The Zombie Apocalypse of the Imagination

or Undeath, Where is Thy Sting?

By Timothy Volpert

In 1968, a relatively unassuming, black-and-white independent film was released, entitled Night of the Living Dead. You've almost certainly heard of this film, so I needn't expound here upon its merits nor its short comings. The point that I am trying to make, dear reader, is this. In 1968, this film, like the first onscreen “zombie” that appeared in it, staggered, menacingly but somewhat without fanfare, into the popular consciousness. Furthermore, like that grayish man in the graveyard, this film was but the first, small, slow indication of what would become a full-scale invasion, not of the physical world we occupy, but of the much more precious real-estate of the Imagination.

Again I will not bore you here with research, my friends, although I assure you it can be found. But more importantly, I ask you to draw on your own experiences. How many advertisements have you seen (or will you see, if you deign to read this screed in the early morn) today for zombie-related films, books, comic books, t-shirts, video games, or other zombie paraphernalia? How many conversations did you have today, in which zombies as a topic jokingly came up or were referenced? Perhaps you had one or two conversations in which they were referenced quite seriously. How many of your friends' Facebook status updates today were about zombies in some fashion?

For years, popular fiction has entertained and frightened us with the notion of the “Zombie Apocalypse” -- the idea that, once one zombie exists in a given world, eventually the zombies will completely overrun that world. It will almost invariably take a number of years, because of their inherently slow speed (unless you take into account the faster zombies of latter-day films like 28 Days Later, but goddammit this essay isn't about that) but as they turn the once-living into the undead, their numbers begin to grow exponentially. Like a mold growing on a forgotten dinner roll in a plastic bag at the back of the cupboard, slowly but surely, the zombies, we are told, will completely envelope the planet.

But friends, I say to you the time for despair is at hand; this Zombie Apocalypse is upon us, even now. As more and more of our entertainment is filled with the concept, as more and more our conversations turn to The Shambling Ones, they slowly, as they have done to countless alternate Earths in countless works of fiction, they slowly but surely are overrunning our popular consciousness. The Zombie Apocalypse is occurring not as a clashing of rotting flesh and living terror, but in our minds, our imaginations! The concept of the zombie is slowly taking over, and if we don't do something to stop it, there will be nothing left but zombies!

Take for instance, the (disgustingly) well-selling “book” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. That's right, dear reader, the Zombie Concept has already begun to “turn” other works of fiction. We have the Zombeatles invading music, and Shaun of the Dead (even though it is a masterfully hilarious movie, and, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my all-time favorites) representing the first decaying hand bursting through the soil of the romantic comedy genre.

Where does it stop? Undeath of a Salesman? The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Zombie? The Heart is a Lonely Zombie Hunter? “Love (But Mostly Zombies) Will Tear Us Apart?” Catch 22 To The Head You Know It's Dead? The Grapes of Wraaarrrghhh?

Soon, you won't remember what it sounded like to flip on the radio in the car, and not have every song be about eating brains, or at the very least accompanied by a chorus of bloodcurdling sepulchral moans. You won't remember a Julia Roberts movie where she doesn't crack wise while bashing in the skull of a once-living vessel of sheer unstoppable terror. You won't remember the original ending of Hamlet, where they all just stayed dead.

My friends, I implore you; we must stem the tide of this cultural apocalypse. The more we talk, joke, and make films about zombies, the more strengthened their deathly grasp is on our collective imagination. I say to you, we must remove the head or destroy the brain of this fad now, before those few survivors of us are holed up in libraries and independent cinemas with shotguns and a limited supply of canned goods, clinging desperately to our last remaining “retro” reprint edition of Pride and Prejudice Without Zombies.