Why are zombie films still so popular?

H

harmonica44

Even on here there are multiple threads about people who wanna make them. Not just indies, but Hollywood still constantly comes out with 1 at least every 2 years or more. And I met a guy who wants to negotiate a remake of Resident Evil as his first feature film. But zombies are so cliche. You think that by now, the song has already been long sung. I can only see a zombie movie being entertaining if they come up with a story so different it's revolutionizing, but I am still yet to see that. So why is it so popular though? Not only is it very cliched, but zombies have always been the... shall we say, the handicaps of movie monsters. They are just not deep in character or smart, on the levels of other great villains. I don't get it.
 
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harmonica44 said:
True, but you don't need to use a worn out cliche, as a metaphor for playing God or consumerism. Cause the cliche itself could lessen the effect since it's worn out. I agree that if I had to pick the best one though, it would be the Dawn of the Dead remake.
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Well, you don't need to use zombies, sure, but they do work well, for the reasons JoshL stated: inevitability of death, bringing it on ourselves and the insurmountable power of nature. Poetically tied up in a rotting corpse, which, as others have noted, provides plenty of opportunity for gore and violence.

Any genre of movie is eventually going to become a cliché if it is done often enough. Should we stop making genres of movies simply because they are cliché, or are at risk of becoming cliché? Maybe the zombie movie is a cliché because it's a good idea (which of course in itself, according to Mike Leigh, is a cliché).

So we do come up with new ways of representing these themes, but the target audience is different. The sort of people who watch zombie movies might not enjoy, say, introspective philosophical movies about a writer gathering his thoughts whilst tottering on the edge of madness. And anyway, aren't cop movies cliché? Torture porn? Vampires, werewolves, science fiction flicks where it turns out the main dude's a clone? How would you represent the themes of playing God and consumerism? Is it likely that any idea you can mention has been done before, if not done to death?
 
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SiCurious said:
Well, you don't need to use zombies, sure, but they do work well, for the reasons JoshL stated: inevitability of death, bringing it on ourselves and the insurmountable power of nature. Poetically tied up in a rotting corpse, which, as others have noted, provides plenty of opportunity for gore and violence.

Any genre of movie is eventually going to become a cliché if it is done often enough. Should we stop making genres of movies simply because they are cliché, or are at risk of becoming cliché? Maybe the zombie movie is a cliché because it's a good idea (which of course in itself, according to Mike Leigh, is a cliché).

So we do come up with new ways of representing these themes, but the target audience is different. The sort of people who watch zombie movies might not enjoy, say, introspective philosophical movies about a writer gathering his thoughts whilst tottering on the edge of madness. And anyway, aren't cop movies cliché? Torture porn? Vampires, werewolves, science fiction flicks where it turns out the main dude's a clone? How would you represent the themes of playing God and consumerism? Is it likely that any idea you can mention has been done before, if not done to death?
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True but it seems that lately, zombies in particular, are being a little more done to death than usual. Torture porn is getting there as well. Not as many werewolf movies though. At least not compared to vampires.
 
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I have to wonder, we've done modern Frankenstein, Mummy, Somewhat Werewolf, Vampire, Zombie-what about Creature from Black Lagoon! Where's the creature love?? (Creature from black lagoon is my fav Classic movie monster ;) )

I find it interesting the number of views and responses this subject has gotten, so many paths to look at :)
 
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