Night of the Living Dead Foreshadowed Our COVID-19 Lockdown

"A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a bloodthirsty, flesh-eating breed of monsters who are ravaging the East Coast of the United States."

Yes, it's campy. But this low budget 1968 zombie film by George Romero has a surprisingly large and passionate fanbase. With a budget just over 100K, the film grossed 12 million dollars domestic and 18 million in international theaters.

It's the kind of late night horror fare that Ghoulardi would have loved to deliver on his Friday Night Shock Theater in Cleveland. Even if you can't take the zombies seriously, the film does have some seriously interesting features.

The storyline is basic. Johnny and Barbra do their annual visit to their father's grave to place flowers there when they are suddenly set upon by cannibalistic zombies. Johnny, who was making fun of his sister for being scared, ends up himself being killed. Barbra runs for her life.

Chase scenes are always dramatic but in this case the pursuit is relentless. She manages to find a farmhouse and manages to get inside. No one is home it seems. Then Ben shows up, looking to fill up his vehicle with gas. Aware that the house is being surrounded by zombies, he keeps them at bay with fire, and proceeds to board up the doors and windows.

Before social media, this was the best way to find out what was happening
in the outside world. Duane Jones as Ben.

Don't look now, but there goes the neighborhood.

The big reveal is that there are five people hiding in a "safe room" in the basement, a family of three and another couple They emerge and a series of conflicts begin as regards the best course of action against this deadly coronavirus, I mean, zombie infestation.

And there it is. A lockdown. A quarantine. And a lot of tension due to their various opinions on how to respond to the life and death situation.

Here are some excerpts from imdb.com

The Shining, The Exorcist and The Omen are all films that owe some of their stylistic approach to this film. This is the film that re-wrote the rules of the horror genre as it went along, whilst acting as both social critique and fond homage to 'The Birds' as well.

And...

This is "the" film that changed the way zombie films were created - more horrifying than ever before. Almost all zombie films that came after this one were patterned after this movie. "Night of the Living Dead" is the most iconic zombie film ever made.

Much of the world is in lockdown and quarantine and while it's true that DUIs are down, domestic violence is up. Way up. Just as Night of the Living Dead seems to have foretold.

* * * *

Here's another 60's throwback... or at least a parody of one. Revised for our contemporary Safe Zone focused modern times... Have a party.

You can catch it when you're at the grocery store
You can catch it off the handle on a door
You can catch it from a friend that's droppin' by
You can catch it like a baseball from the sky
I know that you feel so alone
But everybody Must Stay Home.

* * * *

The Message Here:
Still in lockdown? Make music. Don't have fights. 
We really don't want to see anyone getting killed.

* * * *

Related Link

Night of the Living Dead in the Time of Confinement and the Coronavirus

(Note the nod to Love in the Time of Cholera)

The Walking Dead: What's the Big Appeal?

It seems that zombies have been taking over everything these days. Not sure what triggered this contemporary craze, but initially I had to laugh a couple years ago when I heard that my brother and his wife were reading a Jane Austen book with zombies in it. Abe Lincoln and zombies? Yep.

Stephen King threw his hat in the ring with Cell, a zombie tale where people become aggressive blood-thirsty zombies by taking phone calls on their cell phones. Brad Pitt tries to save the world from zombies in the horrorific World War Z. (Here's the trailer. If you haven't seen it it's totally wild.)

How big is our fascination for the undead? On television The Walking Dead is the hottest product out there right now, even as it infuriates its fans by killing off their fave characters.

As I thought about the reasons for this zombie obsession I came across this article on The Daily Dot titled "5 Reasons Why 'The Walking Dead' Is The Biggest Show On TV.'" The five reasons, according to Nico Lang, were as follows.

1. Zombies are so in right now. 
That's fairly self-evident, as indicated by this list of zombie novels currently in print.

2. We're living in a golden age of genre television.
OK, my blog post about the current Golden Age of Television was somewhat harsh, but for those who embrace the medium it really has produced a wave of unique characters and storylines.

3. It's like nothing else on the air right now.
No kidding.

4. The show has a massive female audience.
This is not something I would know from watching the show, nor something I would conclude from the snippets I've seen. Is this rue?

5. And finally, zombies can mean whatever you want them to mean.
This last point is the one that most resonates with me. At its most fundamental level I've begun to see The Walking Dead more symbolically that literally.

"Depending on your perspective," writes Lang, "it’s about the fear of widespread disease outbreak, World War II, consumerism, the anxieties of modern work culture, Communism, the slow degradation of the earth’s natural resources leading to total collapse, the rapture, or a metaphor for teen male sexuality. The message is in the eye of the beholder." Like a Rorschach Test.

So, what's it really all about, Alfie?

We live at a time when symbols seem significantly charged with power, though maybe this has always been so. The Cross. The Flag. The Wall. Symbols are everywhere... and in this story so are the Zombies. What do the zombies symbolize? I'm proposing that they are a symbol of Political Correctness.

First off, notice how they seem to travel in packs. Notice, too, that they refuse to leave the living alone. Why can't the zombies just do their thing and allow the living to do theirs? But no, there's this relentless pursuit taking place in which the PCs, I mean Zombies, won't be satisfied till everyone is a zombie.

This is not to suggest that the line between good and evil is drawn between the living and the undead. The show (and I speak as one who has never watched it but is only hearing about it from others) features all kinds of bad people who are among the living, people with bad motives who are self-centered or worse.

Well, we all know it's just a story. Zombies don't really exist. Then again, for all I know maybe none of us really exist. We're all just a dream, or maybe a Sim in an ultra-real Sim City.

I dunno. What's your take on all this zombie fascination? 

Zombies Create Confusion In Portland

My mother, when I was growing up, was an Registered Nurse who was also a First Aid trainer sometimes. On one occasion I remember her being part of a staged event in which rescue teams were being trained in how to deal with larger scale accidents. The training organizers had done a re-enactment of a bus wreck using boy scouts as victims. Mom said they tried to make it graphically real including bones sticking out and fake blood. (I remember her saying the recipe for fake blood is Nestle's Quik and red food coloring. The powdered chocolate helps give the blood its proper viscosity.) I got the impression it had been quite interesting.

A couple years ago I arrived at an intersection where a van full of young people had been plowed into by a car that evidently failed to stop at a stop sign. The van was upside down and all around there were teens and young adults sitting or lying on the grass and on the road being attended to by others. Fortunate, the victims in this case had no bones sticking out and there was very little blood, just a lot of hurting bodies.

It is with these images in mind that I read the following article about a van rollover in Portland.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A car full of people dressed as zombies crashed on Interstate 84 near downtown Portland on Friday, causing initial confusion by people who witnessed the crash.

Evidently the accident victims were en route to a zombie party.

Sgt. Greg Stewart said people who witnessed the crash initially thought the victims' injuries were much more serious, because of the zombie costumes.

"We're glad that everyone is alive, despite being 'undead'," Sgt. Stewart said, referring to the costumes.

Sounds to me like Sgt. Stewart found the incident amusing. But if you check out this image at Wikipedia, you'll understand immediately why a car crash involving a carload of people dressed as zombies might cause consternation. Yowzer! Is that you, sweetheart?

No deep thoughts here today... just a story for the water cooler.