Ugh, sick in bed with a cold all weekend, and the comfort show I chose to return to in my sick haze: Community.
It’s got plenty of problems, but it does genuinely make me laugh a lot too. And given that I am actually taking community college classes to get used to studying again before grad school, it fits my mood lately. Also, realizing I am now the middle-aged woman who is older than most of the characters has me looking at the show very differently in some ways. 😅
The way you can tell I am feeling better finally is that I’ve switched from re-watching a comfort show to binging a series of campy horror films.
Tonight’s series: Return of the Living Dead.
For those that don’t know, Night of the Living Dead by George Romero and John Russo both invented the modern zombie as monster as opposed to occult slave and accidentally fell into public domain due to a flub in the printing of the original reels that left off the copyright symbol (yes, it really used to be that easy).
Well, George Romero built off this series with Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead - movies with rich political analysis, horror, and pathos. John Russo on the other hand, decided to double down on campy and frankly silly version with the Return of the Living Dead series (with O’Bannon of Alien and Total Recall fame directing and writing the screenplay of the first).
While the tone of these quickly becomes slapstick, they are almost darker if taken seriously. While Romero’s ghouls are slow and shambling, and rise from some unknown contagion (or because “there is no more room in hell” as one character posits), Russo’s zombies are caused by a government chemical weapon. Furthermore, they move fast, can speak and have some intelligence, and do not die when their brain is destroyed or body is dismembered. And the military’s response is usually to use a nuclear bomb to wipe the infected area clean. By the second movie, it appears electrocution can kill the zombies, but that’s it.
So here’s to giggling at zombies moaning “BRAAAAAIIIINNNNSSSS” while the existential horror sinks in of being unable to die and be cogent enough to feel your flesh rot.
Joscelyn Transpiring
