Vampires V. Zombies When people combine their fears and imaginations, they end up with some fascinating, yet horrifying, creatures. Killers of the night, such as vampires, or the extinction of the human race, usually due to a zombie outbreak. Vampires and zombies are both fictional beings who have made their way
Fear and Desire Humans for centuries have been drawn to vampires. From sitting around the fire in the time before the industrial revolution, to sitting around the table and in modern times watching it on the big screen. The folk tales of the undead that hunt at night, sucking the blood of the innocent has haunted and intrigued the human psyche for as long folklore has been in existence. Being afraid of what is being told to them, yet being unable to pull away. The pull and push affect that these mystical monsters have on the human aura is undeniable. Modern day vampires have a cult like following. When the Twilight series came out, the people where divided between team Jacob and team Edward. Teenage girls would swoon over these monsters, dangerous yet alluring.
Vampires and Zombies Vampires and Zombies are common in today’s modern world through the use of the media. In this essay, I will be talking about how each of these beings say something about society, how vampires have been portrayed across time and how zombies have been portrayed. By doing this, I will use two references from TV shows.
Vampires have been around for centuries, they represent the fear of many things such as sexuality, race, gender, etc. and above all, they stand for the fear of diseases. Vampires have once been the symbol of horror due to their terrific depictions and were described as a threat to the humanity. Throughout time, the image of vampire has changed dramatically from a monstrous, inhumanely creature that doesn’t belong to human society to such an attractive and adaptive figure that expresses more of the human side than the evil. They developed human feelings, senses, and live within our society. Modern vampire movies are often more romantic and “sympathetic” comparing to the past. Vampires have abandoned their horror and evolved to a more
When analyzing this piece of writing it is clear that the purpose is not to entertain or persuade. The purpose, instead, is to inform and give a new perspective on zombie movies in a simple way that an audience of all ages can understand. In Andrew Cooper and Brandy Blake’s, “George Romero Zombie Films: A Plague of Meaning,” the authors walk the reader through how as time changed zombie movies changed with it. The authors further explain how zombies in many movies represent the time and culture. The writers inform the reader through their use of information from past zombie movies and analysis of the events of the times they were made.
Zombies have been a pop culture icon for years. Whether it be video games like Call of Duty or making people feel nervous for a potential zombie apocalypse, the zombie has become one of the most recognizable pop culture figures. The rise of zombies as a frightening creature can be related a real-world issue. In this essay I will dispute that zombies have changed over time and that there is a distinct connection between the way zombies are portrayed and the way the world looks at the lower economic class.
Ever since the first zombie movie was created in 1932, there has been a constant rise of zombie appearances in popular media. Like with all monsters, the majority of zombie media aimed to represent a certain aspect throughout the society in question. Whereas vampires represented romanticism and Dracula represented how
The Life of a Zombie Rodney Clapp, writer, editor for Wipf and Stock Publishers and expert in topics such as theology and culture, in the article, “Attack of the Zombies”, argues that many things in life are beginning to resemble zombies. Clapp assumes that the audience also views zombies as lifeless creatures that go around spreading their disease. The author’s purpose is to persuade the audience to believe that many things they see today are starting to resemble zombies. The author writes in a challenging tone for people who question the similarity of zombies to every day life. Clapp supports his argument by comparing and contrasting, and exemplification.
Together, zombies and vampires seems to occupy opposite extremes of the spectrum. Zombies demonstrate the greatest fears of humans, death, whereas vampires reflects human’s greatest desire, to love and to be loved. However, combined they find a happy medium, mankind’s view of an afterlife. To be reanimated as either a vampire or a zombie, one has to die. The thought of the dead coming back to life is unfamiliar territory for humans, and this unknown is a fear in itself.
“Looks like you need some motivation privates!” This one line could strike fear into me and my fellow enlistees in the army. It was a favorite line for our drill sergeants, and for good reason. Fear is a strong motivator. It can be used, and to an extent used positively, for anything from keeping a bunch of 18 year old, wannabe soldiers in line to scaring someone into accepting one’s argument. This is the case in Doug Mann’s Pop Matters article “Our insatiable Techno Zombie Love”; in this article Mann tries to manifest fear in the reader in order to make them believe that America’s recent obsession with the monsters known as zombies is rooted in modern society forfeiting its freedom. Through the use of language that feeds into what terrifies today’s youth culture, Mann is able to make a compelling argument for his idea. By using the powerful political, economic, and social fears adopted by current young adults, Mann works to convince his audience that they are becoming mindless zombies.
Zombies popularity has been on the rise in pop culture due to the airing of shows that captivate their audiences with their life-like special effects, and these shows inspire fans to recreate these effects for costume purposes. In order to closely recreate these costumes, its best to have an understanding of the makeup processes.
As Dracula and various vampiric stories relate, “the undead returns in slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movements or a specific, determining event,” (Cohen 5). Vampiric figures are found worldwide, from the ancient Egyptian deserts to “modern Hollywood, each reappearance and its analysis are still bound in a double act of construction and reconstitution.” Vampires in ancient Egypt differ from the modern vampires constructed in Hollywood: modern vampires changed drastically since the ancient times because new societies tend to portray new ideas of vampire structures and the like. Because of this occurring theme dealt with
Introduction Is it possible to kill an idea when it is undead? Classic movie monsters tend to fade in and out of popularity as audiences grow bored and move on to fresher concepts. But there is one that has risen up and does not seem to slow down: zombies. Zombies have
1. Introduction Zombie movies have haunted movie theater screens since the 1930s. Yet, the definition of 'the zombie' has changed since the beginning of the new millennium. While a few decades ago, zombies were described as dead people who escaped their graves and started walking the earth again, new movies have altered that definition and now “[...] include still-living characters infected with an incurable disease that extinguishes their personalities and turns them into bloodthirsty killers” (Kay 1), or “[…] dead people who are still alive, and driven to kill and cannibalize the living” (McAlister 460). Especially these new zombies, still-living, yet infected humans, “[...] fast runners and swift climbers, [who] think nothing of smashing
Imagine, if you will, a brisk night wind coming fast across a lake carrying a pungent smell, something you can’t quite identify, but is nonetheless familiar enough to send a shiver up your spine. As it hits the trees, they creak out a somber call in the still night air. Or was that groan something more…human? You notice, for the first time, the absence of tires humming on pavement and you wonder if it’s that late, or maybe just a slow night. The soft tapping of your shoes on the sidewalk is the only accompaniment your slow breathing has as you move towards the warmth of your home, holding thoughts of a warm bed in the palm of your hand to keep the chill away. You don’t notice at first, perhaps because the reality of what you’re hearing is