Way-Past-Overdone and Do It Again
I’ve complained and complained about the endless overdoing of vampires and zombies–sometimes even douchey (the Twilight series and Warm Bodies)–but I still seem to be one of the only people in the world who knows that horror should be original. What gives? To me, this endless flogging of a dead horse seems an easy way to sell out and make tons of money, because most people just don’t have good taste.
Vampires, vampires, vampires; zombies, zombies, zombies, over and over again, rinse and repeat. It’s gotten to the point where I won’t even read a vampire or zombie novel or watch a vamp/zomb movie anymore, although there are rare exceptions to the rule like The Strain and Contracted. It sure isn’t The Walking Dead anymore, which I call The Walking Dud. What was it, last season they were wondering around in the wilderness? No wonder Frank Darabont doesn’t care enough to get involved anymore. And one of the exceptions sure isn’t It Follows, which I call Boredom Follows, a film that seems to have the critics creaming their jeans (Why doesn’t that surprise me?), but bores me to death. Wow, a girl running out of her house, looking at the camera, then running back in, and then out again, and driving away. Zzzzzzzz. SPOILER ALERT: Giving away a zombie virus by having sex, that doesn’t even make sense. How many times can George Romero and Bram Stoker get ripped off?
It’s not right for the authors that care about creativity–meaning being original–to get thrown under the bus for these writers and filmmakers to do the literary and film equivalent of scraping their nails on a blackboard. But, so often, real horror authors end up working for small presses or self-publishing. In some cases, newbies just need to learn to stop it, writing stories too much like Dracula. (I was one of those, so, fellow rookies, don’t feel bad.) But to senselessly overdo these creatures for money when you know better–meh.
World, please wake up! I’ve had enough of Dracula saying, “Bleh”! And the zombie apocalypse didn’t happen in 2012!
