Ancient Logic

Early on in the mostly disappointing zombie epidemic thriller World War Z, UN Investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) hides out in a Newark apartment, trying to convince a family living there to flee with him from the hordes of sprinting, chomping maniacs infesting the city. The phrase he uses, drawing from years of experience in the world's troubled war-zones is "movement is life." Ultimately he's unsuccessful, the family barricades their door behind him and they join the ever-swelling ranks of the undead. As far as a guiding philosophy goes for a pop-action thriller like World War Z, 'movement is life,' isn't bad. And for the first half of the movie or so, it follows its own advice. Similar to other recent zombie movies (Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead) the warning signs of what the rest of the movie will bring are subtle and buried until all hell is ready to break through. The television mentions 'martial law,' Philadelphia traffic snarl...

The new trailer to World War Z just came out. Have you seen it? Are you planning on watching the movie? Did you read the book?  I have a complicated push/pull feeling about zombie horror. Zombies have a lot of potential as monsters or a focus of dread. Unlike the other archetypes: vampires, werewolves, aliens, and eldritch elder gods, zombies are unromantic, almost impossible to romanticize. Zombies are shambling (or galloping, depending on your taste) dead people. They don't seduce. They don't have an agenda. They don't have a complicated life-cycle. They form zombie hordes and eat people. You can try a few variants on this basic concept but it's basically always the same. That's both a blessing and a curse. As a positive, because zombies are essentially people, or at least once were people, they have a connection to past experiences. The clothing, the wounds of the zombie serve to supply some narrative about their lives before and the nature of their becomi...