Monster Scholar

I was thinking on my favorite subject—monsters—when I realized that these creatures mostly rise out of folklore, find their way into literature then blossom onto both the big and small screen. This shouldn’t surprise us considering that monsters have been around or ages and only the way in which we tell their stories has changed with time. In this three part series, I will explore the origins of three classic monsters—vampires, werewolves and zombies—that have endured the past and continue to haunt our present. Zombies have been around since the earliest forms of writing. In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh the vengeful goddess Ishtar vows: I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! The revolt of the dead against the living has been a popular image of horror and zombies can trace their folkloric lineage back to West African Voudon and Haitian voodoo. In both relig...

This post was sparked by a Facebook conversation about whether or not zombies could ride bikes. I have never seen a zombie on a bike so I said it couldn't be done. My reasoning was that as the brain starts to deteriorate and rot with the rest of the zombie's body, motor skills would be the first thing to go out the window. This would explain their lurched, shambling walk and slow reaction time, as well as their fear of fire. No wait, that's Frankenstein. Anyway, I was adamant that it couldn't be done, that a zombie brain fermenting into goo did not possess the fine motor skills required to balance on a bicycle. And I was wrong. When hell is full the dead won't walk the earth, they will bike! This shocking discovery raises essential concerns about zombie mobility. Far surpassing the question of fast zombies on foot, if zombies can ride a bike, what's to stop them from harnessing the power of the skateboard?   The segeway? If zombies have the motor skills...

Pontypool is the kind of film that gets me excited about the horror genre. It has been described by some as a zombie film, but Pontypool largely ignores many of the conventions of such films to bring something new and fresh to a movie about the “walking dead” It does this by challenging the zombie film’s stock and trade: guts and gore. Unlike the horde of flesh-eating dead made famous by Romero’s “_____ of the Dead” films, in Pontypool the enemy is unseen. For most of the film we are locked in the claustrophobic church basement where Grant Mazzy and his production team broadcast the news on Radio 660: The Beacon. That’s not to say the world outside the cold, dark basement of the world is any better. On Grant’s way to work, all we can see is a vast blackness swirled with flecks of snow, a desolate landscape devoid of human habitation or connection. This atmosphere heightens our connection to the characters that run the show, the charismatic Grant Mazzy, the voice of the Beacon; hi...

If you’re anything like me, religion is not the first thing you think of when mention is made of the flesh-eating undead. Instead, what springs to mind are endless hordes of ghouls hungry for your brains that can only be stopped by a bullet to the head. But beyond the rotting veneer of your everyday reanimated corpse, there lies a host of archaic religious meanings stretching from Christianity to mythology of Ancient Sumer. The zombie, like the vampire, has strong ties to the symbolism that drives the Christian religion. Jesus did die and rise again on the third day after all, and this resurrection finds a monstrous parallel in the zombie that crawls from its moldering grave to attack the living. So too does the zombie’s hunger for human flesh. Christian ceremony places special importance on receiving the blood and body of Christ in a metaphorical if not physical way. Once again the zombies’ flesh eating desire, like the vampire who sexualizes of the taking of Christ’s blood, is a ...

I stumbled upon this gorgeous collection of zombie pinups and here are some of my fav shots from the 2010 calendar. I really appreciate how these photos meld traditional standards of female beauty with the horrors of flesh eating. Any girl can look good in a rockabilly hairdo and short shorts, but these chicks do that and sell the gore cherry on top. Take that Betty Page! The full calendar is available for $9.99 at My Zombie Pinup Annie Get Your Gun! Say Aaaaaaahhhh! Pretty as a Peacock Smooth Sailin' Eat Your Heart Out!

To preface this review, I saw Zombieland last Thursday after an exhausting day of work and school. As I settled into my seat, I feared that I might fall asleep in the cool dark interior of the Movie Tavern if this newest zombie comedy didn’t live up to the wonderful reviews I’d read. I’m here to tell you, that Zombieland did not disappoint me. To start, I have never seen a zombie movie that was less about the zombies and more about the people. Unlike Day of the Dead , where Romero’s depiction of Bub encourages empathy, the zombies of Zombieland are the most inhuman creatures imaginable. Their hungry screams are a cross between a bird of prey and a velociraptor as they sprint after their victims at amazing speed. But despite their fearsome appearance, the zombies of Zombieland are merely a backdrop to the film’s central concern with human relationships. The zombie plague has left the remaining human survivors wary of making connections with each other. The film’s protagonists never g...

With Zombieland set to hit theaters this weekend, I figure it’s time for one last hurrah of Zombie Kill of the week. So I have something special planned, the top Zombie Kills via YouTube in no particular order. Enjoy. Tom Savini simulationeously pistol whips and shoots a zombie Crowbars are good for all sorts of things. Did anyone order a screwdriver? The party's just started. Bitch isn’t standing now. There’s a girl in the garden

A strange plague has overtaken the college campus where I live and work. The half groans, stifled coughs and bleary eyes of thousands of sick college students have crescendoed into something akin to zombie hysteria! Almost everyone I know has succumbed to flu-like symptoms and I am tempted to teach class in a hazmat suit. I'm actually washing my hands on a regular basis and not indulging in the five second rule (yes, I have eaten food off the floor before--but it was a triple-decker fudge brownie!). So wash your hands, cover your cough and for goodness sakes, please don't touch me! (for anyone who got that last reference to famous horror musical, kudos to you).

I was on MySpace when a Zombieland promo popped up with Woody Harrelson and that kid from Juno giving tips on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. This bit of fun seguewayed into the trailer and I was about to click off when I noticed the zombie stripper that chases the Asian businessman out of the nudie club (an image that has stuck with me since my first viewing of the redband trailer) was now wearing a digital bikini top! Check out the regular and restricted trailers at the Zombieland website to witness the hilarity.

His week’s zombie kill goes to a zombie! Bub from Day of the Dead wins this honor for most creative kill. Bub is the pet and guinea pig of the crazed Dr. Ted Fisher in an underground research facility guarded by military personnel. Instead of finding a cure for the zombie plague that has spread across the globe, Dr. Fisher believes that through conditioning zombies can be domesticated and trained not to attack humans. He trains Bub to respond to commands, even to hold a gun and rewards him for positive behavior with human flesh. When it’s discovered by Captain Rhodes, head of the platoon guarding the facility that Dr. Fisher is feeding Bub the remains of his dead soldiers, he flies into a rage and shoots the doctor. In the midst of a zombie attack on the facility, Bub gets loose from his chains and stumbles upon the body of his caretaker. Like a scene out of Frankenstein , Bub grieves over the death of his creator and naturally seeks revenge, arming himself with a dead soldier’s gun. ...

This week’s zombie kill goes to Jessica from the teen horror comedy Boy Eats Girl . Jessica is a high school student and the love interest of Nathan, the film’s protagonist. Nathan struggles to tell Jessica that he wants to be more than just friends, but after seeing Jessica with another boy he assumes the worst. Nathan reacts like any other teenage boy would and gets drunk. His antics end in an attempt at hanging made successful by his unwitting mother Grace, who opens his bedroom door and knocks him off his perch. Plagued by guilt, Grace brings her son back to life using a book of voodoo spells she found in a crypt at the church where she works. Nathan is restored to life with superhuman strength but lacks a pulse and has a gnawing hunger for human flesh. Nathan inevitably bites a bully at school who spreads a zombie plague that takes over the entire town. Jessica shows her mettle when a group of her friends is cornered by a crowd of teenage zombies. She jumps into action and has no ...

Zombie Kill of the Week goes to Skip, the owner of the go-go dance establishment where Cherry Darling works in Planet Terror . In real life Skip is actually Skip Reissig, Robert Rodriquez’s real estate agent, who at Rodriguez’s urging took on the part of the likable jerk in this grindhouse feature. Skip is manning the helicopter that will airlift the remaining survivors of the zombie apocalypse to a safe haven. There’s just one thing left to do, take care of the zombies lumbering towards the chopper. Skip pitches the copter forward and uses the fan blades to slice, dice and julienne the toxic undead, much to the excitement of the Crazy Babysitter Twins (played by Rodriguez’s cousins Electra Isabel and Elise Avellan) Honorable mention this week goes to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) for doing this gag first. A band of refugees commandeer a helicopter and touchdown in the middle of nowhere to refuel on their way to greener pastures. Headless of the dangerous helicopter blades, ...

This week’s zombie kill is from the Japanese film To kyo Zombie and bends all the rules of this competition. Though fans call this movie “the Japanese Shaun of the Dead ,” that might be a bit of an overstatement. Fujio and Misou are slackers who would rather be practicing their jujitsu than working at a fire extinguisher plant in Edogawa, Tokyo. The plant is located near the infamous Black Mount Fuji, a repository of toxic waste and other refuse that has also become a burial ground. Brought to life by the toxic waste and negative energy of the lost souls buried there, a horde of zombies rises to invade Tokyo. Fujio and Misou narrowly escape the zombie apocalypse, but when they stop at a grocery store to stock up on supplies Misou is bitten by one of the undead. Unwilling to become a zombie, he throws himself off a bridge and bequeaths his martial arts gear to Fujio. Fujio continues his friend’s legacy of jujitsu in the sport of zombie wrestling, that pits real zombies against human f...

This week’s zombie kill is an interspecies double whammy brought to you by the lovely but always deadly Mila Jovovich of Resident Evil . For Mila’s first truly inspiring zombie kill, she takes down a total of eight zombie Dobermans transformed into vicious killing machines by the spread of the T-virus. Stuck on one of the lower levels of the Hive, Umbrella’s underground research facility, she narrowly escapes being eaten by one zombie dog. After shutting a metal door in its face she breathes a sigh of relief, but it’s shortlived as she turns around to face a pack of seven zombified dogs with nasty looking teeth and claws. Luckily Mila is a quick draw, and she takes them out one by one with her handy Umbrella issue handgun. But just when she’s run out of bullets, the first zombie Doberman crashes into the room through an unsecured glass window. Out of ammo, Mila chucks her gun and uses the wall to catapult herself into the air. With a kung fu kick, she punts the undead beast as it leap...