Truth Just as Strange, If not Stranger than Fiction

So, tell me, does this not sound like something from Night of the Living Dead or Night of the Comet (1984)?

Yahoo! News reports that villagers in Southern Peru are mysteriously becoming sick after a meteor crashed in their village. "Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP." The meteorite left a 100 by 20 foot hole in the ground from which boiling water seeped.

"'Residents are very concerned,'" said Lopez.

No shit! Next thing they know, they're zombies!

I expect, as all of you Max Brooks followers know, that this parallels a Class I outbreak. The scariest kind, in my opinion, "the most common type of outbreak and the easiest to go unnoticed" (24).

Now, I'm the irrational type, as we all know, and the first thought that ran through my head was, "Eeek, zombie apocalypse. Where's my baseball bat?" Because we're all like that, us zombie people, the type who zombie-proof their dwellings, mentally fortify against the dead, and are always on the lookout for a blunt instrument should the shit hit the fan. We're nutty, us zombie people.

I expect it's a control issue. The two types of zombie people I've encountered are as follows:

• The Anarchist: Gleefully awaits the zombie apocalypse so that they can unleash some serious hell. Generally the type who likes to bust shit up, stick it to The Man, and basically watch the strict confines of culture and society crumble around them, as they dance joyfully in their chaotic freedom.
• The Anal Retentive Prick: Thrives on order, rationality and reason. Painstakingly prepares for the zombie apocalypse so they won't be caught unawares by the walking dead. Hates the contradiction, chaos, and metaphysical messiness the zombie quandry presents. After all, if death is reversible, what happens to all of the other so-called "rules"we base civilization on? Unloads an atomic amount of pent-up repression on the zombies, thereby setting the world to rights again.
  

Which are you? I suspect we're all a little of both. After all, who hasn't felt a twinge at the unnaturalness that is the zombie, while at the same time happily daydreaming of kicking some zombie ass, Resident Evil style? I know I have!

On a serious note, I sincerely hope the meteor hasn't made anyone any sicker. That would be awful - zombies or not.

And now, just for fun, a Night of the Comet trailer:

You, Sir, are a Gentleman and a Scholar (and a horror fan)

If I have any beef with Horror as a genre and a cultural institution (and I have many, torture porn and obsessive fans, notwithstanding - but those will be dealt with later) it's that there is an over-abundance of novice horror criticism floating about. Everyone - from the fangirl who's gotten her hands on Max Brook's World War Z or the reviewer when a rare high budget horror film comes around - feels qualified to take a stab at what horror films really mean, what it's all about, the social significance of monster/killer/slasher XYZ. Now, I'm not an educational snob - I think it's just as viable to be an autodidact as it is to be university taught - but the key concept is knowledge, something most would-be reviewers lack.

Horror has an egalitarianism about it, an everyman aura that welcomes the poor and huddled masses; the basis of its appeal, and its wonderful magic, depends on it.

Like any film genre, it has a vocabulary for its criticism, a delightfully varied pattern of themes that accompany it. And most people, by sheer ignorance or snobbery (as if to say, how can something as low as horror have a world of criticism to it? as the nose points in the air) lack it.

Maybe I'm just jaded by all the hoopla brought upon by the release of Captivity and Hostel II. Or maybe it's every single news source - who until recently wouldn't touch a horror movie with a ten foot pole if it lay bleeding on the pavement outside the office - jumping into the "torture porn" debate. Who knows.

That's why it's such a treat to read horror criticism from a true scholar's viewpoint. I am speaking, in favorable terms, of S.S. Prawer's Caligari's Children: The Film as a Tale of Terror (De Capo Press, 1980). I had been itching to get my hands on this book ever since I'd seen it referenced (in Robin Wood, I think) and was lucky enough to get a reasonably priced copy at a used book store. Talk about sublime! With references to literature, horror/mainstream film, psychology, philosophy, history (ad infinitum, ad nauseaum), this beautifully written piece of non-fiction is largely overlooked in splatterati circles. Not that there are many of them - especially in a university setting, but I digress.

Prawer's words, like the illumination on a medieval manuscript, manage to gild and dignify a genre that prides itself on its jocularity and readability. Though it is a bit heavy on the German horror films - Prawer is Taylor Emeritus Professor of German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, so read up on your German expressionism, kids - and a little conservative by modern standards (the man was born in 1925, so we can give him a break), the marvelous insight and language the man imbues in his writing are worth the search for this magnificent book. One can only wonder what he thinks of the horror films that came after publication, as I'm sure they're fascinating.

Do yourself a favor, get yourself a copy. You'll be a better horror fan for it.