Zombies

So I'm into Zombies at the moment, for some reason.

I'm reading a book called World War Z, which is part of my research into how contemporary authors are handling 'end of the world' scenarios. I've also recently read Survivors and the Day of the Triffids (which the BBC are remaking....again).

World War Z is about a Zombie uprising which devastates the whole planet, and is told from the viewpoint of the survivors after they fought back and eventually defeated enough to retake large parts of their countries. The Zombies in this book are traditional, lumbering zombies like in Evil Dead, which come at you slowly, but relentlessly.

On sunday I watched Resident Evil and 28 Days Later, back to back. Resident Evil again uses slow zombies, but 28 Days Later was a real turning point in Zombie fiction.

They learned to run.

This was a brilliant re-imagining of the Zombie myth, and one that was also taken up brilliantly by Dead Set by E4 last year (by the way, if you want to see something really freaky, go to www.unseenscreen.com). If seeing a horde of unthinking creatures staggering towards you is horrific, then seeing them sprint towards you must cross the line into terror.

It just shows how you can breathe life back into a tired old concept and turn everything you thought you knew on its head.

There are now a raft of Zombie films and books coming out, and they seem to be relentlessly, unfalteringly pursuing me. Who knows, maybe I'll try me hand at a short story or two, featuring a flying zombie, or an intelligent one...?