Zombies 101

Image from Entertainment Weekly

I've blogged about my horror movie fandom here many, many times.  Every Halloween, I post a growing list of my favorite horror films in various categories to help readers pick out their favorites for the holiday.   Most horror movie monsters (Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy) are now so familiar, they're just not very scary.  Even attempts to reboot them, and get down and dirty, still don't make them scary.  About the only things that can still scare an audience silly are ghosts, the devil and zombies.

I just recently wrote a review of zombie master George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, not the best of the Dead series, but a decent entry for the genre.  But how interesting would it be to get college credit for studying zombies?  I'd like it, just for comparing and contrasting old, slow zombies with the new, fast zombies. Original Romero vs. new Romero. Original films vs. remakes.  Authorized sequels vs. unauthorized.  Okay, in reality, I'd just dig it for getting to watch movies and talk about them.

[Excerpt]

Zombies lumber into curriculum at University of Baltimore

Arnold Blumberg plops the zombie head on a table at the front of the small theater.


"I brought a friend," says the University of Baltimore professor, clad in an unbuttoned black shirt adorned with red skulls.


Blumberg is meeting his class for the first time and it seems appropriate that he greet them beside "old Worm Eye," undead star of the 1979 Italian cult film "Zombi 2. . ."

Read more at: Baltimore Sun

Thanks to Stupid Monkey Planet for the link.