A night with the undead

Following a conversation last weekend about why girls might/might not relate to zombies I wanted to do a bit of research.

Not knowing any undead,* I decided to watch my first ever zombie film. Besides, I was informed that a zombie film could provide "good dark, gallows humour"** - ideal for a Wednesday night.

First, a few things I thought I knew about zombies from my TV education and life-experience-to-date:

- Zombies are the least scary and threatening of horror monsters. After all they are the 'walking dead'

- In fact, they don't even walk, they shuffle (and - Michael Jackson take note - they certainly don't dance). How scary can they get?

- They come out of the ground: so don't buy that lovely house next to the cemetery

- They tend to make a low groaning noise. And have their arms outstretched (I think the latter is species distinction - it's the one thing that shows they are really zombies and not just someone who had a really heavy night last night with tell-tale bloodshot eyes, bags under their eyes and minimal brain activity)

- You need to cut their heads off to make them, er, even more undead

- They're not big into formming social groups, zombie clubs or generally getting together down the zombie disco

- They avoid eye contact (possibly due to the lack of working eyes - hang on: how can they see where they're going???) and so don't tend to flirt with each other (they certainly don't bat their eyelids)

- They're far from vegetarian

In the last 104 minutes, I have found out that:

- They don't meander around gormlessly with their arms outstretched: that pose is *so* dated

- They can run pretty damn fast

- They don't make that low moaning sounds after all, though they can give off a vampire-like screech when they want you to know they're interested

- They seem to gravitate to shopping malls (question: if you were a zombie which shop would you head to?)

- Finally, they can be the basis of a very entertaining (far-from the B-movie) film. I have to admit it was a brilliant film, cracking (as my dad would say).

Zombie film score:
Outrageous mindless gore: 7/10
Suspense: 8/10
Fun: 9/10
Pace: 9/10
Soundtrack: 9/10

Lights may stay on way beyond bedtime tonight - but not because I'm scared but because I'm going to plan which film I should watch next (I seem to be out of my John Hughes/80s phase, though someone did send me a text earlier to let me know that 'Footloose' was on which reflects what people think of my film taste..).

* Am tempted to put some names in here as possibilities but will resist.
** To quote someone with an x and a y chromosome***
** Okay, much though it pains me to say it, they were right