I'll start off by saying that I find zombies one of the most laughable horror creatures out there, for many reasons. The stereotypical zombie is slow, travels in packs, has no discernable method of communication...in short, these creatures aren't even as threatening as a pack of wild dogs. Sure, zombie lore states that they can only be killed by a head shot, but that doesn't actually make them more dangerous, no matter how difficult a head shot may be. Why? Because you don't need to kill them to stop them. Dead limbs don't grow back. So, shoot a machine gun into a crowd of zombies at about thigh level, and suddenly you have a lot of un-walking dead. Escape becomes easy. Because of this fact, I find zombie films to be amusing rather than scary. My favorite one by far is Zombieland. Not because of the zombies. Because the characters get high with Bill Murray and play ghostbusters in his dining room. Who doesn't want to do that?
I started this blog post in this way because I wanted to say that Max Brooks kind of impressed me. He added a bit of depth to his zombies, so it wasn't the typical army of the dead vs. the lone band of survivors. And he did this in two ways. For one, the zombies themselves had a bit more development. In normal zombie movies, the creatures moan simply because what else are they going to do? Their voice boxes are clearly rotted to the point of malfunction. However, in World War Z, the moan is somewhat of a call, a form of communication. This makes the zombies a bigger threat, because if they can signal one another, they may be more difficult to defeat. He also lets them survive underwater. Very cool, even if it's not 100% threatening (there are no humans on the bottom of the ocean for zombies to kill, after all). The second way Brooks ups the zombie game is by creating a unique set of human characters. It's not just a band of lone survivors who find guns and miraculously know how to shoot them. There are soldiers. The soldiers plot, they fight battles, they must come up with strategies and adapt to tackle the zombie problem. The fact that the human characters have to do more than just shoot a machine gun into a crowd to survive makes it more enjoyable.
At the same time, the things that made the zombies so cool also made them a bit unbelievable. I couldn't help but think that if zombies flock to each other's call, why don't the humans automatically bait a zombie crowd? Send an armored and heavily trained human out into the open, make some noise, they start calling to one another and...bam...instant zombie trap. The fact that the monsters can semi-communicate yet still don't have brains makes them slightly easier to defeat, in this way. And an enemy that is easier to defeat because of its collective stupidity doesn't make for a fully riveting story.
I did enjoy the battle scenes, though, because Brooks managed to write them with tension and for moments I was on the edge of my seat while reading. And even though this book is written in interview style, and you know that the characters have survived if they are alive to give the interviews, it worked here. There was enough tension on the page for me to still worry about the outcome of the battles, even if I knew who lived through them.
If I was going to recommend a zombie story to anyone, this would definitely be it.
Glad you enjoyed it. I think the thing that always disturbed me about zombies wasn't the zombies themselves, but that it was my friends and family coming after me. I mean really, I'd probably let my daughter bite me and kill me rather than put a zombie-Zoe down. I couldn't do it. So the fact that it points out my own weak flaws is kind of disturbing. But that's just me.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole underwater zombie thing could be scarier if you were unaware that they were there. Now maybe after WWZ, swimmers look at the water and are afraid of sea zombies rather than (or in addition to) sharks.
ReplyDeleteI thought the moan development was a really cool addition to the make up of the zombies, too. I especially liked the scene where they were talking about how some zombies were trapped in the car, and the the one character didn't realize why/how this could possibly become a threat. But the fact was, the more they moaned, the more that would come. Interesting...very interesting...
ReplyDeleteI never thought about a zombie trap. That's a cool idea. And definitely the logical thing to do in that situation. I never thought about their ability to communicate as a disadvantage...but that makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteAs with most zobmie stories the zombies tend to fade into the background. What I liked about this story was the epic scale. Yes, they were in the background in the mini-stories of most of the interviews, but they were in the background everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI can see your point about zombies being kind of laughable. I've often contended that without another event (nuclear war, asteroid killing half the people on earth, etc.) that zombies alone couldn't end civilization.