Zombie Cliche Lookout: Drop ‘Em When something bad happens in a zombie story, it’s often immediately compounded by something even worse. Gene gets shot, and before Barb can even try to assess the wound, the man that shot him (presumably, anyway) is holding everyone up and gunpoint. Things are not going well for them. As [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: The Most Dangerous Game You’d be hard pressed to find a lot of examples of zombie stories where the zombies are the most dangerous bad guys – there are a few, certainly, but it’s just not the norm. The zombies are usually there to thin out the crowd of survivors and act [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: One Last Glance Before putting a plan into action, it’s never a bad idea to take one more good look around to make sure there isn’t anything you’re missing. It’s just as true in the zombie apocalypse as it is right before you leave for a long trip. You never know what [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Flank’Em If They Can’t Take a Joke I might be taking a big leap here, but I’m guessing that most of us are not military strategists or tacticians. However, we’ve seen enough war movies and played enough first person shooters to understand the concepts of flanking the enemy and the element of [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Assets and Liabilities Okay, I’m going to admit this one right up front: this isn’t from a zombie movie at all. It’s from The Princess Bride, one of my favorite films of all time. Recently, my son has gotten into the movie (although he’s a bit frightened by the rodents of unusual [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: You’re Doing it Wrong Remember how we talked before about the best way to break bad news to someone who is probably already in a fragile emotional state during the zombie apocalypse? Well, this is a good example of how not to do that. Being blunt has it’s places; after all, there [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Bad News This trope tends to show up more often in war movies than zombie flicks, but I’m going to use it anyway because I like it. What happen is that one or more characters discover something that could be potentially devastating to someone else in the group, and they really need [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Don’t Make It Worse The zombie apocalypse isn’t going to be a lot of fun. No, seriously, it isn’t. I know we all talk about it like it’s going to be good times, but in reality? Not so much. To get by, you’re going to have to do everything you can to [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Sneaking They say discretion is the better part of valor, and I’d tend to agree in a lot of respects, especially when it comes to surviving the zombie apocalypse. Sure, it’s fun to see heroes in zombie flicks taking on a giant horde of zombies, but that hardly seems like a very [...]
Zombie Cliche Lookout: Contingencies Sometimes, it’s helpful to have Plans B, C, and D all mapped out before you even think about trying Plan A. Other times, even contemplating the failure of Plan A can set you up for disaster. In those cases, it just might be appropriate to go ahead, and figure out what [...]
