Zombies; cannibalistic monsters; decomposing corpses brought back to life; the walking dead. We all know of them. They are one of the most popular doomsday themes to pull from for movies, games, and tv shows. We are all familiar with what your standard zombie would look and act like, despite them being a fictional creature. The zombie franchise is booming and with so many zombie centralized medias out there for consumer enjoyment, it’s to be expected to see some variation within the monsters themselves. Two popular apocalyptic games, Dying Light and Dead Island, are two prime examples for how dissimilar they can be. In these two games the zombies differ greatly in appearance, capabilities, and specialties.
Everybody has a typical image in their mind
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Gory, bloody wounds. Exposed bones, muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments. Limbs missing. Intestines spilling. A disgusting, rotting corpse. These unsightly traits--- in combination with raging cannibalism and aggression--- are what have defined the term “zombie” as we know it today. Games Dying Light and Dead island are no exception. The zombies in these games are anything but beautiful. They’re repulsive, to say the least. Be that as it may, underneath the obvious undead characteristics, they do share a few differences in their appearances. In Dead Island almost all of the undead are in beachy, summery clothes that have been torn to rags; a lot of them are only in skimpy bathing suits. Whereas in Dying Light the majority of them are in shredded business casual outfits or everyday clothes. This is due to the settings in which each game takes place: Dead Island being on, well, an island overrun with disease and Dying Light in a zombie ridden city known as Harran. The attire of the flesh-devouring creatures isn’t the only notable difference in the appearances, though. In Dying Light every zombie you encounter has already been completely “zombiefied”, but in Dead Island it isn’t uncommon to come across
Despite there being hundreds of video game releases every year, most of these games are unoriginal and therefore unplayable. There are countless video game genres, but one of the most popular genres in the past few years have been the zombie games, also called survival games. I was thoroughly convinced that all the games in this genre were clichéd and overdone, until I played the video game The Last of Us. Even though it is a survival game, the focus is not on gruesome zombies or gratuitous violence, making it already vastly different from the others. Instead, the focus is on telling a story. Between the gorgeous graphics, serene music, and flawless acting, it already goes beyond being just another “zombie game,” but this isn’t even accounting
The Walking Dead is a television show produced by AMC based off the black and white comic books by Robert Kirkman. The show and comic book center around main character Rick Grimes as he learns to cope with life after waking up from a deadly wound into an outbreak of virus wielding undead creatures known as “walkers.” Over the course of season two and season three, the show starts to center around how Rick is able to command the group of survivors and the challenges they face trying to settle down in a safe area. They are confronted with another community nearby late in season three along with the increasing number of walkers in the area. While facing these challenges, the number of surviving members continues to dwindle; however, the minority ratio in the group remains below the average number of majority characters in the show.
White Zombie and “Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields” are both works that portray the zombie as a mindless creature, however they both have different reasons for the zombies being there. Both of these works contained social and political references to the time period that they were made in. Both works were meant to scare people, however they did it by playing on different fears.
James Parker essay “Our Zombies, Ourselves,” informs readers that the zombie has almost outranked the vampire, and why they’re so popular. This undead monster originated from a Caribbean folk nightmare and was adapted over time by, the Halperin brothers, William Seabrook and George Romero and numerous others. Much like the vampire, zombies owe their fame to the progressiveness of technology, allowing them to consistently invade various media forms. The zombie has infested countless tv shows, movies, video games, and books, throughout the 21st century. Zombies themselves are soulless corpses who were regurgitated back into the world of the living. This making them rejects from the underworld, this presents the zombie as rejected yet inexpungable. What makes the zombie so popular, however, is that symbolizes everything that is rejected by humanity. “Much can be made of him, because he makes so little of himself. He comes back, He comes back, feebly but unstoppably” (Parker). The zombie represents humanity itself as well as what is rejected by humanity. Much like individuals today, the zombie is burdened by life’s demands, converting to nothing but a rotting, groaning human shell that stumbles through life without a purpose. The zombie is symbolizer of the real world, and all things irrepressible, whereas the vampire is a symbol of an alternate world and all things
still fighting for his equal rights after all these years. Cecil wants him to understand, that he has to accept that the circumstances for the black population will always be the same.
As said in the previous discussion regarding the second chapter of Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human, zombies and their culture are examined and broke down in order to understand their motives for the progression of zombies globally. Through different perspectives from individuals based around the world, the discussion of the zombie culture debates over the idea that zombies have not just evolved within the narratives that have brought them to life, but they have evolved in such a way that ultimately transforms the narrative itself. However, in this specific chapter, “They are not men…they are dead bodies!”: From Cannibal to Zombie and Back Again, Chera Kee breaks down the introduction of zombies into mainstream consciousness,
During George Romero’s interview with Steven Mackenzie, Romero was asked for his opinions on why zombies are trending (James, 2013). Romero’s opinions are “they are hot and they have become a huge business, economic engine” (James, 2013). Romero is acknowledged as the “father of zombies” ;therefore, Mackenzie asks his opinion on how he feels about his nickname. Romero answers this question by criticizing Brooks’s film stating, “The walking dead is just a soap opera with the occasional zombie and I did not want any part of it” (James, 2013). Romero states in his interview that in his films he has never called these undead creatures “zombies.” He simply calls zombies people rising from the dead (James, 2013). Romero does not believe zombies are able to run; he says the zombies in World War Z move like “army ants” (James, 2013). Romero’s best known movie, Night of the Living Dead, frustrated many people. Romero responded, “if no...
Zombies have become very popular due to their depictions of being easy to kill and being communal. Zombie apocalypses are also very relatable due to the fact that they are set in lives similar to our society and seem easy to overcome. Zombies, themselves, can be identified with because we see ourselves when we look at a zombie. Zombies drudge on through the same task of finding human flesh to consume every day just like we drag ourselves to either class or our job in order to sit through another boring lecture or perform the same menial task every day. Just like the zombie, R, in the book, Warm Bodies, said, “I am Dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it,” we have learned to succumb to our daily routines and just live with
Kirkman describes zombies as an infectious horror in order to establish a close relationship between zombies and contagions. One of the The Walking Dead’s most brilliant successes has been the characterization of the zombies , and it may be the secret of their popularity. In his book, The Walking Dead, Kirkman
In the novel in the heat of the night and in the movie remember the titans the two main characters, Virgil Tibbs and Herman Boone, where stuck in very similar situations, both being black men taking over a job from a white man and then being ridiculed for taking that job over. In this essay we will be looking at one of the similarities and differences that each of these 2 characters have and why they have those similarities and differences and what effect it had on the story.
Many look to films such as The Breakfast Club and Back to the Future as representations of the 1980s; although both excelled at defining specific attributes, they lacked the ability to effectively portray the average day-to-day suburban life that many experienced during the decade. Directed by Savage Steve Holland, Better Off Dead is a dark romantic comedy about a high school student, Lane Myer, who becomes suicidal after his girlfriend dumps him just before Christmas. Played by John Cusack, the young man “can’t even commit suicide right, and soon finds his life getting even more complicated” as the movie progresses (Rotten Tomatoes). The characters he meets during his journey to self-mutilation make up a diverse cast that merges together
In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies were eventually eliminated. Or were they? Theorists argue that the monster’s elusiveness is due to its physical, psychological and social characteristics that cross the lines of classification. Human’s innate fear of the unknown is due to their inability to make a distinction or draw a clear conclusion. This is explained further in Jeffrey Cohen’s second thesis in “Monster Theory” that claims that; “the monster never escapes” (Cohen, 14). The zombie as a monster can never be destroyed completely and if it is, it leaves a remnant the make people feel uncertain of its destruction. Base on Cohen’s theory, the zombie’s different interpretation allows it to emerge in other forms (a faster, smarter zombie?)
There were many differences in the films. For example in the white zombie movie, the zombies were working zombies. The mill owner would use voodoo to control the zombies. Also these zombies were not aggressive at all, humans can walk among and not be attacked. Contrast to the white zombies the zombies from the night of the living dead, these zombies were aggressive. Therefore night of the living dead zombies were very aggressive and would attack humans and
In many cases, freewill is either present or non existent in children. During world war two, many children in Germany were deprived of their free will, and when the war was over, many German citizens were left scrambling to find freewill again. In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, one of the main characters, Werner, struggles with finding his voice and his freewill within a Hitler youth training school. During his experience there, he stands by and watches as one of his only friends is bullied and in the end left as a shell of his existence. Werner struggles with what he should of done and if it really is beneficial to blend in with the rest of the boys at the school; while Werner may recognize his wrongdoings and the wrongdoings of others, he feels
“Zombie killings are similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by avalanche” (41). These are all similar to zombie killings because zombies will never go away unless you turn to really harsh tactics like aiming for one’s brain with a shot gun and repeating this for every zombie you come in contact with. In order to clear those 400 emails after reading them you must repeat the steps for each and every one, which is time consuming and can be very frustrating. Completing paperwork is very tedious, and can sometimes become overwhelming you may begin to feel as if it will never end which is common well it can feel similar to that when it comes to zombie killings as well because there will be one zombie followed by another one and many more to come. “Battling zombies is like battling anything….. Or everything” (42). Never assume the war is over because it is not, there will be one or more zombies hiding out, the war is never over. “The zombies you kill today will merely be replaced by the zombies of tomorrow” (44). Zombies are a “live-stock” they are brain dead but they travel in packs and have no limit as to how far they will go. In the movie Dawn of the Dead the zombies actually