COLUMN: Do I Want to Be Zombody?

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By Tobin Barnes
It’s that zombie time of the year.

Zombies are a plot-staple of many a horror movie. It seems like Hollywood comes out with at least one or two zombie movies a year ever since “Day of the Living Dead.” One of this year’s editions is “Zombieland.”

Zombies used to be scary. After all, the shock of dead people coming back to life has been in everyone’s nightmare at one time or another, or maybe even a recurring theme if you’re an especially unlucky dreamer.

Scary zombies need to be far-gone decrepit and moldy to be effective. “Well done,” if you want to use a cooking metaphor. Skin tone must be ashen to the point of purply. Hair needs to be unkempt and askew—after all, struggling out of a casket and then a vault and up through several feet of dirt can be a job. And clothes need to be in tatters due to the ravages of time spent moldering in the grave, a la John Brown.

A freshly dead zombie just doesn’t cut the mustard in terms of scare-worthiness. Seems more like an IRS agent.

Yeah, zombies used to be scary, despite the fact that the Zombies came out with one of my all-time favorite songs back in the 60’s: “Time of the Season.” Actually, it’s a lovey-dovey moon, June, and spoon song, but then those were ironic times.

But zombies aren’t scary anymore.

People started realizing they’re just too danged dumb and slow to be of much danger. Unless you’re totally paralyzed with fear, like a teen-aged girl (another horror movie plot-staple), like as not a halfway agile actor can evade their awkward and galumphing grasps. For sure, the average zombie wouldn’t be worth a hoot in a game of Slap Jack or especially Pick-Up Sticks.

Consequently, movie-goers have lost respect for a zombie’s fear-factor effectiveness.
Therefore, zombies have instead morphed into comedic-horror-show punching bags, which is unfortunate considering that any given zombie could be somebody’s grandpa or grandma fiendishly transformed into an embarrassingly unrestful state.

Movies such as “Zombieland” now attempt to discover clever new slapstick ways of dispatching these menacing but clumsy undead. In a preview I saw, they dropped a piano on an unsuspecting zombie. Har!

Woody Harrelson plays a crusty AK-packing zombie killer in search of the last Twinkie on earth. Now is that a funny concept or what? Amongst his zombie-killing arsenal are all kinds of malicious-looking weapons, including one of those sharp, multi-tined, spinning weed diggers you used to see on TV commercials. Can’t wait to see him use that on a zombie. Har! again.

Yup, Zombies just aren’t what they used to be.

And that’s a bummer.

I’ve always known I didn’t have what it takes to be a regular character actor. But, on the other hand, I’ve thought I could probably be an outstanding zombie actor, especially if they shot the scenes in the morning. That’s when I’d be at my best as an award-winning zombie. Most mornings on my way to school, I’m in zombieland myself.

For example, one recent morning I mindlessly pulled into the parking lot and then realized in a galumphing sort of way that I had forgotten my school bag and, more importantly, the sandwich I had packed inside it. So I pulled back out of the parking lot and started driving home only to glance and see my bag had been there all along.
If only a horror-movie casting director had been there watching all this transpire. I would have been hired immediately.

But I’m not sure I’d want to be in a zombie movie like they’re making now. I don’t know if I’d want to be a comic-horror-show punching bag. I’d certainly have to set my sights lower on the Actors Guild dignity scale.

And absolutely I’d want a stand-in when they dropped the piano on me.