Zombie Apocalypse (As Seen in the Movies)

Part One: Not All It's Cracked Up To Be?
90% of the world's population have at one point either wished, or fantasised about experiencing zombie apocalypse. You know what that is. It's the kind of a near future global disaster where people lose all sense of ethics, moral and humanity altogether. All that is left of them are some basic primal instinct, and an awkward gait that screams "Zombieee!!!" from a mile away. In some cases however, they can actually be professional brain-eating sprinters. Needless to say, none of us dream of being a zombie for they're only good at getting their brains blown out. No, we all dream of being one of the survivors.

Now why would this ghastly epidemic seep into our imagination, becoming like some sort of a guilty pleasure? In case it didn't get there all by itself, perhaps the idea was put into our heads by films such as George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead [1968], credited as the first zombie movie, or for you casual movie-goers, Shaun of the Dead [2004], Planet Terror [2007] and Zombieland [2009]. As it was seen in these movies, there are actually many benefits from living in a zombie-infested world. Although I wonder what the reality would be like if a zombie apocalypse were to actually happen;

#1 Freebies!
Anytime you see a zombie movie, there will always be at least one scene where the survivors are shown raiding a shopping mall. Isn't this like another fantasy we all have? Every time we go to the shopping mall, there are always a hundred and one things we wish we could just grab or greedily spill into our little shopping carts, but could never afford to do so. Well, with the zombie apocalypse, you will be able to do just that!

What is More Probable: Even if the epidemic is so widespread that malls everywhere will be too understaffed to even hire a single cashier, it is still unlikely that we can just loot them. Just like today's zombie-free world, people flock in shopping malls at every chance they get. It is unlikely that will change, ever. With that being said, one of two things will happen;
  • Zombies too will flock in these areas like it's their hunting ground, since that's where their food (human brain) can easily be found.
OR
  • There will be a gang of douchebags guarding the entrance to the malls, and make you pay through the nose if you wish to enter. Why? Because there are no nice guys in the post-apocalyptic world. They either get killed, screwed or turned into zombies - hence "No more Mr. Nice Guys".

#2 I'm the King of the World!
Now, we would only feel this way if the zombies involved are the kind that you can outrun while doing a three-legged race with your love interest. It takes them so long to get from point A to point B, you can fire thirty bullets into them before they get close enough for you to smell that Zombie B.O. Nothing makes you feel like you are at the top of the world than standing in the middle of zombie corpses (?) with the wind in your hair, and that wisp of smoke dancing away from the nozzle of your AK-47.

What is More Probable: You would be king of the world, but not for long. In due time, zombies too will evolve in order to survive. Since the slow ones will die from either gunshot or starvation, zombies will eventually learn how to run, drive a vehicle, make traps, fashion a weapon for themselves, etc... It's creepy to even think about it, but it's not entirely impossible that they might have a human farm where they rear... well, humans. Just like how we rear chickens today. *shiver*

If all else fails, they can always learn to survive on anything other than human brain.

#3 A Carefree Lifestyle
It's a very liberating thought to simply forget work, assignments or school and just focus on living, wouldn't it? The current lifestyle we lead is pretty much bland and unexciting; it's all about getting good grades, then a degree and then a job with measly pay, all of which that will cause us to walk around like zombies.

With zombie apocalypse, however, we will only have three things to worry about. One, getting supplies. Two, get a shelter. Three, kill some zombies... Hell yeah!! If it's anything like Zombieland [2009], we can simply live like luxurious nomads; move from one mansion to another, trash hotel rooms like rock stars, the whole nine yards.

What is More Probable: You don't actually think they were going to let us undo two thousand years of civilisation, do you? Anarchism and drifters are frowned upon even today. So in the event of a zombie apocalyse, somewhere there will be a douchebag who wants to restore "order" by enforcing survivors to group together and form a society. We will then be promised of a more "meaningful" life by scoring A's for examinations and contribute to the society by not being a slacker. Eventually we will then find ourselves back to where we were prior to the zombie outbreak; "Working jobs we hate so we can buy [expletive] we don't need", (Tyler Durden, 1999).

Only this time around we will also have zombies to worry about. Bummer.


*End of Part One...