Friday 5 March 2010

Guest post from BookChickCity

And now for something completely different, a guest post from the lovely Carolyn at BookChickCity! As the Headline Zombies have proved, yes we girls like zombies too. In our case, almost as much as we love shoes! Read on for Carolyn's take on her fascination with zombies:

You Like Zombies?! But You're A Girl!

As far back as I can remember I have always loved horror. I remember many nights watching classic hammer house with my mum, scaring ourselves silly. Probably not the best thing to do with a ten year old, but I loved it.

I love all horror movies, whether cheesy, gory or physiological. I enjoy vampires, but they never get my skin to crawl, and most of the time you just end up fancying them (did anyone see Gary Oldman in Ford Cappola's Dracula? Not normally I guy I would go for, but hey, as Dracula he oozed sex appeal. And Robert Patterson? 'Nuff said).

I love watching werewolf films too - An American Werewolf in London is in my top ten favourite horror movies of all time. It is such a classic, the combination of horror, gore and comedy, was, and still is in my opinion, fantastic. The change from man to beast is bone crackling good.

But the monster that scares me the most has to be the zombie. For they are neither sexy, nor beast. They are us. Just the undead version of us. Zombies make my skin crawl, they make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, zombies give me nightmares.

Zombies are also the symbolism of complete human annihilation. The virus spreads fast, without discrimination. The realisation that ANYONE can be infected, is terrifying. And although we complain about the police and the government, fundamentally it's what makes us as a society feel safe, but then they're infected too. Your family, your friends. Where do you go? Where do you hide? You are totally, utterly alone...


The scene from Romero's movie, Dawn of the Dead, captures this. The few remaining survivors trapped on the roof of the mall surrounded by the gathering zombies crashing and banging trying to get in, to get to them... to gorge on their flesh.

The opening scene of 28 days later also sums it up completely. The silence and desolation of London that's usually bustling with life, is now empty. Except for them. Instead of the slow, stupid and cumbersome zombie that you always felt you could run from is gone. Zombies have evolved. They're fast, they can run, and they can run as fast as you!

My husband will contest to the fact that night terrors get more intense if I'm reading zombie novels (which I do on a regular basis), play Resident Evil on the Wii, which I do with the curtains closed and all lights off. My husband continues to shake his head in wonderment at why I love shuffling, putrefying, decaying, walking dead people, so much.

With so many of my girlfriends saying they are too scared to watch scary movies, or you would never see them reading books like that, I have often asked myself the question. Is it rare for a girl to like blood and gore? To relish fear? To get excited over the knife wielding lunatic who's escaped from an insane asylum?

For me it's normal and I think it stems from watching monsters from an early age. Horror is a total escape from reality. I know that zombies don't really exist and therefore can completely immerse myself in the safety of that fear, knowing that no real harm will ever come to me...

I am right aren't I? They don't really exist? Right?

15 comments:

  1. I read a book with zombies in it recently (Mark Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned) and though the main character zombies are pretty tame (for zombies) there were some shuffling mindless zombies in the book and I had nightmares about them. I read alot of books with paranormal aspects and zombies are still the only thing that is guaranteed to give me nightmares!

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  2. I have Happy Hour of the Damned on my shelf ready to read at some point. I've heard really good things about it and rest of series. Thanks for stopping by Heather :)

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  3. Another girl here. I must admit zombies scare me the most too. I don't like horrors like Saw or Hostel... I just can't watch them and haven't. But I love my zombies and werewolves and vampires - though Mr Patterson is a bit to pretty for me.

    I'm another who will have to look out for that book! :)

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  4. I love you carolyn! so glad I found you on twitter. I'm a diehard Zombie girl!! Love all the movies and it was actually Zombies that brought me back to comics. I recommend The Walking Dead Tpbs youll love them, I also just bought the new dead. So glad you did this post I used to the same disbelief when Guys hear like comics too :)

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  5. Hi FSoM - aw thanks, it good to have met you too. Yay another zombie girl! I haven't really read comics before, maybe I should give them a go. Thanks for stopping by :)

    Hi Carmen - that's just it, I'm a die hard horror fan. I loved Hostel, although it was totally gross! And Saw 1 was just brilliant. I agree Patterson is pretty, but I like looking at pretty things ;)

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  6. I love the post! I loved scary movies at a young age - the scarier the better. Now with todays technology those moves that used to make me scream are now.... well.... cheesy. :)

    I still love a good scare - a good thrill.... and the movies you mentioned made me want to get a net flicks account so I could order them all and have a spookfest!

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  7. I read primarily paranormal of all sorts. Zombies are included, but not always the main character. Except for Mark Henry's superb Amanda Feral series. Love Amanda and her peeps.

    For zombie movies, I prefer Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I like the humor to break of the fear factor just a tad.

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  8. Hi Sheila - thanks! I agree there are some cheesy horror movies out there but there are some that are just plain creepy - have you seen The Grudge (1)? The way she crawls down those stairs had my husband hiding behind his hands... I know, wuss ;)

    Hi Vickie - Shaun of the Dead is very funny, I love the Britishness about it. I haven't seen Zombieland yet but will when I manage to get it on DVD. I'm just about to read Happy Hour of the Damned for my Men of Urban Fantasy week, so looking forward to it.

    Thanks for stopping by guys :)

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  9. hehe maybe in the future we cant be so sure that zombies wont exist.
    I'm one of those girls who cant watch horror movies. It's stupid, but later I cant sleep...I believe my imagination is too big for me.
    But I'm one of those who plays Resident Evil better than my boyfriend! I stole his PS3 and play all day!! So as you can see, some of us are like that too ;D

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  10. Hi Gaby - I love Resident Evil.. it's one of my favourite games. And yes, I too play it better than my hubby ;)

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  11. Could be just that I am a really tough guy or in self-denial.. but I selfdom find films that scares me... but if I have to pick one ... Notting hill was pretty scary ..

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  12. I love Resident Evil, and use to play it with my brother. he was so scared of the spiders in the first one that I always had to take over at that point!

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  13. Hi Visionscifi - I must admit with the amount of horror movies I've seen over the years it's hard to scare me too. I seem to be able to work out what's going to happen before it's revealed. But I still get a buzz from watching them :)

    Headline Z's - the thing I find the most scary in Resident Evil is when it's all quite and you're walking around the house and suddenly you hear a tapping and scrapping at the window, only to turn round and see it's a zombie - freaks me out! LOL

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  14. Book Chick City-- if I have to choose one--- it must be The Grudge... I felt some kind of primitive fear.. going to whatch zombieland tonight... guess it will be more fun then horror

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