May Monster Madness: Zombies: A Love Affair

Day 3

Zombies: A Love Affair 

Thanks you guys for taking this journey with me. Honestly it has been really eye opening for me to see where I came from and how I got where I am now. Well to continue my little narrative,  as a still fairly young adult, I loved my vampires and werewolves and I was content with that. Zombies had never really sparked my interest, but when friends of mine got me into playing Call of Duty: Black Ops Nazi Zombies that changed pretty quickly. Now I hate first person shooters. With my lack of decent depth perception and, well let's face it, aim in general, this type of game is at once both frustratingly difficult, and inanely boring. That is, until you add zombies and three of your friends into the mix. There was just something so freaking fun about surviving wave after wave of Nazi zombies and discovering new ways to kill them with various firearms. I spent most of my time in the later rounds either dead or running around like a crazy person making zombie trains, but it was still a ton of fun. Then, the release of the Call of the Dead map made my dream come true of kicking some ass as Buffy. Well really you play as Sarah Michelle Geller, but who cares!? Can you imagine fighting George A Romero gone zombie and his hordes of rotting friends as SMG, Danny Trejo, Robert Englund, or Michael Rooker?

This is what truly sparked my interest into survival horror video games. Dead Island, Dead Space (which freaks the hell out of me, but is fun to play with friends!), and Dead Rising... That's a lot of dead! I fell in love with killing the recently risen fiends and exploring the many possibilities of surviving a zombie apocalypse.   As the saying goes, one thing led to another and... I started reading zombie fiction and never looked back. Thanks to some great recommendations from my brother Zach, Goodreads, and readers like you, I found myself suddenly swimming in the proverbial ocean of zombies. What? That's not an actual thing? Whatever! I bet you when the zombie apocalypse happens there will be a beach somewhere with zombies playing Marco Polo in the waves. I don't however, suggests joining in if you do stumble across this phenomenon. Here are some of my favorites that I highly recommend for your undead reading pleasure:

  

Zombie video games and fiction just weren't enough and so I found myself having been lead full circle to finally biting the bullet and sitting down to watch my first real zombie movie. I would finally have to face my fear of movie gore as there is no real way to avoid it when zombies are around.  Of course I can never do anything in a small way. So, how did I take my leap into the vast ocean of zombie film? (There's that ocean again! See it is a thing!) Well my friends I had a zombie movie marathon with some of my closest friends... wait for it... on Easter! Yes, that's right, I had Zombie Easter Sunday this year and let me tell you it was the best Easter ever! Here are  the movies we watched:

Ok so we were lame and only had time for three movies, but it was still the most fun I've had in a long time.  I discovered the gore didn't really bother me at all because I was enjoying watching the characters be creative, survive, and go through the spectrum of human emotion. I don't think I've stated here on my blog that I am a Psychology major, but there you have it. I think this explains a lot of why horror has begun to appeal so much to me. How does the human psyche react in shocking, disturbing, and life threatening situations? How far is someone willing to go to survive and will their survival instinct overcome their core values? 

I loved Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later while Land of the Dead was just so-so for me. Although I liked the premise of the dead gaining a sense of self-awareness in Land of the Dead, it felt more like the zombie apocalypse had become the mentally challenged apocalypse. Overall the execution of the otherwise promising idea just felt silly. 28 Days Later suffered in the visual department, but more than made up for it with the superb acting. In my experience, this is usually the case with UK produced movies and television shows. Christopher Eccleston's appearance as Major Henry West had me jumping up and down in my seat. He may not have been the best Doctor ever in the Doctor Who series, but it still made me fangirl. I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of my friends when I started yelling, "It's the Doctor! It's the Doctor! They're saved!" Little did I know Christopher's character had less than noble intentions this time around... 

Did you think I had missed out on this one? Nope! I'm so lucky to have such thorough zombie fans for friends. My brothers Zach and Kyle insisted I watch the first season on Netflix. It was epic! The scene pictured above gave me the chills. You know the one's where something is just so freaking cool that your whole body reacts to it? I still haven't seen the second season as we don't have extended cable at my apartment. :-(  Hoping the wait for the DVD set isn't too long!

Alright my Wicked Darlings! That's it for My Life in Monsters! No MMM post tomorrow as I have the virtual book tour for Gabriel by MA Abraham stopping by! I'll see you again come back Saturday for Romancing the Darkside! I'll have lots of reading recommendations for those of you who really love your monsters...