I Hate Zombies... But For Some Reason, I Love Them.

Let's be clear, folks. Ever since I was a kid, the very thought of zombies scared the ever-loving bejeezus out of me. Think about it. A terrible plague of what used to be people, hording about in search of human flesh and/or brains to consume. Mindless, merciless killing machines whose bite can turn friend into ravenous foe. That's scary as hell if you consider what it would be like if it actually happened. I still have nightmares about the zombie apocalypse. In fact, I had one just last week where I managed to lead a band of survivors to safety only to have a little girl who was with us turn into a zombie and bite me before I woke up. I was so rattled that I had to read a couple chapters of a novel just to settle my mind.
So what spawned my fear of the undead in my youth? Well, I chalk it up to two reasons: a general fear of cannibalism (my skin crawls any time I think about real life examples of man-on-man dining) and Zombies Ate My Neighbors, developed by LucasArts and released by Konami on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in 1993.

Oh, my dear SNES game, how you would haunt me so.

Now, I'm sure that many of you have fond memories of this cult classic. Hell, even I do. My sister and I used to play it in co-operative mode all the time. It wasn't scary in any real way. In fact, it was quite goofy. Zombies would explode if hit with spray from a squirt gun and lobbing six packs of soda was akin to hurling a grenade. So how could this unassuming shooter cause me more than a decade of fear of zombies? It was the screams. You see, the point of the game was to go through the levels, rescuing innocent people before the vicious zombies, werewolves, axe murderers and other horror movie cliches could get to them. When you failed to rescue a survivor, a blood-curling scream would pierce through the speakers. My seven-year-old self simply couldn't stand those screams, and I would race to rescue the survivors as quickly as possible simply to avoid hearing it. Yeah, my seven-year-old self was a total wuss.
But now, fifteen years have passed since those wussy times. These days, I find myself playing all manner of video games involving large amounts of zombies. Games like Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, the "Nazi Zombies" portion of Call of Duty: World at War, and even Plants vs. Zombies are commonly found running on my XBox 360. However, I still avoid zombies movies like the plague, save for a few "Zom-Coms" like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.

But how could you not love that face?

This got me thinking. Why am I so content to go about dealing second deaths to the undead in video games while I get squeamish when someone tries to play their DVD of 28 Days Later while I'm in the room?

"Control, control. You must learn control."

It's all psychological. It's all about being in charge of the action. My inner seven-year-old wuss doesn't like zombie movies because I'm forced to watch gruesome examples of cannibalism and mindless hordes chasing down the innocent survivors. Meanwhile, my twenty-two-year-old self takes glee mowing down legions of zombies with chainsaws, machine guns and adorable tulips. It's much easier to take on these creatures of my nightmares in a scenario when I can actively affect the outcome. I can defend myself from the horde in a video game, and though I might get killed on occasion, I always can try again (Except for when I get left behind in Left 4 Dead. Thanks a lot for doing that, you bastards). With a movie, I can't do anything about what happens to anyone. I have no control over whether the zombies get the person I identify with most, which freaks me out.

Crap, I hope writing this blog entry doesn't give me nightmares tonight...

I know I'm not the only one who shares these feelings. Zombies at their core represent a fear of losing our individual selves through developing a distinct desire to go "nom-nom" on brains. George Romero might have presented zombies as a commentary on American consumerism in his film Dawn of the Dead, but I think zombies resonate with people as a primal fear more than a clever social commentary. Let's face it, we'd all probably lose our minds if we came home to find our families in the process of making meals out of each others faces. It makes them an extremely effective villain for any media, and especially in video games, because we don't feel guilty about killing that unassuming guy in the business suit, since he's chewing on what used to be your girlfriend's foot.
I know I'm not the only one afraid of zombies. I know I'm not the only one who's thought extensively about what he would do in case the so-called "zombocalypse" ever actually happened. I'll be the guy who's either so prepared that he'll kick ass or so scared out of his mind that he's the first to go. Not really sure. But if they get me, remember, aim for the head. And be smart, don't get any zombie blood on you - just in case.