Of Tits and Zombies

The fact that I should have been born a girl is the consensus of all of my friends, or it would be if anybody agreed with it. Girls in particular get all WHATEVA when I suggest the pacate proposition. But in truth, the evidence on the subject is substantial. Consider: 1.) I am extremely sensitive (and I cry easy, too). 2.) I like sweet, cloying drinks, like Coke and Sambuca, which I've had to stop drinking because of all the people who scream faggot when I walk by with that pink shit in my hands, and conversely I dislike the most bitter and burly versions of beer (that stuff feels like throwing a hand grenade down your throat). 3.) I'm almost hairless. Even my beard grows sparsely. 4.) I love cooking. (whoops... faux pas there). 5.) And dancing. 6.) And Titanic. Fuck it. 7.) I'm more into literature and the humanities than into the sciences.

And though by this stage you're probably thinking OHMYGODHE'SGAY, I'm sorry to disappoint. Nope, I don't pack fudge. I was just given the wrong tag on the birth-processor.

So anyway, all of this dubious introduction serves one purpose only, and that's to introduce my subject-matter. In reality I wanted to write about Cameron's The Terminator, as I had some really brilliant things to say about that movie, but that article has been mooched by a film-site (I shall be linking it shortly) and you guys get STUFFED!! Instead of something really clever, you get this bullshit post summing up my thoughts-o'-the-day to avoid the blog falling into dis-use and growing jungle weeds, which would make it difficult to access again, and it would encourage gorillas to settle colonies here.

This image is about the Terminator. (No seriously, that lady is the TX from Terminator 3).

So the point I was driving at is that I now have another piece of evidence pointing to the fact that I should have been born boobied, and this is it: I don't like horror movies. I'm generally quite squeamish and seeing people slapping each other with their own livers is something that grosses me out to no end. I do make an exception for the Alien saga, but that's mainly because I grew up with it, kind of like other people with Biff, Parker and Chip or however the fuck they're called, and besides it's closer to sci-fi than horror.

Yet despite my comparative dislike of the genre, I've been pushed into watching a few of these movies as of late. Firstly, there's Chris with his blog on zombies who told me that if I watched Night of the Living Dead, he'd put all rounds on him next time we went out drinking together, so I thought, what the hell. I watched it. Remuneration will have to wait till I'm back in the rain-trench also known as England, but in the meantime, everybody and their dog is asking me – did I like it?



Uhm, so-and-so. I was relieved to find that the film is actually remarkably tame. I mean, zombie movies are usually some of the grossest shit you can imagine, but this one didn't have much more than people beating each other with their shoes, which used to happen to me all the time anyway with some of my housemates. I mean, it's a disturbing film psychologically, but they aren't tossing pints of blood around like Bavarians at the Oktoberfest for a change.

The film, for those who don't know, is the story about a young deer who grows up in the forest. As he matures, he gets to make friends with several of the other animals, acquire new skills, but one day the hunters come and he must learn to be brave like his father.

No wait, that's Bambi. What the fuck was I writing about again? Oh yeah, gruesome films. Actually I think Bambi succeeded in horrifying more children with its fucking Schindler's List finale than Night of the Living Dead ever did (there's a film for you to write about, Chris). But still. Night of the Living Dead is the story about BARBRA and another group of schlocks who barricade themselves into a house and try to survive while dead people outside are raised by an asteroid's radio-waves into cannibalism (I love how that sentence started out rational and slowly decayed into total WTF territory...). One of the film's main themes is the name BARBRA, because in the first ten minutes you hear the name BARBRA a lot (particularly for the immortal line: 'They're coming to get you BARBRA,' which particularly distresses BARBRA, presumably because she's tired of hearing her name said all the time. Like, ok I'm called BARBRA, I got it guys! This isn't a porn movie!).

Another of the film's main themes is death. Or I'm guessing, anyway. I'm not completely sure.

So anyway, to be serious for five seconds, the film is actually pretty good, if a bit rudimentary in its execution. It's got quite a few psychological layers which make it engaging, it was undisputably influential, and astonishingly, it has a black protagonist (1968? Jesus!). The story is good, but I think the technique and direction, with all its close-ups on faces and screeching music, sort of underlining for us 'This is when you have to be scared guys,' feels a little dated. So it's obviously a good movie, but one that has suffered aging more so than many other films of the time. The undead, for instance, are not very credible. You just can't get out of the sense that, eh, they're frigging actors! What are all these people panicking about??


The soundtrack is also a very famous feature of the film. This monotone, hysterical piano is one of the most distinct and recognizable aspects of Night of the Living Dead, and it was particularly successful in the subsequent concert that toured all of America, called Night of the Dead Live (sorry. I couldn't resist that). It was followed by numerous sequels, some of which as influential as the first: Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Afternoon of the Dead, Tea-time of the Dead, Evening of the Dead, Supper of the Dead, Clubbing with the Dead, Drunk-Driving with the Dead, Laid with the Dead and others. (Laid with the Dead is known in some countries as Twilight. Apparently the girl there gets in a threesome involving a wolf and a vampire... woof man, necrophilia up the ass and bestiality in the mouth and they're still wondering how this film got a PG13?).

The other horror film I saw these days that I wanted to write about... yo dude, what ho! I'm out of space! I shall discuss it in the next few days.

Stay tuned! And in the meantime, get this!