Lovin' the Zombies

I don't get it.

Werewolves are furry. Vampires are sexy. Witches have a whole woman power thing going. "We are Wiccan, hear us roar." But, zombies?

I don't get it.

Mindless, shuffling, decaying corpses. Glassy eyes, open wounds. A predilection for juicy encephalic tissue. Ugh.

Yet, zombies (like sexy bloodsuckers before them) are hot right now. Here are just a few examples:

The Walking Dead — I was mindlessly (uh-oh!) zapping through our 1400 cable channels the other night and landed on AMC's acclaimed series. Curious, I stayed for a few minutes. There was a deserted farmhouse. There was a ton of zombies. There was a small band of living, breathing humans trying to escape. There was mayhem and there was blood and there was brain-eating. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if there was actually a plot, but the overall decimation was strangely hypnotic. I broke away and changed the channel. Probably just in time.

Zombie Apocalypse Vodka — Yes, really. As they say in their new marketing campaign, "Get it before they get you." You can see the chilling online ad for it HERE. Or visit the website HERE. I think we can assume that the hangover must be brutal.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — Big Jane Austen fan here. I tried this book. The author (who is now a New York Times bestseller) basically published a mashup of Austen's nineteenth century manuscript and the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead. The Bennet sisters are ninja zombie hunters and there is plenty of, as the author put it, "gore and senseless violence." Why? I have no idea. (Why didn't I think of it first? I have no idea ... but I wish I had.)

Real News Stories — This past summer, there was a rash of news stories about people eating each other. It appears that a certain new synthetic drug cocktail, known as "bath salts," can lead to superhuman strength and a cannibalistic appetite. Ugh. A very good reason to "Just say no."

Red Cross Zombie Preparedness Website — With the Mayan calendar predicting end of days in just a couple of months, the Red Cross of Massachusetts is taking no chances. “We all think preparedness is a big deal. We don’t know what the future holds. It could be flooding, it could be zombies — we don’t know. But we want everyone to be prepared and this is about everyone being prepared,” said Kat Powers, director of communications at the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts. Take a look HERE.

Zombies as a Marketing Tool — There are brains to be eaten; there is money to be made. Whatever the future may hold, you can be sure that a trend as powerful as zombitization will not go unnoticed by Wall Street or Madison Avenue. You can read the blogpost HERE.

Zombies Running for Public Office — Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) warns that "Money is only so much paper to the undead," and that a vote for Romney is, indeed, a vote for hastening the zombie apocalypse. "They'll be out there. And, they'll need brains." Watch his video HERE.

No question, zombies are out there. Then again, just how alien are zombies anyway? Anyone who has ever had to rouse their teenager early in the morning — or observed them glued to their mobile phone — will understand the phrase "the walking dead."

And, as for eating brains? My daughter devoured mine years ago.