Back again. Been a long time, again.

I missed the moment in time where I could have hit the front of the the trend. Zombies are now HUGE business. I knew they would be.

Doesn't matter. There has always been a cult level of interest, even before they were trendy. I haven't seen most of Season 2 of The Walking Dead yet, but the rumours that it turns into soap opera do not diminish the love of the dead.

I recently watched the start of 28 Days Later, again, though. And noticed that it is almost the same as the start of The Walking Dead.

Zombies are easy* to deal with, once it is established that society has fallen. Once law is administered by the jungle, and the only rule is survival. The ratio of survivors to tools required for survival is far greater than it would be at the beginning of any zombie outbreak. You just break into wherever you want to find whatever you need. Ok, guns are much harder to find in Australia than they are in the US. But even Bunnings would give a great start to any zombie defence, if it is only a small group of survivors able to raid the entire store for whatever they need.

How does society get to that point, though? There are stories out there that explain the origin of the zombies. I probably should be slightly disturbed that the most recent example that I can think of is "Bloodlust Zombies". Look it up on IMDB (or Torrent) and you will see why. I found it quite entertaining, and hated it nowhere near as much as most of the IMDB commentators. There are others, though. I just can't be bothered looking them up at the moment.

Where is the point at which normal, real, rational humans, living in the real world, become able to say "fuck it, I'm going to stick an axe in that sick persons head"? The desire to survive is strong, yes, but for most of us, so is the desire to not spend the rest of our lives in jail for jumping the gun and sticking an axe in someone who is just unfortunately sick. The hesitation in the face of a real zombie would be fatal - it is probably one of the keys to the effectiveness of zombies as a force for fear. Hesitate and die, and come back and infect more who hesitate.

The exploration of the journey to survival is providing much mental fodder for me at the moment. It has all sorts of deeper meanings, as well, with the whole "decay of society" thing, globalisation, fear-mongering and terrorism, power and control. Although given the choice between trying to fix the worlds problems by exploring deep issues, and a really cool head-shot, I'll go for the head-shot, thanks.

Incidentally, the movie is back on. The novel isn't necessarily off, just the movie needs to be made. Now that I have moved to Far North Queensland, there are just far too many awesome locations up here.... they need to be coated in blood and captured on digital celluloid. Cow Bay is one of my new favourite places on earth - just north of the Daintree River, in the middle of tropical heaven - and dripping in potential. "Tropic Of The Dead" - coming to a cinema near you.... eventually. Yep.