by James Taffurelli

Created on: October 23, 2008

"Slow Down Ghoulie!"

In the great debate of the fast versus the slow undead, it is hard to imagine how anyone could not side with the sheer spine tingling effect of the slow, moaning, lumbering mass of rotted flesh creeping towards a panicking victim. The sheer terror of the "slow zombie" from its conception in George A. Romero's 1968 classic, "Night of the Living Dead" (still the greatest of the lot) gave birth to the idea of slow moving death, a powerful and terrifying visual that trumps the loud jerky style of the sub-par "fast zombie" flick.

The true essence of the zombie is not what horrors can be suffered at the hands of one, but of the vile capability of the undead legions. The terror lies in knowing you can run and run but more wait behind every turn. A single zombie should by no means be an unstoppable force or even a worthy opponent, for believability's sake a zombie is no more than a rotting human husk, capable of what a human would be capable of in a deteriorating state, sans pain or reasoning. The idea of this brand of monster is that you ought to be superior to any one of them; it's the hope of survival that truly makes this genre scary. The reality of if you just play your cards right you will survive, until a turn of events traps you in against impossible odds.

So often in the newer breed of zombie tale, they tend to rely on a combination of loud jumpy noises and jerky camera movement for cheap scares. While I will always be a tried and true fan of the zombie horror genre, movies of that ilk tend to emulate action films, using flash and speed to dazzle audiences with so little haunting resonance of the pioneering films. Anyone familiar with the first appearance of a ghoul in "Night of the Living Dead" can recall the general wash of fear as the heroine's brother teases and taunts the creature as it draws closer not realizing until its far too late that what he was dealing with is something very short of human. The screeching, roaring beasts of such films as: "28 Days Later", "Resident Evil" and "I am Legend" will give you the same kind of scare you get from a jack in the box; quick, cheap, and utterly forgettable.

Maybe I'm nostalgic or old fashioned, but the problem with most recent horror films, is that the filmmakers tend get impatient and go for the big shocks too soon. The scariest films have always been the ones who take their time to slowly creep into your psyche and pull you into their dark world. Instead of the instant jolt you are subjected to at the hands of films like "Scream" or "Final Destination", the roads slowly leading to the terrifying finales of films like "The Shining" or "The Exorcist" will take you on a richer and more worthwhile journey. Nowhere is this devolution as apparent as in zombie genre films. The magic of the classics desperately needs to be recaptured in order for this genre to thrive in the way it once had. A less representational explanation of why zombies ought to be slow can be found in the words of Night of the Living Dead's Sheriff McClelland (when asked why the zombies are slow) "They're dead, they're all messed up."

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