The rise and rise of the undead: how Scotland turned into a zombie nation
WITH THE WALKING DEAD RETURNING TO OUR SCREENS TOMORROW NIGHT, RUSSELL LEADBETTER LOOKS AT THE RISE OF THE UNDEAD AND ASKS WHAT LIES BEHIND THEIR SEEMINGLY IMMORTAL APPEAL
THEY don’t look or smell too good, the living dead, and they tend to have a distinct taste for human flesh. Even worse, if Donald Trump’s worst fears are realised, some 1.8 million dead people will cast a vote in the US Presidential election on November 8 – and not for him, but for “somebody else”.
Zombies, and zombie apocalypses, have proved remarkably resilient in popular culture. They have featured in large numbers of films, from Night Of The Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead to 28 Days Later, Shaun Of The Dead and World War Z.
Zombies have also inspired video games such as Resident Evil, and graphic novels.
The US TV hit The Walking Dead is set in a world ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. When the fifth season premiered, its US audience of 17.3m was said to be the highest for any episode in cable TV history. The show has also given rise to a spin-off, Fear The Walking Dead.
The undead featured in Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking Thriller video in 1983. To date, the full, near 14-minute video has been viewed 357,253,195 times on YouTube.
There’s even a zombie-based fitness app. Zombies, Run!, an “ultra-immersive” running game and audio adventure, has been downloaded more than three million times. A tie-in book is published on Thursday. Zombie chase games have been widely staged – in Glasgow, the next one, RunDead, takes place on February 27.
The latest manifestation of our fascination with zombies is the recent launch of Dread Glasgow, a “live-action, walk-through, scare experience”.
The basis of the actor-based theatre production is that during excavations in the city centre basement of a building in Drury Street, an old tomb was disturbed. There were stories of workmen being felled by a mysterious virus, and ancient parts of the city being uncovered. Visitors are challenged to test their bravery as scientists working in a research lab show them what they have found.
Dread Glasgow, based at 18 Renfield Street in the city centre, got under way at the beginning of October.
Rodney Taylor, who with Barry Douglas co-created the attraction, told the Sunday Herald: “We had to adjust a lot of things at first, as it wasn’t as scary as we wanted it to be, so we have made a lot of improvements since the start. The feedback from customers has been a huge help with this task, and our actors really used this to maximize the scare experience.”
He added: “Originally we put together a game-plan around Dracula. At the moment the virus has infected some of the scientists turning them into zombies. The story will evolve over time to introduce Dracula to the tale, and from there, who knows, we have plans for about seven different scare experiences. ”
Ware we so intrigued with zombies? “Zombies bridge the gap between fear and fun,” says Taylor. “People like the adrenaline rush of the fear and excitement in a controlled environment. Where they are taken just to edge of their comfort zones, they come out of the experience with adrenaline and serotonin flooding their systems.”
Much has been made of people’s fascination with the end of the world, and with zombies’ perennial appeal, particularly during periods of uncertainty. Film-makers and authors have often used zombies as a metaphor.
As Nicholas Barber noted in an online BBC Culture article two years ago, “It can’t be a coincidence … that zombies are in vogue during a period when banks are failing, when climate change is playing havoc with weather patterns, and when both terrorist bombers and global corporations seem to be beyond the reach of any country’s jurisdiction.”
Max Brooks, the author of World War Z, was asked what it was that kept bringing people back to zombies.
He said: “I think we’re living in very uncertain times. People have a lot of anxiety about the future. They’re constantly being battered with these very scary, very global catastrophes.
“Zombie stories give people the opportunity to witness the end of the world they’ve been secretly wondering about while, at the same time, allowing themselves to sleep at night because the catalyst of that end is fictional.
“Reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road will keep you up all night because you’ll be thinking, ‘This could really happen!’ You won’t have that problem with World War Z.”