Why Zombies?

The last few years have seen a zombie renaissance. The phenomenon has spread through movies, video games, comics, and books. And not just tongue-in-cheek survival guides, Jane Austen's world has seen an invasion into the undead dilettante psyche with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I've been thinking about it, sans any research that has no doubt already laid out all of my ideas, and think I know why people enjoy confronting these ultimate antagonists. Zombies present the all-in-one, most evil beings. Their motives consist of finding living flesh and consuming, nothing else. This single-minded cannibalism is universally perceived as "not good".

By itself, this wouldn't be enough to set them apart from other unthinking, murderous human beings. But each one was once a living, breathing being. They are mirrors of the human condition. Their purely instinctual nature leaves them devoid of choice or the ability to think past their undying hunger. It's just easier to accept them as villains more than anything else; it's automatic. They even outrank Nazis, only because Nazis have choice, families, and the ability to feel emotion. Encountering a horde of un-fearing zeds would be intense to say the least.

There's gotta be more to this, but I've been done writing essays for awhile. I'll have to expound on it some other time.

-- "I only gamble with my life, never my money."