Confession time. I have watched many, many zombie movies. In all probability, most of them. The mainstream movies, the B movies, from Night of the Living Dead to Shawn of the Dead, and some other ones I would not watch again.1
The gore bothers me not at all, the violence is choreography. The morals of the stories are what grab me. Three stories stand out:
The first episode of The Walking Dead;
The fourth episode of the sixth season of The Walking Dead;
Zom 100 (animated).
My inclusion of The Walking Dead (TWD) may surprise and disappoint you, because not every season was as good as every other season of TWD, but that is the way of a TV series. The first episode was fantastic for a simple reason: zombies were treated as former humans in a deliberate and meaningful way. It was the first time I’d seen zombies treated humanely (and since I watch so many zombie movies, it could well be the first time that they were). You may think, “So what? You probably thought The Matrix was a big deal, too.” Well, it was. The first time that you see someone take a genre in a new direction, in a direction that you didn’t know you were waiting for, sticks with you.
The first episode of TWD, called, “Days Gone Bye,” does not throw the audience into the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but into the aftermath of one. The audience awakes to a completely changed world with TWD’s main character, Rick Grimes. Weak, vulnerable, and utterly disoriented, Rick is soon saved by Morgan Jones and his son, Duane. The first zombie we encounter is a slow-moving little girl, whom Rick shoots without hesitancy, but that scene is out of chronological order. Rick first encounters other zombies, including an old zombie (meaning, she had been a zombie for a long while) who has been cut in half but is still crawling toward him. Even in his weakened state, Rick can avoid this zombie. After Rick has been restored to better health and has resupplied himself for the journey to find his family, Rick finds the half-a-zombie and says, “I’m sorry this happened to you” before shooting her in the head.
A little girl and a half-a-zombie, not real threats, just former humans who have been destroyed by an unknown pathogen. Rick is portrayed as bringing them to their inevitable conclusion without drama, passion, or malice, but with humanity.
The fourth episode of the sixth season of TWD is called, “Here’s Not Here.” It is a major turning point in the development of the character who saved Rick in the first episode, Morgan. Morgan’s lost his mind when Duane died, but fortunately for Morgan, he lost his mind in such a way that preserved his own life. He set about “clearing,” that is, killing every zombie in an area. Morgan eventually embarks on a journey to find Rick, but he finds someone else instead. Eastman. (I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to actors, but any time you have a chance to watch John Caroll Lynch, I think it’s worth it to do so.) Eastman lives with his goat Tabitha in a cabin in the woods.
Eastman’s backstory led to him having a metal bar cage — like the ones you’d see in an old-fashioned cowboys movie or even a cartoon — in his cabin. His backstory led him to having the goal of making cheese. We do not see him succeed in his cheese goal. His backstory also gave him Aikido, which he will teach to Morgan, but first he puts Morgan into the cage because Morgan was killing everything and everyone, zombie or human, in his path. What Morgan doesn’t know is that the cage has no lock.
Zombies are barely part of the landscape in these episodes featuring Eastman and there is nothing scary except the dawning realization that you are Morgan. You have locked yourself in a cage with no lock on the door, upholding the facade of the cage by participating in a counterfeit life. The cage is whatever lie we tell ourselves every day without realizing we are doing so. The lie wastes our time and our energy. The lie gets us to focus on it rather than on our own truthful selves. We all have truthful selves, dreams that we have or have not allowed ourselves to pursue.
Eastman gives Morgan a copy of the little yellow book, The Art of Peace: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, while he is still in the cage. It is not enough to free him from the cage, because Morgan needs Eastman to tell him that the cage has no lock - he cannot yet see for himself. But it is enough to help Morgan see that he needs to stay in the unlocked cage longer, until he can trust himself outside the cage. Outside the cage is life without constraints.
“The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.”2
This is how The Art of Peace starts. And it’s how Morgan starts (again).
Without giving away too much, because you may watch it, Morgan continues on his journey practicing Aikido. In his future encounters with potential opponents in his future, Morgan will especially emphasize two aspects:
“To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.”3
“The Way of the Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony.”4
Morgan does not transform into an Aikido warrior and remain static, which is why he is my favorite character. He continually struggles and makes mistakes and falls and gets up and keeps trying. After all, “Life itself is always a trial.”5 The Art of Peace is one of the few books I keep on my desk, and not because it is physically small.
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, on the other hand, is big, beautiful, raucous, wild, and animated.6 The main character, Akira, has been working for an exploitative corporation for three years. He sleeps at his apartment maybe every third night if he’s lucky, because the rest of his time he is at work where he is abused day and night. His apartment is a repository for garbage, nothing else. Then zombie apocalypse happens.
And suddenly there is color in Akira’s world. I didn’t notice right away, but the first episode is in dull tones and black and white until the zombies appear. Blood looks like paint spatter to Akira. Why is there suddenly color? Because Akira realizes he doesn’t have to go to that horrifying job anymore. The zombie apocalypse has liberated him. What is the first thing he does? He cleans his apartment.
He cleans his apartment! He takes care of himself for the first time in three years. He is happy to do it. He is Morgan, still in his cage, preparing himself for a world without constraints, because the lie has been laid bare. Akira writes a list of things he wants to do before becoming a zombie. These are sometimes “petty” dreams or they are the significant dreams he’d forgotten, but now he can pursue them. And so the adventures begin.
I’m going to leave it there, because Zom 100 is something to be experienced. Still, if you have thoughts about any of this, I’d love to hear them.
I don’t care what time of the year it is. It’s always time to watch a zombie movie.
Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace, trans. John Stevens (Boulder: Shambhala, 1992), 13. Yes, I have the little book in my hands as I watch.
Ibid., 64.
Ibid., 103.
Ibid., 85.