I just bumped into this article about the upcoming Zombieland which boldly proclaims that vampires – the aristocrats of the undead – are being replaced by good old blue collar zombies. I’ve actually assumed vampires to be dead for awhile now. When submitting horror fiction, a lot of editors have stated that they are tired of vampire fiction. Some state that they will return a story without reading it if it contains vampires. Needless to say, after reading all the “vampires are dead” tea leaves, I was further shocked by the success of Twilight. It just confirms to me that no one knows what the hell is going on.

In any case, there’s a real interesting snippet at the end of the article when Zombieland’s director states:

I think there’s something about the economy actually. Whenever people become anxious about the future and about the economy, that seems to be when zombies become popular. There was a slew of zombie movies in the 1980’s in the Reagan administration
when the country was really suffering. Obviously we’re in a bit of a hard spot right now and I think that people are anxious about the world and so the zombies are making a bit of a comeback.

I’ve heard this theory over and over again that zombies are somehow reflections of our own anxieties. I think this is true on some level, but I don’t think it is as neat as “economic trouble equals zombies”. But as for our undead rotting antagonists replacing ruffled shirted snaggle-toothed blood suckers, I’m all for it. I’ve never been a fan of vampires unless there was a stake being driving into them :)

Move Over Twilight: Zombies Are the New Vampires (radaronline.com <- new window)