By Bob Shultz
There’s an invasion going on… and it’s not stopping anytime soon. You can lock your doors, you can bar your windows, you can even build a FIRE to avoid to converging hordes… but you can’t stop the rampage! Let’s face it Joe’s… ZOMBIES ARE HERE TO STAY!
The latest infestation started on Tuesday on the campus of Missouri Western and continues through Saturday November 1st, with two outbreaks on Halloween Night. Director Don Lillie brings to the University stage, “Night of the Living Dead,” based on the George A. Romero 1968 film.
It tis’ the season for the undead, and I cross the “Z-word” in nearly every overheard conversation: at Hazels’ coffee shop, in line at the bank, in a passing group of huddled friends’ Downtown on the Felix Street Experience. It seems people everywhere have Zombie fever. I’d be lying to say that I haven’t been bitten by the Z-bug, myself. In fact, I’ve got a progressive love/hate relationship with Zombies.
Local filmmakers can’t seem to get out of the Zombie loop. Nearly every meeting of FAME (The Film Alliance of the Midland Empire) has some local filmmaker pitching some variation of “The Dead Attacking the Living.” It has actually gotten to the point that a moratorium has been issued on the “zed” subject … but to little avail. People LOVE Zombies… and yes, I have to admit… I do too.
As a storyteller, it is a premise at its most basic, horrific and pure level. The idea of the dead coming back to life strikes at the core of every living soul: a physical manifestation of our own mortality, the rotten-fleshed reminder that we may out run death for a while… but we are all headed to the “other side of fence” sooner or later.
As a filmmaker, it’s equally basic and pure. You don’t need a huge budget to make a zombie movie. All you need is some basic make-up, some torn clothes, a hero, a heroine and you are on your way. You don’t have to be a good filmmaker to tell a good zombie story, because every Zombie story is the same. Sure the plot details differ constantly, but the frame work remains the same.
Here’s the recipe: Take a group of unlikely protagonists. These will be people from all walks of life. The standard archetypes include a stubborn, older conservative character, an outspoken minority character with a heart of gold, a young/beautiful woman who must overcome her insecurities and take a leadership role, a sickly person in need of care and a handful of colorful-yet personality devoid-attractive supporting characters (these will be the first series of victims. If this was the Star Trek away team, they would be wearing red shirts.) These poor folks can be easily identified but their quick, pithy dialogue and unusual pension for tasteless sarcasm.
Then, you have the ZEDS. The Zombies, the Undead, the Mutants… oh, they come with different names… but it is the same antagonists. A limping army of rotten flesh humans driven to snuff out our heroes and changing them into their most carnal and basic forms.
In the course of any given zombie story, our heroes are driven from their self-centered existence and, somehow in the 2nd act, converge on an unlikely and unsafe location, somewhere in the middle of nowhere: A place that somehow has avoided every domestic convenience developed since the
Sure these locations have guns…. but rarely have ammunition. They have electricity, but no telephones. They have no cars, but an unending supply of kerosene, gasoline and matches.
In the world of the Zombie story… details aren’t as important as the general idea. How did the Zombies come into existence? Was it run-off from an industrial nuke site? Is it the government’s top secret aerial-assault vapor gone scud? You know, it simply doesn’t matter, because as long as the dead are looking for fresh human, ala tar tar… there is an adventure to be told.
Personally, horror films are not my first choice of movie-genre. But as a filmmaker, I have had the fun, and exhausting, opportunity to be a producer on two feature Horror films: Writer/Director D Byron’s “Lewis and Clark’s Trail of Blood” and Writer/Director Timothy Friends’ “Bonnie and
The reasons for this are pretty simple: These movies have a built in audience, low budgets, the technical aspects are not as demanding as other types of films and they are REALLY fun to be a part of.
By the way, neither of these films is a traditional Zombie picture. But as an actor, Creative Adviser and a half-assed writer/director… I’ve got about a dozen related zombie-projects under my belt. So much so, I declared “NO MORE ZOMBIES” about a year ago. But like the comfort of an old pair of blue jeans, I might be returning to my flesh-eating roots, sparked on by a recent conversation with D Byron.
As my list of potential film features lines up for the next year or so: a Baseball-inspired sports comedy, a very serious documentary on an ex-girlfriend who was quite possibly murdered by her husband (a case that is still pending in Boston) and a few short films as well; I’m actually embracing the idea of the goofy-fun of the Zombie genre.
How could I not? There is a pureness, simplicity and a guilty pleasure to the world of Zombies… and it’s that deep seeded fondness that will bring me to the footlights of the University stage to, once again, delve into the world of the undead. After all, Joes… it tis’ the season to be scared, humored and shaken to the roots of the knowledge our own, increasingly shorter, mortality. In the end, isn’t that a big part of Halloween experience anyway?