Zombies - The Shambling Classic - #MonsterMondays 21

So for the run up to Halloween I have decided to talk about classic monsters of horror for Monster Mondays. These are the monsters everyone thinks of when someone talks about the classic horror movies of the twentieth century or the classic books in the genre.

Monster Mondays posts may be fiction, film reviews, book reviews or me waxing lyrical about a particular monster. Monsters can be paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy or even simply human. So basically, anything monster goes. I also invite anyone who would like to, to join in with their own post. (See end for details).

Zombies - The Shambling Classic

I have to admit zombies are not my favourite classic monster, but they are definitely one of the big horror genres. For me, for it to be a proper "zombie" movie, it has to have reanimated corpses with a taste for the living, a la "Night of the Living Dead", although there are broader definitions of zombies.

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I was looking up a list of zombie films on Wikipedia and frankly there are a lot on the list that I wouldn't count as zombie movies at all. The Fog, for example is on the list, but I wouldn't say it's about zombies - it's a ghost story where the dead come back in terrifying form to kill the living, not shamble around trying to eat them.

For me a zombie is a simple creature with little brain (most of the time - there are exceptions) and a desire to eat living flesh. Which actually makes it more of a ghoul in strict terms, but you can't argue with a whole genre, can you? :)

One of the reasons I've never been overly fond of the genre, is because they freak me out so much. One of the freakiest has to be from Zombi 2, where there is an underwater, swimming zombie. For some reason that just give me the jitters.

I have no problem if the zombies are created by toxic waste, a virus, alien parasites or anything else that isn't supernatural, but for me zombies need to be tied to something in "the real world" for them to be real zombies. Even Voodoo is supposed to use powders to bring back the dead, which counts as toxic something to me.

Another example on the list of zombie movies I didn't agree with was Evil Dead and the sequels. Those are possessed bodies, Deadites, they aren't zombies. It's too supernatural to be zombies :).

Yes, I know, I'm picky about my zombies. Feel free to disagree with me :D.

My favourite zombies are as follows:

• Warm Bodies
  
  I love this movie. I love the zombie mythos, the rules and the way things are happening that no one suspects. One of the things that gets to me with zombie movies is how depressing they often are. There is no way out, all is dark and there is nothing at the end of the tunnel. This movie is the other end of that. This is the light coming back, not the darkness descending.
  
  R is a zombie, but he is rediscovering communication and he rescues a human from the other zombies. He seems to be regaining some of his humanity, but he's a zombie, what good can it do him?
  
  The book is slightly different than the film, but it is just as good. I thoroughly recommend both.
  
• Resident Evil
  
  
  Not gonna lie, I mostly love this franchise because I love Alice - she is awesome. These zombies are a little different in that they are not slow and they mutate, but they are still mostly mindless with a bent on killing, so they count in my mind. In the first movie, the Umbrella corporation has created the T-virus which mutates human beings and animals alike into merciless killing machines. Alice wakes with amnesia in the Hive, one of their facilities, which has been infected with the virus. She has to survive and find the anti-virus. Things go downhill from there.
  
  I haven't played the video games only seen the movies and I love them. Each one brings something new to the table to make them exciting and Milla Jovovich is brilliant and I am looking forward to Resident Evil: The Final Chapter in 2017.
  
• iZombie
  
  
  I have only seen a couple of eps of this so far, but it is great. Everyone should watch it. Liv is turned into a zombie and needs to eat brains, so she takes a job at the morgue. She then eats brains of murder victims and tries to help to solve the crimes.

As you can see the original big classics by George A. Romero did not make my list nor did The Walking Dead - this is because they are just too dark for my taste. I know Resident Evil should be dark too, given the premise, but somehow, all the sci-fi makes it better for me. I do not begin to understand quite how my brain works, but there you have it.

What is you favourite zombie movie? What makes a zombie for you?

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Monster Mondays Links 

If you would like to join in, please feel free to make your Monster Monday post and add it to the list.

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Still pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

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And here's another wonderful blog hop all you authors might be interested in. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop