An occasional lurker who decided to join up.

[RandomZombieFan]

Hello, everyone! I'm exactly what the subject says I am. I'm quite thoroughly obsessed with pretty much anything related to zombies. For that matter, I'm obsessed with a lot of things, but those other things probably won't be discussed much on this forum. I must say, I'm fairly impressed with the site's growth! The last time I lurked here, I saw perhaps a dozen people consistently posting (and at a glance, I still see several of those names in recent threads.) Now there's over 300 registered users! At any rate, I hope to occasionally contribute in whatever way I can.

I suppose I'll just say that I try not to be a jerk unless you beat me to the punch, I'm generally a big fan of anyone or anything that defies zombie conventions without being downright stupid about it, and, ironically, I don't actually like most zombie movies. I'd tell you more, but I'm betting you'd rather get back to posting. That's my current plan.

[zombie67]

Welcome RZF and do tell about your zombie movie reasoning.

[Sarku]

What he said... AND post away with whatever your obsessions are. We talk about ANYTHING!

[Doctor D]

welcome dude!

[gavindowning]

Welcome!

[RandomZombieFan]

Why I don't care for most zombie movies, eh? Well, I guess it boils down to two things:

1: I like character development. Not enough zombie movies have it. In fact, Left 4 Dead has better developed characters than many zombie movies. All things considered, I find that a bit ironic.

2: I'm neutral to gratuitous blood and gore. I don't mind it, but it's not what I watch zombie movies for. A shame, really, because most zombies movies focus on it almost exclusively.

So, really, I suppose this technically boils down to one thing:

1: I watch zombie movies expecting something entirely different from what I usually get.

Truth be told, I like zombies, but I love seeing how people evolve to survive them.

Another obsession that I have that I feel hasn't lived up to its full potential would be roleplaying gamebooks. If you were old enough to be a nerd back in the '80s, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. These books were self-contained, solitaire adventure games, usually in a fantasy vein. Think of Choose Your Own Adventure mixed with Dungeons and Dragons. A few popular examples include Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. The books were often ridiculously difficult (most had only one "good" ending) and usually had very little actual literary value. I love them anyway, if only for the potential they hold. Most of these books were popular before I was even born, so it's tough for me to get my hands on them, but generally, they all followed the same basic motions and never tried anything new, and that is also my problem with most zombie movies.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I like it when people try new things. When they're writing movies or books or making games or any sort of art, I think that one of the worst things you can do is just go through the motions and make no effort to try something new in the process.

Here's an example of a zombie I genuinely liked: Fido. Zombies are treated as pets in an idyllic, 50s-style neighborhood. The premise alone kept me entertained through the whole movie. Was it a perfect movie? Not remotely. I honestly felt that the pace was always a little too slow, the movie went on for about 20 minutes too long and the tone at points was just a little bit too light for my taste...but I liked it, because it tried something new and gave its characters some personality. Even Fido, the eponymous pet zombie played by Billy Connolly, had some semblance of a personality.

That's all I want, really. Interesting characters and some innovative ideas. I find it depressing, but zombie movies don't often have these, and gamebooks, being out of style for at least a decade now, most likely never will.

tl;dr: I like innovation and good characterization, and most zombie movies don't have those. Also, gamebooks are cool.

[Doctor D]

RandomZombieFan Wrote:Why I don't care for most zombie movies, eh? Well, I guess it boils down to two things:

1: I like character development. Not enough zombie movies have it. In fact, Left 4 Dead has better developed characters than many zombie movies. All things considered, I find that a bit ironic.

2: I'm neutral to gratuitous blood and gore. I don't mind it, but it's not what I watch zombie movies for. A shame, really, because most zombies movies focus on it almost exclusively.

So, really, I suppose this technically boils down to one thing:

1: I watch zombie movies expecting something entirely different from what I usually get.

Truth be told, I like zombies, but I love seeing how people evolve to survive them.

Another obsession that I have that I feel hasn't lived up to its full potential would be roleplaying gamebooks. If you were old enough to be a nerd back in the '80s, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. These books were self-contained, solitaire adventure games, usually in a fantasy vein. Think of Choose Your Own Adventure mixed with Dungeons and Dragons. A few popular examples include Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. The books were often ridiculously difficult (most had only one "good" ending) and usually had very little actual literary value. I love them anyway, if only for the potential they hold. Most of these books were popular before I was even born, so it's tough for me to get my hands on them, but generally, they all followed the same basic motions and never tried anything new, and that is also my problem with most zombie movies.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I like it when people try new things. When they're writing movies or books or making games or any sort of art, I think that one of the worst things you can do is just go through the motions and make no effort to try something new in the process.

Here's an example of a zombie I genuinely liked: Fido. Zombies are treated as pets in an idyllic, 50s-style neighborhood. The premise alone kept me entertained through the whole movie. Was it a perfect movie? Not remotely. I honestly felt that the pace was always a little too slow, the movie went on for about 20 minutes too long and the tone at points was just a little bit too light for my taste...but I liked it, because it tried something new and gave its characters some personality. Even Fido, the eponymous pet zombie played by Billy Connolly, had some semblance of a personality.

That's all I want, really. Interesting characters and some innovative ideas. I find it depressing, but zombie movies don't often have these, and gamebooks, being out of style for at least a decade now, most likely never will.

tl;dr: I like innovation and good characterization, and most zombie movies don't have those. Also, gamebooks are cool.

sounds like we agree on about zombies I like watching the ppl deal with zombies not the zombies themselves...

[deadandwalking]

i like watching the creative and even the not so creative ways of zombie destruction. welcome to the boards.

[fallensaviour]

Welcome aboard,Sorry to hear about your zombie movie distaste though it's a shame really,nothing feels better than sitting back with a big old bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi watching people get eaten by the undead.
One of the reasons I love this game so much is because it feels like a cheesy zombie movie.
As for character development,I think it's a little hard to pull off when everybody is going to be dead in 90 minutes...LOL
Don't get me wrong I like great characters but part of the zombie movie is everybody dies...

[RandomZombieFan]

Well, truth be told, I'm not a fan of most movies. Even though they're rarely more than two hours long, I don't have the patience for them. Most movies drag along, taking the story in directions I don't care about, putting characters I'm not interested in into situations that I don't really want to watch. In other words, movies are usually boring to me. And it's not that I dislike zombie movies, I just dislike most zombie movies, because they don't live up their potential, partially due to the fact that they don't try to.

I can agree on why you like LNOE...however, LNOE is fun to me because it's interactive. You control those characters and, in large part, their fates. Or, even better, you can control the undead, go out on the hunt for brains, explore a bit of that mindless mindset. Also, the characters in LNOE have biographies which, ironically, develop them about as well and sometimes a bit better than many characters in zombie movies, even though those biographies are only about a paragraph long.

You're right, all the characters usually die in a zombie movie. Usually. However, most movies take at least ten minutes to get to the "Holy crap, zombies are attacking!" part of the movie. You have a lot of time for worthy dialogue and development right there. Even after that massacre, there are at least four important survivors to develop, and often they find safehouses or a mall or whatever they need to rest and recuperate for a good while before things get really crazy again. Even when they're on the streets running for their lives and trying to form a plan, characters can be distinguished and made unique by their reactions to situations and interactions with each other. What I'm trying to say is that even in an hour and a half, there's plenty of time to develop the characters so that I'm actually interested to see if they get torn to pieces by the undead.

To illustrate my point, here's the intro to Left 4 Dead 2. Watch the first part, where the characters break into an abandoned building modified to be a saferoom for survivors. Note their unique priorities and mannerisms.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLDl-41BlZA[/youtube]

This sequence is no more than thirty seconds long...so why was I more interested in these characters than in the entire cast of your average zombie movie when first I watched it? I think that this is especially ridiculous when you consider that Left 4 Dead 2 is more about gameplay than it is the survivors and storyline.