Dawn of the dead

Interesting how real life creeps itself into horror films, when George Romero decided to create his "living dead" movies he often went on to discuss with his co-writers what message he wanted to send. Often basing himself on American politics, parallels between the vietnam war and the first movie night have been established while the more recent land has been said to have roots dipping into the utopian view of the world through the eyes of George Bush.

To me, zombie movies have always been my favorite kind of horror movies. The idea of huge mobs decimating cities and such is a frightening one. The faith that awaits someone who is caught up in it also doesn't seem quite peachy, but beside the direct threat of zombies it's the actual reality behind it that scares me: Zombies are real.

My girlfriend works at a large chain grocery store where the slogan is "Le panier le moins chere!" (The cheapest basket!). There is a sale going on where certain products are priced $1 and have a certain limit per customer. Every day she works early in the morning, before the doors even open, I observe several people walking around outside the store, pacing back and forth waiting for the doors to open. She's sometimes scheduled to start working half an hour before the store opens and these zombies are still out there. Like the ones from dawn they are clawing at the doors, looking inside to see an employee. When one does come to enter the premise, they open the exit doors to go to work, and I observe the zombies figuring out this is a possible entrance.

What frightens me the most is that these people look alike. They wear the same clothes which they seem to have gotten from such stores as wal-mart, or other "get it while it's cheap" places. These look like the same people who need the "careful hot" sign on their coffee cups or else they get burnt and sue the place. It's because of these zombies that I'm stuck with "open here" signs on my cookie boxes, like George Carlin says "Thank God for that, otherwise I'd be up all night looking for a good place to open the cookies."

This is a zombie/consumer nation and it keeps clawing at me. I can see it at work when people get confused and rarely go beyond simply pushing buttons or inserting their cards over and over again in every slot they find. The funniest part to me is when they have a hard time seeing inside because of the sun and end up face against the window with their hand above their faces to shadow themselves wondering if there is something interesting inside: "Flesh...foooooooood....ugh...." Ack, zombies.