Hot off the presses: Zombie movies reflect cultural anxieties!

Not to be snotty, but anyone who watches a lot of horror movies has already noticed that a.) horror is cyclical — it never goes away, but there are peaks and valleys, b.) horror movies flourish in anxious times and c.) ever since George Romero liberated the zombie from its narrowly defined roots in Haitian folklore, they've become the go-to monster metaphors for fear of everything from the oppressed underclass to nature run wild, global pandemics, mindless fanaticism, archaic disaster response systems, sinister mind control programs and the fragility of social structures and the ties of friendship and family.

Which is not to say that this Freakonomics graph correlating social upheaval and zombie-movie production that just appeared on the New York Times website isn't cool. Just that it's a blinding glimpse of the obvious.

Zombiemania post mortem

So, fortified with snacks and delicious beverages, some friends and I gathered to watch the premiere of Zombiemania, directed by Canadian documentary filmmaker Donna Davies... and it was pretty entertaining. Definitely a light, very mainstream look at the cultural history of zombies (that's Starz), but some great interview footage with George Romero (I love that he still wears those giant '70s glasses!), Tom Savini, Greg Nicotero, Max Brooks (yes, son of Mel; allow me to put in on more plug for his novel World War Z, which is brilliant), Wade Davis, the ethnobotanist who wrote The Serpent and the Rainbow, and various zombie experts. As promised, I got plenty of screen time.

A warning if you decide to DVR a future showing: It may not be listed as Zombiemania. On our system (the one that comes with RCN), it's listed as "Starz Inside," which is the collective name for the channel's behind-the-scenes documentaries. After inviting friends over to watch, Frank and I had a couple of sticky moments when we couldn't find a Tuesday listing for Zombiemania.

In any event, we finally figured out that it was listed as "Starz Inside" (the generic name for all the channel's behind-the-scenes docs) and a good time was had by all. Except, of course, my cat, who was bored to death and annoyed that all of a sudden everyone was watching the television instead of paying him the attention he feels is
his due. (Confession: the photo was not taken during the showing of Zombiemania -- the sunlight streaming through the window is the tip off -- but is an accurate depiction of Chip's attitude towards anything that isn't all about him.)