Undead

Rotting, undead creatures walking the earth with only one primal thought and purpose, to eat and kill the living—this is a typical depiction of zombies and their behavior. The kind of zombie who strikes fear in the hearts of the living because the zombies threaten their very existence, way of life, and everything they’ve ever known. But what if there was more to the undead than meets the eye? Imagine zombies that could think and speak and act upon desires other than eating the flesh of the living. The human spirit is not easily killed and because of this resilience, a zombie’s innermost desires and tendencies can remain intact, allowing it to defy typical zombie behavior. The analysis of the stories The Third Dead Body, Sex, Death and Starshine,…

happens to be the living dead, conveniently incapable of feeling any emotions, the entire game changes. Trying to “out-scare” the other side loses its effect. General Travis D’Ambrosia makes comments on the fact that a state of “total war” is impossible for humans. Not everyone can be in war mode one hundred percent of the time. Humanity had never experienced anything like the army of the living dead. The undead were always in a state of total war (Brooks, 272-273). This intensified the fear of…

The question of whether or not Druids really existed has been up for debate for a long time now and historians have never been able to prove it ether. Aside from a couple transcripts and a recount from Julius Caesar himself there is hardly any backbone to the myth. However, that has not stopped many authors from incorporating Druids into their stories, and having almost not historical limits to base themselves on has given them a blank canvas to get as creative as they wished. That being said,…

Blood sucker, dead, predator: These are all words that can describe a vampire. There have been several vampire stories throughout the years. Each author takes and gives them different characteristics but they usually are universally described as a creature that was once human that somehow has returned from the dead and preys on living humans by drinking their blood to stay alive. Dr. John William Polidori, an English writer and physician, is said to have created the first written vampire story…

Right from the opening, Hollywood Undead reveals these devastating words “I think I’ll slit my wrist again and I’m gone, gone, gone” and somehow he manages to sing it in the most cheerful way giving a different set of mood almost as if they are motivated and empowered to contribute to this unhealthy lifestyle. The tone provides a mask for what the lyrics are actually saying in this case, the tone sounds upbeat in convincing the audience that there is always a good solution to the problem, but in…

Neil Jordan, in his interview “Life among the Undead: An Interview with Neil Jordan” from Cineaste contributor Declan McGrath (2013), discusses that presenting the female protagonists as monsters, rather than the victims of monsters, in his movie Byzantium creates a varying audience response to the exemplary depiction of vampires. Jordan supports his ideas by explaining the film’s female writer exploring a previously unknown viewpoint, the human emotion subtext in the perfectly cast characters,…

“Bullet” by Hollywood Undead, an American rock-rap band, is a piece of music that leaves the listeners puzzled as to its true meaning is. While the guitar chords can be considered cheerful, the lyrics speak of self harm and ending one’s life, topics that do not fall into the same mood as the guitar. This contrast in the music presents an interesting dynamic to assess and decipher what the music is trying to get across. Not only does the song have an intriguing dynamic, but the official lyric…

John Derrick 9/13/17 PHIL 2329 Prof. Ursery Brains or No Brains: A Zombie Issue For my article to review I selected Dr. Brendan Riley’s “The Undead Gourmet”. He asks the question “is it okay to kill a zombie just because it wants to eat you?” Throughout this article he portrays his main point to the reader that when one understands ones reason for their actions they understand the thought process of that person (or zombie). He goes on to try and convince us that killing a zombie is highly based…

“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.” This statement is true in the eyes of Chuck Klosterman, where he expresses opinions in his article “My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead”. In correlation, to the movie Warm Bodies directed by Jonathan Levine one can see that there are many things that we can relate to in modern life that can also be seen in a zombie apocalypse world. For example, in both worlds you can see that once we adapt to our daily lives of…

The creation of monsters like vampires and zombies presents itself as an allegory the “day to day existence.” Articles like “Why Vampires Never Die” by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan and “My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead “ by Chuck Klosterman emphasizes the correlation between folktale and reality. The difference between Folktale and reality is that folktale and reality is that folktale are variations of stories from many cultures, while reality is something that exist…