His article had to do with an episode of British Television called Dead Set. He reviews the show, calling it smart and inventive except for one small detail: ZOMBIES DON'T RUN. Since the beginning (George Romero's Night of the Living Dead in 1968), zombies have always been a slow species. As Pegg says, It's hard to run when you have a cold. Think how much more difficult it will be when you are dead." Vampires and werewolves may be about sex and savagery, but zombies personify our deepest fear - death.
However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.
Well said, Mr. Pegg. I think Michael Jackson's Thriller video would have been much less amazing if the zombies had sprinted across the dance floor. See if you agree.
Also, my friend Dave is reading Prude and Prejudice and Zombies, which was followed by the best selling Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. After he finishes, he should be ready for this one, available in hardcover from Amazon:
No comments:
Post a Comment