Dear friends, for those of you who know about my ultimate terror of the walking dead, I have promising news for you: my feelings for zombies have changed.
I have always believed zombies were inhuman, non-thinking, unemotional automatrons who only wanted to eat my brains. There have been countless nights since I was a small child where I laid in bed imagining what undead creature may be lurking outside around the bushes looking for me. There have been numerous early mornings in my adult life (on my way into my wee morning hour radio job) where I just knew without a shadow of a doubt that a zombie would come chasing me down and I wouldn't be able to run away because I had on flip flops.
There have been the years of terrible nightmares where the living dead were trying to eat my flesh and I'd wake up in a panic, ready to run out of the house, jump in the car and flee town. (That actually happened last week. Not fleeing town, just waking up in a panic.)
I have seen countless zombie films since the tender age of 6 (again, for those of you who didn't read "I Like the Evil Things" please do so.) I've seen them evolve from slowly walking, stiff knee'd, grunting creatures into athletic superhuman monsters. I have been scared out of my wits. I have screamed in the movie theaters. I have even cried.
The last zombie flick I saw back in January, "I Am Legend" totally changed everything for me. It was bad enough in the new batch of movies pre-dating "I Am Legend" that the zombies could run like retarded kids in the Special Olympics (and I'm not making fun or anything, I'm just saying those kids run FAST.) It was bad enough that they had the strength of superman and could flip over automobiles.
What really changed life for me with "I am Legend" was the idea that zombies could think, plan, and set traps. Let me just say this: "I don't need the damn zombies thinking!" It scared me to death when I watched that movie. I had to stop the dvd several times just to get myself together in order to continue watching it. But there was something about the ending that I hated. Most zombie movies end horribly anyway, so I shouldn't have been so let down, however, I had this lingering feeling that with the movie "I am Legend" that there had to be more.
Well, there is. +++Spoiler Alert for alternate ending to I AM LEGEND+++
Last night, I watched the alternate ending to I Am Legend and my life is changed as we know it. Not only do the zombies think and set traps, but they do so because they have feelings too. They love. And they, just like us, fight for love. Just because they look different and just because they may not have the vocal capacity to express the emotion with words, they express it in ways that love should be expressed: through actions.
They don't just want to kill to eat brains, they want to be with their own kind and take care of each other, much like humans. They may not have the luxuries that we have such as clean homes and pretty decor, but we should not hold that against them. Just because they prefer the rusty look of abandoned industrial buildings with the finishing touch of pools of blood in the floor or trickling down the staircase does not mean we should compartmentalize them all into a group of savages.
Zombies, I am sorry I have been racist, I mean, Zombist against you most of my life. I just didn't understand.
