for me but it’s both simple and complex with such a gorgeous soundtrack... gonna go rewatch it quick.
There are so many things that can be said about that movie but to me it's the sense that the zombies are actually dead corpse that move for no reason. There's something grotesque about the original idea of Romero's zombie that was lost as they became part of pop culture. The zombies are not scary cause they're dangerous but because of what zombies are fundamentally. The world itself feels like it's dead and already over and there's nothing else to do in it
Between 5 and 7 years ago (don't remember the exact dates) I was fascinated with the proliferation of apocalyptic fiction. I read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos about it slowly understanding that their appeal came from the idea of being relieved from the burden of living a civilized life, and from destroying the system that makes you a simple cog in the machine, so you can live a life in wich the consequences of all your decisions feel inmediate and simple (you make a mistake, you die). I learned that decades ago books like Earth Abbides or The Day of the Trifids argued about those weirdly possitive feelings arising from the end of the world (I think the best summation of this idea is a dialogue early in Kevin Costner's The Postman, where the fascist villain says that prior the apocalypse he was a Xerox salesman, and how the end of civilization was the best thing to happen to his life). But after I understood the appeal, the power fantasy of it, but a question remained: Why now? ("Now" meaning "mid 2000' to around 2014") then it clicked: the rise of Social Media and the saturation of information. People felt overweld, they felt small in a very big world, the felt alone in a sea of opinions* (all different to their own, all different between each other, all with massive followings). "Make the noise stop!" the public prayed in their subconscious "make me big again! If millions had to die for me to have control over my own life again, so be it! Make the million voices into zombies so I can silence them myself" ... that's why apocalyptic fiction in general and zombie fiction in particular became such a trend. And thats why it died out as the superhero movie rise up, because at the core of the superhero fantasy is the idea of a big individual "fixing" society with his own hands thanks to some "power" that separates him** from (and elevates him above) the rest of the regular people. That's also why I think the capper of the 00's apocalyptic trend is Edgar Wright's The World's End, because it literally ends with a loser choosing the end of civilization so he can finally archieve the life of greatness his Ego thinks he deserves without being bog-down by "laws" or "decency". * for white supremacist the increasing influence of minorities in all spheres of society probably added up to the anxiety, but the zombie trend was a global phenomenon, thats why I speak in therms so broad they could apply to persons of all the racial, cultural and political spectrums) ** At that point in modern mainstream film history, it was always a HIM *** Sorry the bad English, I became to warp in by the rant to do things like spellchecking or proof-reading
Love this so much, and i hope that in this holiday season, a million unsuspecting apolitical tube viewers stumble on this channel and suddenly feel the irresistible need to zombie swarm their bosses and gobble them sweet bossy bods.
I think one of the interesting things about Z-Nation is that despite its rather wacky nature and low budget. It actually goes on to subvert a lot of the cliches about zombie media nowadays. For instance, the series actively reminds the viewer about the humanity of the zombies with the Post-Apoc Lingo for killing a zombie being "I give you mercy" or "Have Mercy." Etc. And the characters who are badass which is noticeably not the main character are shown as they become more proficient in killing to also be a bit more brutal, and unforgiving in their pursuits. To put others at risk in the pursuit of whatever mission they have. At least with Addy, and Warren. Some of the rotating sixth members of the group are played pretty straight with this. And even the closest we get to just an uncompromised badass in the main cast is 10K who was raised by an end of the world, doomsday prepper type guy. Which would normally be glorified in this type of show, but besides his impeccable aiming skill. 10K is shown to be rather stunted by it actually. And not in like a cool, manly, doesn't show emotions way. But to have missed out on a lot of life, and to be genuinely awkward around others. And I think the main character, Murphy is a bit of a play on the normal kind of zombie protagonist. He starts off as a whiner, and a bit of a mealy-mouth coward really, not even directly killing a zombie until like the fifth season. And despite his miraculous immunity and other powers. It's him seeing himself as very special which, this inflated sense of self that causes him to do some... Pretty terrible acts later on. Most of these fueled by his feelings that he is somehow 'owed' something by society. Not to mention the fact that the seasons have the major enemy across seasons be things like big tech conglomerates millionaires who don't care about what happens to others, The U.S Government's desire to 'win a cold war', Literal actual racists trying to usurp a democratic government. And I think a lot of these choices were legitimately intentional. As the prequel series, Black Summer that was put on Netflix, a more standard kind of zombie drama, goes out of its way to include things like deaf people, an Asian Woman who only speaks Vietnamese and generally reinforcing that the social ties among the groups are what's helping them survive, and the unreliableness of the government.
I actually like ZNation better than TWD for all of the reasons that you mention. Sure it's jokey and absurd sometimes but damn how many scenes of' gramma been bitten better put her down' do I need to suffer thru?
I had to look up where that scene from the '04 Dawn of the Dead came from, and apparently it's from the directors cut which had 10 more minutes of scenes for "character development". Gross.
They outta make a zombie movie where the inciting incident is food companies putting something in the food that makes people hungrier and hungrier in order to increase their profit. Oh wait that's just sugar lol
The real zombies are people who mindlessly request subjects for you to cover without adding anything meaningful to the conversation at hand. Please talk about Hellraiser at some point ❤❤❤
Do you really have no opinion on DAY OF THE DEAD? Weird, I’d that that movie would speak most directly to your politics. It also has the best effects my a country mile.
@@ScaredyCatsTV if you adore it so much, why don't you do a video on it? Also, please do a Day of the Dead episode. Is Bub simply a beaten down proletariat, torn between being a tool of the military industrial complex and their junk science medical fascist friends, and a desire to finally die with finality to escape the horrors of his consumerist past. Also, so much pig intestine shenanigans
Hey Matt! I love both your channels, and I really feel this take on the zombie trend of late. Just wanted to comment that at least for me, the audio of the movie clips was WAY louder than the audio of your voice, so I kept having to turn up my headphones and then jump out of my skin then hurriedly turn them down during the clips.
oh my GOD the last few lines were hilarious thank you very much. also the rest of the video is all kinds of real good. thanks for making this channel :)
If there's the possibility it was Zack Snyder's fault something bad happened then it's definitely Zack Snyder's fault the bad thing happened. This is the law of Snyder.
Have you seen Little Monsters yet? It's a funny and heart-warming little zombie film that has some interesting possible reads and a few nice jabs at the US military.
Oh! This comment finally made me realize we _weren't_ talking about the Fred Savage/Howie Mandel movie in other comments. I was so confused and trying so hard to figure out how that counted as a zombie movie to anyone.
This is not quite on topic, but Dawn of the dead is always gonna be my favorite, because I met Ken Foree and he's a genuinely cool guy. My stepdad ran a little con for a few years that Ken agreed to come out to as long as we paid the plane ticket and just took him to look at historical stuff in our town bc he loves history. I was going thru a bad break up at the time, and Ken Foree was v nice to lil 15 year old me and was being v fatherly that weekend. Later, when I graduated high school, he couldn't make it in town, but he sent me 100 dollars. He's a good guy
Revisiting this video and the lack of Bobby Duke surprised me so much that I laughed. I had completely forgotten that he's a recent bit, and I was so excited to hear Bobby Duke that the lack of him was also hilarious. Love your work!
You have good video horror essays and I like how you don't end with a conclusion. Living us to sit and think about what we heard but with an abrupt ending. Much like a horror movie does.
Snyder's Dawn of the Dead was the FIRST of the Dead movie I ever saw, and in spite of its many flaws it got me into George Romero's first three zombie movies (plus The Crazies) and I think everyone agrees those are the best. You could round it out with Return of the Living Dead (by Dan O'Bannon!), 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead. Also Life After Beth. The Walking Dead does represent a very bleak and conservative mindset behind it all, no wonder it was so popular. Why does that guy insist on wearing the sheriff outfit when there's no sheriff's department anymore, like it's some kind of Halloween costume? Did that not bug anyone else?
I've watched and enjoyed several of your videos thus far but it wasn't until you said "Fuck Zach Snyder" that I subscribed and hit the like button. We are kindred spirits, you and I.
I got sent here by Curio, who recommended (and referenced strongly) this video in her larger Why Zack Snyder Sucks essay, "Zack Snyder: A World Based on Spite"!
The games do a better job of parodying real life weapons manufacturers and PMCs and playing them up to be comically evil. The main villains of the entire series (Oswald E. Spencer and Albert Wesker) are confessed eugenicists, even. It's really interesting how looking at the cause of zombie pandemics, such as with the case of Resident Evil and Return of the Living Dead, that it always seems to represent left fears more effectively than right fears.
The Resident Evil games are also lampooning the pharmaceutical industry and the military industrial complex. The zombies were intentionally manufactured by a pharmaceutical industry that basically owns an entire city. They were designed to be weapons sold to the highest bidder, but greed and betrayal always lead to them being unleashed upon a hapless population.
This was fantastic. You successfully changed my nostalgic opinion of Dawn of the Dead. I also haven't watched the original trilogy in a long time and had no clue of the social commentary being made.
I think you give the walking dead a bit more of a hard time than it deserves in terms of messaging. It's still kinda shit but it definitely doesn't argue that getting strong and tough is the answer - in fact, character's inability to help others is continually their downfall. The whole recent Negan/Saviors story that lasted far too long was an obvious story about the dangers of capitalism and that workers rising up and overthrowing their bosses is the thing to do. Hamfisted and poorly done, sure, but not arguing that the answer is to get tough for toughness' sake
You're probably right since the theme of collaboration for betterment is a major one in the comics. Rick just flat out tells him stuff like the Savior's protection racket are holding them back and preventing the rebuilding of society. Hell, when the Whispers show up and discuss their philosophy of rule through strength, everyone between the 4 safe zones vehemently rejects it.
I'd really like to see a zombie movie based on haitian mythology because "perpetual enslavement without even death to free" is definitely the most terrifying interpretation of the concept I know off
It isn't a one-for-one match as its mythological delvings are ultimately quote shallow, but you may like The Serpent and the Rainbow. It at least deals with the surface elements of the mythological zombie.
I think this is only the third time I've EVER heard anyone correctly assess the horrific implications of the original Haitian zombies, and the second time I've heard Romero-and-after "zombies" correctly identified as ghouls.
Dope shit, brah. Your perspective is salient as fuck! High-five for the cathartic dissection of ever-evolving social mores and their interactions with media and politics, dawg.
It might actually be more impressive if Romero really didn't intend to comment on consumerism in Dawn of the Dead, because that would just speak to how intrinsically linked the idea is into the mindset of an American citizen.
@@glitchedoom Which somehow "no one" (other than horror fans, and even then nowhere near all) remembers, to my eternal bafflement. Why there's a memory hole around that movie will never not confuse me, given it's also one of the earliest of the flesh-eating-running zombies, which many maintain were a fresh shock in _Bad Dawn of the Dead_ for some reason, despite the source movie in question being such an stone classic.
The fact that Zach Snyder is making yet another zombie movie, this time in the middle of a resurgent civil rights crisis, already has me pounding my head into the wall.
I ended up quitting on The Walking Dead comics because of the things you mentioned, where all relationships were transactional or risky, and the only way to win was to get better at killing (though the comics did it way better than that show) The video game however is amazing. It uses the same idea of the walkers and has a different story and characters, and truly makes you feel different characters’ struggles as they decide between survival and empathy, and whether to trust others or go it alone, as well as those who become simply unhinged and a danger to others. The main character Lee is amazing with the best sad ending I’ve experienced in a piece of media.
I have been describing zombies as humans with no money, credit, or hopes of getting either one ever. They are only trying to satisfy a gnawing hunger that any of us may eventually experience.
I can't speak for newer Walking Dead as I checked out after Negan, but what I saw showed the characters (particularly Rick) pushed to the brink of evil by the brutality of their circumstances, and then reminded of the value of humanity and stepping back from that dark threshold. Characterizing the message of that show as "you have to become terrible to survive terrible things" is missing the crucial capstone of "but do not become lost in fear and rage and lose sight of what it means to be human; of love, compassion, and the pursuit of happiness"
Ironically bad Dawn of the Dead is the only enjoyable movie Zack Snyder has made. You're not wrong about the message, though. Me, I can't watch any zombie thing anymore without comparing it directly to Train to Busan, and that's not a fair standard to hold most movies to; it's way too good.
OT but connected: The modern movie zombie has virtually nothing to do with vodou or Haiti, except for the term. In its original context it refers to somenthing akin to classical "anima", ie. "soul", but not neccessairly as a conscious or personal entity, but rather as "life spark", wether it animates (which is what "anima" does) a body or a disembodied consciousness. In vodouisant metaphisics there are different kinds of souls jointly animating a human (or other) being, hence there are different kinds of zombies. The walking corpses or corpse-like people in a seemingly catatonic state referred to as "zombies" were a staple of horror movies at least since The White Zombie (not situated in Haiti, but elsewhere in the Caribbeans, by the way). Thats probably why the term became connected to a hugely successful Romero's movie, even as it virtually superseded any previously existed notions of what a cinematic zombie was (and they had never been any consistency between various movies in that regard). If we were to find any pediggree of the modern cinematic zombie, we could list among its ancestors: 1) the original, folkloristic and Byronian vampyre; 20 the Germanic aptrgangr - the inspiration behind Tolkien's barrow-wights 3) the Caligari-style somnambulist figure.
Wow brilliant video. I have always liked zombie movies but quit watching walking dead during season 2 or 3 I forget which. I could never articulate why. Thank you for plucking that thorn from my mind. The living have no reward for survival they just are monsters or are becoming monsters.
I'd really like to see a Zombie film where a cure for being a zombie is found really early, well before society collapses and the problem becomes widespread, but all the prepper murderlust types can't accept that they don't get their moment to feel badass and kill things without consequence so they end up ruining everything to make sure an apocalypse does actually happen.
I read a lot of the comics and then made an attempt at the show before determining that the message of The Walking Dead is: "Dear cishet abled white guys, don't worry! When society collapses you'll demonstrate through your badass merit that you belonged at the top of the heap all along."
While this is certainly true, I think it does behoove us to think a little on material conditions: I have a friend who is a MASSIVE zombie fan and fantasizes often about the collapse of society and how he'd survive. He's chronically poor, intermittently homeless, never did well in school, never does well at work, but he can pull machines out of dumpsters and make them run. This guy is on the bottom of a lot of social ladders, but - in a world where pulling machines out of dumpsters is a way of life - his skills are top-tier, and all the invisible "they" that laughed at him, paid him like shit, and never gave him any real power will learn how valuable he really is. The subtext erases everyone who isn't a cishet white guy - no question - but the text is really about self-empowerment. He wants social value, and he doesn't think the world as we know it will EVER give that to him.
when we studied NotLD I thought it was incredibly bleak and was unsure how to interpret the ending; after listening to your idea of it and a commenter’s describing how Duane envisioned it, I’ll have to rewatch and see what I think this time. Great video, we love to see it ✌️
What could be a better critique of mindless consumerism than for Romero to have accidentally created one? Like, he just looked around at his lived experience and unintentionally found a scathing critique of capitalism, and he didn't even realize he did it.
Maybe it’s time to make a zombie movie where not only do most of the main cast survive, but they do so by coming together, pooling their resources, and risking violence only when necessary to save their lives and the lives of the people they run into.
both the book and the movie of Warm Bodies have issues (ssssso straaaaight) but uhm a story from the POV of a zombie who's existence is a poetic exploration of crippling depression, social anxiety and and social isolation is really good? also compassion, community and love saves a dying world. And it's really frustrating how the Zach Shnyder approach has led to so many 'strong boys' dismissing the story cuz zombies are supposed to be scary (nevermind that the boneys are terrifying and also the existiential horror of the gaping sky mouth that they fucking worship)
Zack Snyder: "My dream is to adapt Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ "
Me: "That explains so much..."
Omg, really? He said that (too tired to google it)??? Holy shit - what a doooouchebag!
This made my day.
My favorite Snyderism was the time someone was interviewing him about Sucker Punch and they asked him what the plot is and he couldn't answer.
I kinda want him to do it, because the way he consistently misinterprets stories makes me really curious how that would affect an Ayn Rand novel. Also, he said this: "“‘The Fountainhead’… It’s still important to me, but it’s a really touchy subject right now,” said Snyder. “People will think it’s hardcore right-wing propaganda, but I don’t view it like that. I just think the story is super fun and crazy and melodramatic about architecture and sex.”
That just screams "I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about"
@@z-beeblebrox As. You. Wish-eA!
Seriously tho do not tempt fate that one could go bad badly.
You need someone like Paul Verhoeven to make Fountainhead
"zombies could be replaced with any event that forces people inside" *looks at upload date* uh um
Fun Fact: Robespierre and the Jacobins (the name for the most leftist members of the French revolution) actually supported the Haitian Revolution and even passed laws that outlawed slavery and granted full rights to Black denizens of the French Republic. However, when Napoleon came to power all these laws were rolled back because he wanted that sweet, sweet sugar money.
You can learn all this and more in Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James.
The Jacobin club had a range of viewpoints and internal disagreements within themselves. They were indeed all Radical and in no way Moderate, and in the specific context of that time all "Left Wing" in the original definition of opposing absolute Monarchy. But as far as Economic Policy goes, they included both Capitalists and Socialists and Robespierre was not one of the Socialists.
"of the Living Dead, Night" is funnier to me than it has any right to be. How dare you, Scaredy Matt
Some Night of The Living Dead facts:
-It's main source of inspiration was I am Legend, which had similar monsters but it was explained in the beginning that the monsters were actually vampires that were so blood-starved that they lost all sense of self. This actually makes me wonder how audiences eventually settled on "zombies" as the go-to term. It's probably a racial thing considering everything else this video talks about
-The ending was Duane Jones's idea, because to him getting "accidentally" shot by police ostensibly there to save other survivors was a more realistic ending than getting rescued by them. This is still true to this day.
A lot of languages have some variation of 'zombie' integrated by now, but a hundred years ago or more, depending on the language, a lot of them had zombie-like and vampire-like creatures in their legends, but used the same word for both. Sometimes it was a regional variation, sometimes there was a distinction between them as if they were different types of vampire, and sometimes it just depended on an individual's superstitions. That's what I remember from my research anyhow.
I Am Legend is awesome, Richard Matheson is my favorite author :)
Christ it only gets truer and scarier over time.
So, what I've been told about how "Zombie" became the term used for the creatures in Night of the Living Dead, and this is apocryphal as I dont speak with any authority, is that "Zombi" or something like that, was the Italian localized name for the original Dawn of the Dead.
This guy is a total idiot,he makes no sense.
The real zombie was the movies we made along the way.
zombies = endless remakes of the same media over and over, rather than new (well, relatively new*) stories
(*everything "new" is based on/inspired by other stuff that came before it, but like)
@@sholem_bond do you really think every idea is unoriginal? never bought into that.
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 original art doesn't mean something that has nothing to do with any other art that existed before. The artist who create is someone who learned from other. Original means something artists create with their own mind without copying others. But most artists are inspired to create art, inspired by something that existed before.
thanks scaredy matt for saying "a dracula" one of my favorite jokes
Every time someone does this is makes me think of The Venture Bros. I wonder if they were the first to do that bit.
@@TheMogul23 It's a thing lots of people say sincerely, and have done for a long time. _Venture Bros._ might've been the first to do it more ironically though, I'm now kind of curious...
"If I wanted to criticize The Walking Dead, I would mention how bad it sucks" *breaks my computer hitting the like button*
First season was so promising too. It's a shame Frank Darabont wasn't able to realize his vision for the show.
choronos amen! That first season was so solid! Then ppttthhhppt (raspberry fart noise)*
@@choronos Exactly. Such promises, much disappointment.
@@eliquate I will say that there are some extremely talented effects artists working on the gore and gross zombie stuff. If only their work wasn't being wasted on such a boring, awful show.
choronos at least they are making a living!
Matt, I want you to tell me things about stuff all the time forever.
same
this
People get giant heads and go cringe because of comments like this.
Pretty much every negative cinematic trend in the past decade can be blamed on either Zack Snyder or Christopher Nolan.
Agree
Not really, I don't think Nolan created any negative cinematic trend, let alone everyone along with Snyder who's not even close to the same level of skill.
He's been influential and has made some bad movies but what trends did he start exactly
It is genuinely horrifying how many genres and hallmark ideas Zack Snyder has managed to ruin in his career.
ehhh I don't think one director has the power to ruin any genre or idea. of course he can make a shit version of it, but it's only ruined once people market the fuck out of that shitty version.
Maso Trumoi It’s almost impressive.
He's like Stephen Moffat on coke
Noone should have that much power.
We forget that the movie is only remembered because we went to see it. We’re the ones that shamble to Snyder movies and yet we are the same people who call them zombies
George Romero has said in interviews that he didn’t think he was making a zombie movie, because he was familiar with zombie movies from before Night of the Living Dead, and he recognized that it was an entirely different thing.
Fun fact: France was the first to abolish slavery within the borders of the nation proper (way back in 1300!) and also the first to abolish slavery in its colonies, though only temporarily before Napoleon re-instituted it. Didn't stop them from being right bastards to their colonies, though.
Some really good zombie movies: Train to Busan, The Girl With All The Gifts, KL Zombi, Shaun of The Dead, Pontypool, Wyrmwood, and Little Monsters. I hope people will try out some of these. They’re my favorites. Mix of old and new and serious and funny.
I tend to agree (especially re: 'Shaun... Dead').
I'm currently enjoying Zomboat! - has a Shaun-vibe.
I agree with Matt entirely - except I'm never sick of scary stuff - including a well-made zom-com.
[rec] is pretty good, too, for both a zombie movie and a found footage movie
@@scaldcrowe oooo yes! [rec] is AWESOME!
man of legend and 28 days later
The Girl With All The Gifts doesn’t get the attention and praise that it deserves. It was friggin’ excellent.
The idea of a once human 'monster' suffering the contempt of humankind as a metaphor for humanity's inhumanity to other is also present in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, at least through modern lens
I only recently learnt what zombies used to be, raised on the idea it was just "the corpses are bad now and headshots look cool"
This became a sort of memetic thing for a while, culminating in Max Brooks's _Zombie Survival Guide_ (which I think was another nail in the coffin, personally). So many people got all survivalist about the concept (presumably germinating with people seeing Romero's movies and others, and going "Hmm, what would I do?" and snowballing) that it eventually became a concept that was oriented entirely *around* the idea of survivalism for most of popular culture.
I hated that book and that entire approach, and it only got worse after it was published.
Train to Busan brought new life to the genre
A new culture usually creates interesting twists on something someone else ruined. It is more about sacrifice for the greater good.
MTeaDamn Heh.
It looks like like a meh movie
@@jesusramirezromo2037 The best zombie movie of the 21st century looks meh? The Host being the best monster movie since Jaws is also meh then?
@@grisflyt God bless you for mentioning The Host. Not enough people have seen that movie, I actually liked it more than Parasite and I'm not ashamed.
I often think about the scene in Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters involving the zombie attacking a shark.
I mean, I have no idea what you mean! that scene from the Bad Day of the Dead is accurate to the gay experience... I too randomly start recounting my gay awakening at any given moment to whomstever is listening because I too like being very icky to the hetereroes. Anyway time to go sachay into the ever hungry, shuffling mass that is the algorithm!
Yeah, doesnt have resonance for me, but then again being a werewolf myself, thats probably best...
You're my new favorite person, you used SACHAY. LORD I FUCKING LOVE YOU.
This guy makes no fucking sense and is a total moron,no doubt
I want to see a zombie movie where a gay man gives that whole "I first knew I was gay" speech, but instead of a joke it's, like, a human moment of longing and empathy that shows that our heroes still have a connection to the world that was lost.
THE GEEK CLUB Yeah, like, it could be about how he thought that coming to terms with his homosexuality was the biggest struggle he’s ever faced, and how zombies almost seem blasé in the face of systemic oppression.
I’d love to see that. A gay zombie movie badass who’s gone through enough shit to not be intimidated by the walking dead.
It's strange, everything we know about the character who is disgusted by the story in that scene suggests that he's being set up to be a villain. In any other zombie movie he would be. If filmed differently (and more plausibly) this sort of scene could have been used to make the gay character more sympathetic and the other guy more hateable. I can't help but wonder if it was written that way in the original script before Snyder got his hands on it and said "this guy's awesome, let's give him a heroic death."
It could have been a moment where the sheer pettiness of the world they once had was lain bare, when him being gay was considered a problem. Seems all the more absurd when society has collapsed and you need the help of anybody you can find.
Right before the anonymous sex? Im in....
And I'd like to see them all not only accept him for it, but realise how pathetic and pointless all their previous prejudices now show themselves to be in this desperate situation, and how making a community for people in danger just trying to survive is the most noble of humanity's aspects, and how his experience with that would be invaluable to the group.
You should check out the new anime Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, it un-ruins zombies so hard. Also the manga name drops Marx.
It’s good to know that The Anime Pope is not immune to commenting on videos from several years ago on the most recent re-watch.
I love how Max Brook's "World War Z" (no real relation to the awful Brad Pitt film) actually catches all of the positive aspects you mention here and uses them well, and it's a shame it's a film we'll never see.
The host of this channel didn't like that book, according to another video on the channel.
@@CanItAlready that's okay. People are allowed to like or not like things, and have opinions about them. That's why this medium exists.
@@Phule77 I was not suggesting otherwise.
@@CanItAlready it doesn't matter because you're stirring up shit regardless
Interestingly, Max Brooks' "The Zombie Survival Guide" hews really close to the conservative tone of later period zombie stuff, just by focusing on the concrete logistical challenge of a zombie outbreak. It's all about weapon choice and analyzing locations for tactical holdout viability and stocking up on canned goods, which is the stuff conservative "prepper" style zombie movies always present as the most important to optimize, with human emotion and attachment being mere distractions.
I don't think this is deliberate, I just think it's a natural consequence of focusing on zombies as a THREAT rather than a THEME.
My dude, you keep making great shit and I keep watching it. Except my brain mashes your channels together to create SCAREDY SLIME.
makes me think of like a little FF slime quaking in its boots... aww
What a coincidence, talking about my hatred for Zack Snyder is my favourite hobby.
QueercoreCentral EmmaTheCommunistSquirrel MARTHA
I heard a kid in a Batman suit say "MARTHA" and while it was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen, I just felt fucking sad that child wasn't like... I dunno--"I AM BATMAN" or something actually cool to say.
Probably gonna die mad over Man of Steel, for my part. The objectivist lens belongs on Superman approximately never.
I'm shocked he still has dick sucker fans; At least Nolan made a few good movies to earn the suckers
ua-cam.com/play/PL3BLo3fskWRLjhNIHvIrFX5PVgIb9oX1s.html
At this point I'm just binge watching all your videos. This was a fantastic pov on zombie movies. Wish your videos were longer more in depth.
Original Dawn Of The Dead I think is my favourite film, I don’t know exactly why it works for me but it’s both simple and complex with such a gorgeous soundtrack... gonna go rewatch it quick.
There are so many things that can be said about that movie but to me it's the sense that the zombies are actually dead corpse that move for no reason. There's something grotesque about the original idea of Romero's zombie that was lost as they became part of pop culture. The zombies are not scary cause they're dangerous but because of what zombies are fundamentally. The world itself feels like it's dead and already over and there's nothing else to do in it
Totally digging the new Spooky Slime channel.
Between 5 and 7 years ago (don't remember the exact dates) I was fascinated with the proliferation of apocalyptic fiction. I read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos about it slowly understanding that their appeal came from the idea of being relieved from the burden of living a civilized life, and from destroying the system that makes you a simple cog in the machine, so you can live a life in wich the consequences of all your decisions feel inmediate and simple (you make a mistake, you die). I learned that decades ago books like Earth Abbides or The Day of the Trifids argued about those weirdly possitive feelings arising from the end of the world (I think the best summation of this idea is a dialogue early in Kevin Costner's The Postman, where the fascist villain says that prior the apocalypse he was a Xerox salesman, and how the end of civilization was the best thing to happen to his life). But after I understood the appeal, the power fantasy of it, but a question remained: Why now? ("Now" meaning "mid 2000' to around 2014") then it clicked: the rise of Social Media and the saturation of information. People felt overweld, they felt small in a very big world, the felt alone in a sea of opinions* (all different to their own, all different between each other, all with massive followings). "Make the noise stop!" the public prayed in their subconscious "make me big again! If millions had to die for me to have control over my own life again, so be it! Make the million voices into zombies so I can silence them myself" ... that's why apocalyptic fiction in general and zombie fiction in particular became such a trend. And thats why it died out as the superhero movie rise up, because at the core of the superhero fantasy is the idea of a big individual "fixing" society with his own hands thanks to some "power" that separates him** from (and elevates him above) the rest of the regular people.
That's also why I think the capper of the 00's apocalyptic trend is Edgar Wright's The World's End, because it literally ends with a loser choosing the end of civilization so he can finally archieve the life of greatness his Ego thinks he deserves without being bog-down by "laws" or "decency".
* for white supremacist the increasing influence of minorities in all spheres of society probably added up to the anxiety, but the zombie trend was a global phenomenon, thats why I speak in therms so broad they could apply to persons of all the racial, cultural and political spectrums)
** At that point in modern mainstream film history, it was always a HIM
*** Sorry the bad English, I became to warp in by the rant to do things like spellchecking or proof-reading
Love this so much, and i hope that in this holiday season, a million unsuspecting apolitical tube viewers stumble on this channel and suddenly feel the irresistible need to zombie swarm their bosses and gobble them sweet bossy bods.
I think one of the interesting things about Z-Nation is that despite its rather wacky nature and low budget. It actually goes on to subvert a lot of the cliches about zombie media nowadays. For instance, the series actively reminds the viewer about the humanity of the zombies with the Post-Apoc Lingo for killing a zombie being "I give you mercy" or "Have Mercy." Etc.
And the characters who are badass which is noticeably not the main character are shown as they become more proficient in killing to also be a bit more brutal, and unforgiving in their pursuits. To put others at risk in the pursuit of whatever mission they have. At least with Addy, and Warren. Some of the rotating sixth members of the group are played pretty straight with this.
And even the closest we get to just an uncompromised badass in the main cast is 10K who was raised by an end of the world, doomsday prepper type guy. Which would normally be glorified in this type of show, but besides his impeccable aiming skill. 10K is shown to be rather stunted by it actually. And not in like a cool, manly, doesn't show emotions way. But to have missed out on a lot of life, and to be genuinely awkward around others.
And I think the main character, Murphy is a bit of a play on the normal kind of zombie protagonist. He starts off as a whiner, and a bit of a mealy-mouth coward really, not even directly killing a zombie until like the fifth season. And despite his miraculous immunity and other powers. It's him seeing himself as very special which, this inflated sense of self that causes him to do some... Pretty terrible acts later on. Most of these fueled by his feelings that he is somehow 'owed' something by society.
Not to mention the fact that the seasons have the major enemy across seasons be things like big tech conglomerates millionaires who don't care about what happens to others, The U.S Government's desire to 'win a cold war', Literal actual racists trying to usurp a democratic government.
And I think a lot of these choices were legitimately intentional. As the prequel series, Black Summer that was put on Netflix, a more standard kind of zombie drama, goes out of its way to include things like deaf people, an Asian Woman who only speaks Vietnamese and generally reinforcing that the social ties among the groups are what's helping them survive, and the unreliableness of the government.
I actually like ZNation better than TWD for all of the reasons that you mention.
Sure it's jokey and absurd sometimes but damn how many scenes of' gramma been bitten better put her down' do I need to suffer thru?
I’ve heard of movies being “discovered in editing,” but maybe Night Of The Living Dead was “discovered in casting”
I had to look up where that scene from the '04 Dawn of the Dead came from, and apparently it's from the directors cut which had 10 more minutes of scenes for "character development".
Gross.
They outta make a zombie movie where the inciting incident is food companies putting something in the food that makes people hungrier and hungrier in order to increase their profit.
Oh wait that's just sugar lol
They did that years ago, it was called The Stuff.
@@Titleknown "Can't get enough ... ... of the STUFF!"
@JohnnyTheWolf The 2006 game?
@JohnnyTheWolf Thanks.
They already have. They're just 30 seconds long, they're called McDonalds commercials.
I'll confess. I ruined zombies. I'll take my punishment now
Undeath....by SNU SNU....
How couldn't it have been zach snyder?
@JohnnyTheWolf true, a Michael Bay Zombie movie would pretty much be the last thing I'd want to watch
@JohnnyTheWolf true that
@JohnnyTheWolf so bad it's good potential
The real zombies are people who mindlessly request subjects for you to cover without adding anything meaningful to the conversation at hand.
Please talk about Hellraiser at some point ❤❤❤
:3
And if you do, talk about the original score by Coil, and how amazing it would have been.
@@meatrace yo I didn't even know about this! There's a whole album even!!! Thanks!!!!
@@meatrace YESSSSSSSssss
Loving this series and sharing it with my horror friends. Thank you, Matt!
I love this new content, looking forward to the next video!!
Do you really have no opinion on DAY OF THE DEAD? Weird, I’d that that movie would speak most directly to your politics. It also has the best effects my a country mile.
I adore Day of the Dead, I just didn't have anything to say about it here.
I think Day even surpasses Dawn and Night. To me, it is the best in the series.
@@ScaredyCatsTV if you adore it so much, why don't you do a video on it? Also, please do a Day of the Dead episode. Is Bub simply a beaten down proletariat, torn between being a tool of the military industrial complex and their junk science medical fascist friends, and a desire to finally die with finality to escape the horrors of his consumerist past. Also, so much pig intestine shenanigans
Hey Matt! I love both your channels, and I really feel this take on the zombie trend of late. Just wanted to comment that at least for me, the audio of the movie clips was WAY louder than the audio of your voice, so I kept having to turn up my headphones and then jump out of my skin then hurriedly turn them down during the clips.
oh my GOD the last few lines were hilarious thank you very much. also the rest of the video is all kinds of real good. thanks for making this channel :)
A L G O R I T H M I C E N G A G E M E N T
zack snyder is like a vandal, ruining all my favourite nerd shit. i'll never forgive him for watchmen
If there's the possibility it was Zack Snyder's fault something bad happened then it's definitely Zack Snyder's fault the bad thing happened. This is the law of Snyder.
Have you seen Little Monsters yet? It's a funny and heart-warming little zombie film that has some interesting possible reads and a few nice jabs at the US military.
Oh! This comment finally made me realize we _weren't_ talking about the Fred Savage/Howie Mandel movie in other comments. I was so confused and trying so hard to figure out how that counted as a zombie movie to anyone.
This is not quite on topic, but Dawn of the dead is always gonna be my favorite, because I met Ken Foree and he's a genuinely cool guy.
My stepdad ran a little con for a few years that Ken agreed to come out to as long as we paid the plane ticket and just took him to look at historical stuff in our town bc he loves history. I was going thru a bad break up at the time, and Ken Foree was v nice to lil 15 year old me and was being v fatherly that weekend. Later, when I graduated high school, he couldn't make it in town, but he sent me 100 dollars.
He's a good guy
The way you describe Walking Dead makes it sound like the perfect example of post-9/11 fiction for future analysts.
Half way through and I already love this video.
Revisiting this video and the lack of Bobby Duke surprised me so much that I laughed. I had completely forgotten that he's a recent bit, and I was so excited to hear Bobby Duke that the lack of him was also hilarious. Love your work!
You have good video horror essays and I like how you don't end with a conclusion. Living us to sit and think about what we heard but with an abrupt ending. Much like a horror movie does.
Snyder's Dawn of the Dead was the FIRST of the Dead movie I ever saw, and in spite of its many flaws it got me into George Romero's first three zombie movies (plus The Crazies) and I think everyone agrees those are the best. You could round it out with Return of the Living Dead (by Dan O'Bannon!), 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead. Also Life After Beth. The Walking Dead does represent a very bleak and conservative mindset behind it all, no wonder it was so popular. Why does that guy insist on wearing the sheriff outfit when there's no sheriff's department anymore, like it's some kind of Halloween costume? Did that not bug anyone else?
I've watched and enjoyed several of your videos thus far but it wasn't until you said "Fuck Zach Snyder" that I subscribed and hit the like button. We are kindred spirits, you and I.
1:50 - 1:58
As an actual Haitian, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed and LOL’d at this part of this video
I don't know where else to comment this, but I really love this channel's logo it's really cute.
I got sent here by Curio, who recommended (and referenced strongly) this video in her larger Why Zack Snyder Sucks essay, "Zack Snyder: A World Based on Spite"!
I really enjoyed this one, thanks!
Fulci's 'Zombie' had the most terrifying creatures. They looked the part.
As silly as resident evil is as a movie series, I like the design of their zombies.
The games do a better job of parodying real life weapons manufacturers and PMCs and playing them up to be comically evil. The main villains of the entire series (Oswald E. Spencer and Albert Wesker) are confessed eugenicists, even.
It's really interesting how looking at the cause of zombie pandemics, such as with the case of Resident Evil and Return of the Living Dead, that it always seems to represent left fears more effectively than right fears.
Classic RE games are my life. The films, not so much.
The Resident Evil games are also lampooning the pharmaceutical industry and the military industrial complex. The zombies were intentionally manufactured by a pharmaceutical industry that basically owns an entire city. They were designed to be weapons sold to the highest bidder, but greed and betrayal always lead to them being unleashed upon a hapless population.
This was fantastic. You successfully changed my nostalgic opinion of Dawn of the Dead.
I also haven't watched the original trilogy in a long time and had no clue of the social commentary being made.
I think you give the walking dead a bit more of a hard time than it deserves in terms of messaging. It's still kinda shit but it definitely doesn't argue that getting strong and tough is the answer - in fact, character's inability to help others is continually their downfall. The whole recent Negan/Saviors story that lasted far too long was an obvious story about the dangers of capitalism and that workers rising up and overthrowing their bosses is the thing to do. Hamfisted and poorly done, sure, but not arguing that the answer is to get tough for toughness' sake
Too bad most of the characters that survive are cishet white able-bodied men.
@@ravenfrancis1476 Holy shit get another line dude
@@homerdripson406 Stop defending a white man's power fantasy disguised as horror and maybe I will.
You're probably right since the theme of collaboration for betterment is a major one in the comics. Rick just flat out tells him stuff like the Savior's protection racket are holding them back and preventing the rebuilding of society.
Hell, when the Whispers show up and discuss their philosophy of rule through strength, everyone between the 4 safe zones vehemently rejects it.
Zombies don't just gobble brains, they gobble arms, legs, shoulders, knees, toes, ears, eyes... eyeballs...
I'd really like to see a zombie movie based on haitian mythology because "perpetual enslavement without even death to free" is definitely the most terrifying interpretation of the concept I know off
It isn't a one-for-one match as its mythological delvings are ultimately quote shallow, but you may like The Serpent and the Rainbow. It at least deals with the surface elements of the mythological zombie.
I think this is only the third time I've EVER heard anyone correctly assess the horrific implications of the original Haitian zombies, and the second time I've heard Romero-and-after "zombies" correctly identified as ghouls.
Dope shit, brah. Your perspective is salient as fuck! High-five for the cathartic dissection of ever-evolving social mores and their interactions with media and politics, dawg.
It might actually be more impressive if Romero really didn't intend to comment on consumerism in Dawn of the Dead, because that would just speak to how intrinsically linked the idea is into the mindset of an American citizen.
Really digging this channel.
I've always been bothered by how brain eating was a niche quality rarely used outside of movies with a comedic slant.
The trope did originate from a horror-comedy movie, so that might explain it.
@@glitchedoom Which somehow "no one" (other than horror fans, and even then nowhere near all) remembers, to my eternal bafflement. Why there's a memory hole around that movie will never not confuse me, given it's also one of the earliest of the flesh-eating-running zombies, which many maintain were a fresh shock in _Bad Dawn of the Dead_ for some reason, despite the source movie in question being such an stone classic.
I find this video to be even more important now with the coronavirus pandemic.
Why the video start by describing zombies as though they're eyeballs?
The fact that Zach Snyder is making yet another zombie movie, this time in the middle of a resurgent civil rights crisis, already has me pounding my head into the wall.
And it was terrible.
i could listen to you talk about zombie movies for hours.
Now I really want to see Matt review Army of the Dead lol.
Perfect description on this video.
I ended up quitting on The Walking Dead comics because of the things you mentioned, where all relationships were transactional or risky, and the only way to win was to get better at killing (though the comics did it way better than that show)
The video game however is amazing. It uses the same idea of the walkers and has a different story and characters, and truly makes you feel different characters’ struggles as they decide between survival and empathy, and whether to trust others or go it alone, as well as those who become simply unhinged and a danger to others. The main character Lee is amazing with the best sad ending I’ve experienced in a piece of media.
I have been describing zombies as humans with no money, credit, or hopes of getting either one ever. They are only trying to satisfy a gnawing hunger that any of us may eventually experience.
I can't speak for newer Walking Dead as I checked out after Negan, but what I saw showed the characters (particularly Rick) pushed to the brink of evil by the brutality of their circumstances, and then reminded of the value of humanity and stepping back from that dark threshold.
Characterizing the message of that show as "you have to become terrible to survive terrible things" is missing the crucial capstone of "but do not become lost in fear and rage and lose sight of what it means to be human; of love, compassion, and the pursuit of happiness"
Ironically bad Dawn of the Dead is the only enjoyable movie Zack Snyder has made. You're not wrong about the message, though.
Me, I can't watch any zombie thing anymore without comparing it directly to Train to Busan, and that's not a fair standard to hold most movies to; it's way too good.
this is so refreshing thank you
OT but connected: The modern movie zombie has virtually nothing to do with vodou or Haiti, except for the term. In its original context it refers to somenthing akin to classical "anima", ie. "soul", but not neccessairly as a conscious or personal entity, but rather as "life spark", wether it animates (which is what "anima" does) a body or a disembodied consciousness. In vodouisant metaphisics there are different kinds of souls jointly animating a human (or other) being, hence there are different kinds of zombies. The walking corpses or corpse-like people in a seemingly catatonic state referred to as "zombies" were a staple of horror movies at least since The White Zombie (not situated in Haiti, but elsewhere in the Caribbeans, by the way). Thats probably why the term became connected to a hugely successful Romero's movie, even as it virtually superseded any previously existed notions of what a cinematic zombie was (and they had never been any consistency between various movies in that regard). If we were to find any pediggree of the modern cinematic zombie, we could list among its ancestors: 1) the original, folkloristic and Byronian vampyre; 20 the Germanic aptrgangr - the inspiration behind Tolkien's barrow-wights 3) the Caligari-style somnambulist figure.
send more paramedics
Wow brilliant video. I have always liked zombie movies but quit watching walking dead during season 2 or 3 I forget which. I could never articulate why. Thank you for plucking that thorn from my mind. The living have no reward for survival they just are monsters or are becoming monsters.
Love this channel.
Zack Snyder literally ruins everything his stinky fingers touch
I'd really like to see a Zombie film where a cure for being a zombie is found really early, well before society collapses and the problem becomes widespread, but all the prepper murderlust types can't accept that they don't get their moment to feel badass and kill things without consequence so they end up ruining everything to make sure an apocalypse does actually happen.
kinda disappointed that you didn´t say "Maybe the real zombie was the movies we made along the way"
Number of times I giggled and said aloud "I love you Scaredy Matt" while watching this: at least 5
Sweet caucasian Jesus, where has this channel been all my life? You guys are completely on my wavelength. This, I dig.
I read a lot of the comics and then made an attempt at the show before determining that the message of The Walking Dead is: "Dear cishet abled white guys, don't worry! When society collapses you'll demonstrate through your badass merit that you belonged at the top of the heap all along."
While this is certainly true, I think it does behoove us to think a little on material conditions: I have a friend who is a MASSIVE zombie fan and fantasizes often about the collapse of society and how he'd survive. He's chronically poor, intermittently homeless, never did well in school, never does well at work, but he can pull machines out of dumpsters and make them run.
This guy is on the bottom of a lot of social ladders, but - in a world where pulling machines out of dumpsters is a way of life - his skills are top-tier, and all the invisible "they" that laughed at him, paid him like shit, and never gave him any real power will learn how valuable he really is. The subtext erases everyone who isn't a cishet white guy - no question - but the text is really about self-empowerment. He wants social value, and he doesn't think the world as we know it will EVER give that to him.
the comic is pretty square but one of my favorite characters on the show is a gay man with a spiky metal mace arm...
Exquisite Corpse That’s absolutely tragic.
You forgot about the black chick with the sword
You sound like a fundamentalist christian who's unable to enjoy things because they just constantly see satan in everything. I pity you.
Excellent analysis, have a subscriber.
Oh my god, hearing Zombie with a picture of Zack Snyder 2 days after trying to inflict ARMY OF THE DEAD to myself is too much. Are you a prophet?
if Zack Snyder was a zombie, would you enjoy putting him out of his misery?
he could, but he doesn't
I love your way of 'dropping knowledge' in a brilliantly sarcastic way.
Maybe the real zombies were the movies Zack Snyder made along the way
Well said Scaredy Matt!
George A. Romero- I wasn't making a statement. 😉
Everyone- Right. 😉
when we studied NotLD I thought it was incredibly bleak and was unsure how to interpret the ending; after listening to your idea of it and a commenter’s describing how Duane envisioned it, I’ll have to rewatch and see what I think this time. Great video, we love to see it ✌️
What could be a better critique of mindless consumerism than for Romero to have accidentally created one?
Like, he just looked around at his lived experience and unintentionally found a scathing critique of capitalism, and he didn't even realize he did it.
Maybe it’s time to make a zombie movie where not only do most of the main cast survive, but they do so by coming together, pooling their resources, and risking violence only when necessary to save their lives and the lives of the people they run into.
both the book and the movie of Warm Bodies have issues (ssssso straaaaight) but uhm a story from the POV of a zombie who's existence is a poetic exploration of crippling depression, social anxiety and and social isolation is really good? also compassion, community and love saves a dying world. And it's really frustrating how the Zach Shnyder approach has led to so many 'strong boys' dismissing the story cuz zombies are supposed to be scary (nevermind that the boneys are terrifying and also the existiential horror of the gaping sky mouth that they fucking worship)
I haven't seen them all yet but in my opinion this is your best review so far.