Personally, I prefer a classier villain. Take, for instance, vampires. Vampires are usually beautiful creatures that retain all their human intelligence. Anybody can fall for a vampire. They seem like people.
On the other hand, zombies are pretty distinctive creatures. The rotting flesh, the smell, the grunting rather than speech. Everyone I've ever met is able to recognize a zombie.
Common writing advice will tell you that people prefer villains they can connect to. They want to understand your villain. So why, then, do people enjoy zombie films so much?
Since people are too intelligent to really connect to villains who only speak in grunts, we must bring the appeal of zombies to a baser level: fear. Zombies are obviously frightening, and some people really love stories that make them shiver.
But what is it about zombies that makes them so frightening? Is it merely the fact that they're trying to eat human brains? Is it the fear of human deterioration? Or is it something deeper—say, the fear that we're becoming mindless drones controlled by capitalism? Perhaps it is a fear of the mob mentality.
I've considered several possibilities but so far there's only one certainty: people love zombie stories and I'll probably never know why. And while I'll never understand it, I do know one thing: people who like zombies will love this month's issue of Penumbra.
Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.
Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.
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