Zombie Cliche Lookout: Situational Awareness
They say that discretion is the better part of valor, a truism that will stay relevant even in the midst of the zombie holocaust. After all, what’s the best way to win a fight with a zombie? It’s not through speed, distance, or overwhelming force. It’s by avoiding the fight altogether. It doesn’t matter how much better matched you are, all it takes is one little bite or scratch, and you lose. Even if you kill the zombie, you’ve still lost.
It’s amazing how frequently characters in zombie stories seem to forget this. They let their emotions get the better of them and charge in. They assume they’re safe and let down their guard. They get stupid, in other words. Being aware of your surroundings and making small steps to make the situation safer is going to pay far bigger dividends than making some grand, and ultimately dangerous, gesture.
About this Episode:
Russell is, clearly, correct in this situation. That being said, it can be pretty tough to interrupt a conversation like this, especially where one or more parties is clearly very emotionally invested in the discussion.
Discussion Question: Not Paying Attention
Today’s trope is something that comes up all the time in zombie and other horror fiction. Characters get to wrapped up in what they’re doing and forget that they’re in a dangerous situation. Usually, this gets people killed. At the very least, they’re put into a very dangerous situation. Horror writers love it when characters let down their guard.
Of course, what works for a story isn’t necessarily how rational people would act. This often leads to irritation on the part of the audience. This leads to the question: what situations like this bug you the most?
I’m going to play along this time. I hate it when horror movies stick in sex scenes where they don’t make a lick of sense, just to up the body count and get in some gratuitous nudity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude and I’m sure that people dealing with as much stress as characters in a horror movie are would need to let off some steam, they wouldn’t necessarily be so stupid about it.,
Huzzah! I posted first! I get to let you know about all the gramer mistakes in the above posting!
Saddly my spelling and grammer is practically non existant :/ so Im going to just comment on the question instead.
I am in complete agreement about horror movie sex scenes, but having already proven that I am prudish its for other reasons as well 🙂
That aside the whole reason such characters exist is to mate with the first person they get alone with and die simply to add to the body count, both in the movie and in theater seats.
To be fair people in real life make dumb choices when they panic but it would be nice to see a story where people are always on top of their game, make propper survival choices, and still get picked off like flies, prefurably even with some character development thrown in to actually make us care for the characters.
Now that would be a terrifying movie…
Have you watched and/or read The Martian? There’s only one survivor there, so there’s no picking off like flies, but it’s very much a story of calm, reasoned competency. It’s a really nice change from most survival stories.
I loved that book! Even the stupidity in that story was pretty smart.
“people dealing with as much a stress as characters in a horror movie” The “a” in this part of the Discussion Question section doesn’t really need to be there, and that seems to be the only typo I can spot for today! 😀
Fixed!
Actually anything allowing the characters to let down their guard sound annoying to me… I mean it’s about prioritizing and it’s a safe bet to say that the tall guy with a big axe and a hockey mask on his face looking for trouble should be a “no-brainer let’s deal with this first” on the do to list.
Now, I get that those plots also help the audience to gather up before the next tension scene… Like a roller coaster.
I can go both ways, depending on how the scene is written. People aren’t robots, they can’t function under constant stress, and need breaks in order to keep going. In most movies, however, the way they go about this is just stupid.
Russell does indeed have a point. Time to go in and be safe from the zombies. Naturally, that’s only going to last until they find zombies they don’t know about hanging around somewhere inside. 😀
Zombies do love loitering.
And they never obey those signs.
They also put up the signs because they just know people can’t resist loitering, therefore their food supply is most assuredly drawn to it like a moth to a flame! 😀
Hah, no one obeys those signs.
I sort of have a Discussion Question for Dave: What kind of music do you think people will turn to in a zombie apocalypse? What tuneful songs will most likely get belted out around an impregnable fortress housing lots of survivors, for instance? Would any rock band stand a chance of causing auditory loss sufficient to cause catastrophic brain trauma to any zombie that wandered too near their speakers? What other ridiculous music-themed ideas will you most likely witness in a zombie apocalypse scenario? 😀
Also, I’m trying to remember the title of a song. It’s kind of sci-fi like, although it might not be: it’s like some synthesized cross between a xylophone and popping noises. it’s quite a nice tune, from the 70’s or 80’s. If you have an audio clip you think might be it, please post the link from a search engine like Google or whatever search engine you use.
I like this one; using it for tomorrow’s episode!