my life in the undead world

Picture the world infested with zombies. The only thing zombies want to do is eat human flesh. Zombies are intended to keep going until their brain is disconnected from their bodies. To spot a zombie look for the following signs: discoloration around the eyes, foul smells, open wounds with rotting organs and tissue hang outside their bodies-and they are trying to eat you. The make up of zombies is very unique in nature. The term “zombie” ( nonmortuus contagio), comes from the Congolese nzambi, meaning “spirit of a dead person. The mere sight of a zombie is terrifying. Watching zombie movies over the years has put fear of death and dying into my heart, and at the same time has impressed me so much, that I have a need to view more and more horror films that include zombies. This is the world that George A Romero presented to movie audiences since 1968.

Well known horror guru George A. Romero started producing and directing Horror films in 1968 with his cult-classic, “Night of the Living Dead” which aired on October 1st. Some of his other popular movies included: “Dawn of the Dead” which aired in, “Day of the Dead” which was released on July 19th, 1985 and “Land of the Dead” which was released on June 24th, 2005. George A. Romero pushed the envelope when he thought out side the box and used the dread of death to alarm horror admirers across the globe. Due the popularity of these movies, new horror directors have revised some of the classics, creating new horror movies along the way, in efforts to excite and capture a new breed of horror audiences.
These revised versions of the cult-classics reinvented the appearance of zombies. Zombies that were represented in these movies appear to be stronger, more intelligent, and faster than the older style zombies which moved slowly. Horror flicks such as the ones George A. Romero directed, thrives on the fears of mankind. Taking possible viral outbreaks that derive from our own Governmental labs, experimental viruses that regenerate dead tissue (used in military warfare), and self made scientists that experimented with combinations of germs/viruses to create a new deadly version of an existing virus. Just the idea of taking a flight from Miami to New York city with a sick individual on the plane, that has contracted a viral infection with a twist (zombie X-factor) and it becomes airborne, and turns it’s victims into zombies makes fear of contracting a virus or transforming into an zombie, increases.
Outbreaks happen more often than the general public is informed about. The Government controls the media, which in turns has power over the news that is broadcasted to the public. A reason that outbreaks aren’t made public, could be that it causes a panic amongst city dwellers. An outbreak is described as, a contagious virus that is released and spreads quickly between people. The similarities between the deaths of people are known as clusters. Horror movies such as “Outbreak” which was released in 1995, “Contagion” released in 2011, “Zombie land” which was released in 2009, and “Day of the Dead” (remake) in 2008, was directed by Steve Miner ,explore diverse yet common methods on how viruses are transmitted to human hosts/victims. Simple viruses like the flu could cause the victim to expire and return as a zombie, infecting more victims, hence the spread of a disease.
In Outbreak, the film focuses on an outbreak of an Ebola-like virus called Motaba from Zaire (a small tribe in Africa). The virus is later transported to and spreads throughout a fictional town named Cedar Creek. The movie shows how far the military and “special” agencies go to restrain the spread of this deadly virus. Lester Brown speaks of governing officials controlling certain situations in his article Plan B 4.0. These governing officials use their authority and supremacy to dictate what policies or rules will be followed. Plan B and Outbreak both shadow how decisions are made and who is affected by these decisions. This Ebola virus described in the movie Outbreak lay dormant inside a white-tailed monkey native to Africa. In the movie the monkey transmitted the virus to two different individuals. Outbreak much like the new movie Contagion illustrates how fast any virus can spread.
In the movie Contagion an unknown virus claimed the lives of hundreds quickly that the government did not know what to do to prevent further deaths from happening. This virus was a lethal in direct contact transmission of a virus called fomite. The fomite virus is a combination of two viruses. The first form of the virus is a natural virus that inhabits in the fecal matter of bats and the second part is the swine flu that resides in pigs. The fomite virus was so deadly it would kill its victims within 72 hours. As the fast-moving pandemic grew, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads quicker than the virus itself. As the virus spreads around the world, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart as also stated in Lester Brown’s Plan B article, people will be struggling to have food in parts of the world if the general debate of Food vs. Fuel is not addressed. In Shannon O’lear’s article in Wired magazine, reflects positive and negative effects on the environment and the usage of natural resources to make fuel.
In contagion a key element that was presented at the end of the movie, was a brief illustration of how important preserving the wildlife sanctuary was. A local industrial company was making room and bull dozing down trees. These trees contained a herd of wild bats. The bats needed somewhere new to live so they flew to the closest place they could find, which happens to be a pig farm. The bat hung up side down and pooped on the floor where the pigs were being fed. The pigs ingested the infected bat feces and a mutation began and this is how the Hex 1 virus (fomite) was created.
This virus was transmitted from carrier, to host, through unclean hands. The chef handled raw and infected meat, didn’t wash his hands and went to the restaurant/ casino area and greeted a patron. He shook her hands and took a photo with her. The virus entered her body and within 72 hours she spread the virus to other people they spread it to other people, she dies and the cycle begins. Contagion adds environmental protection and food preparation techniques with the possibility of transmitting a deadly virus.
This movie demonstrates how germs are transmitted to a human host, through simple everyday human contact, such as shaking hands, hugging, kisses, riding the public transportation system, even touching the button on the elevator. Now imagine adding flesh eating zombies.
For a few years, the FDA has recalled beef products, due to contamination. Just recently published in the Sun Sentinel (article on August 15th, 2011 By Bob LaMendola), Winn-Dixie and Publix supermarkets in Florida, had to pull some store brand ground beef from their shelves over the weekend and Monday after it was recalled due to possible E. coli contamination.In a brief article from the Associated Content from Yahoo, The history of mad cow disease - bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - is very similar to the incubation and propagation of other infectious diseases, though this particular neurodegenerative disease has caused more fear than most of the others combined.
The majority of this fear comes from the fact that scientists still don't understand mad cow disease, and cannot explain why it is prevalent in other animals as different strains of the same disease. Mad cow disease was first recognized as an infectious disease in 1986, after it began to appear in cattle in Great Britain in 1985. As with the current Avian Flu paranoia, the public did not become educated about or interested in the disease until several months afterward. It was made clear that the animals became infected because of eating pieces of cow and sheep in their bone meal (animal food), and the British government outlawed the feeding of bone meal in order to halt the spread of mad cow disease.
In the movie Zombie land, a man in a small town café ordered a medium rare hamburger. The customer took one bite of this burger and was immediately transformed into a flesh eating zombie. Hence the mad cow disease epidemic with a twist. This mad cow disease outbreak spread across the globe rapidly. As broken down in the movie Zombie land this virus destroyed overweight people first, the elderly and children next, finally destroying the other half of the population. This outbreak came from a simple burger that was contaminated with mad cow disease with a twist. The zombies in Zombie land were fast and different from traditional zombies.
Unlike, the zombies in Zombie land, the zombies that were designed in the remake of Day of the dead, were infected by a genetically altered flu like virus that caused the towns people to become severely sick, making them rush to the hospital. News spread to the Government and the military was called in to isolate this town. Within seconds of the towns’ people reaching the hospital, the sick people simultaneously ceased to move. This happened over a course of ten minutes. The movie director showed what took place to the patients internally. The virus was attacking the healthy cells and transforming them into dead-living cells. As the virus worked its way through the body, externally the outside took a dramatic change as well. The body of the infected had advance stages of decomposition.
The zombies in this movie were extremely fast, intelligent and able to climb walls. Thinking back thirty years ago to the first movie George A. Romero produced, zombies walked slowly to their prey, and had signs of rigamortis and now in the Day of the Dead remake, zombies are running and can leap as if they were super heroes. In Lester Browns’ article Plan B pg. 49, gives examples of past civilizations and compares them to the present civilizations. He would compare the demise of the Ancient civilization to the possible down fall of the new world, if the food vs. fuel debate was not addressed. There are some similarities between the zombie movies of today and The Plan B article by Lester Brown, which is the possible demise of a civilization due to an unexplained out break.
Experimental viruses are the ones that push the envelope and try to reinvent and engineer viruses that can’t be stopped. These viruses were created to be used along side the military as a weapon. Sometimes things do not go according to plan and the once contained experimental viruses are released causing havoc in the world. In movies such as: “Resident Evil” in 2002 and “The Return of the Living Dead” released in 1985 show how the military and governmental experiments gone wrong and the virus transmission destroyed the human race. This creates a new kind of fear.
In the movie Resident Evil (based off several video games by Capcom), Inside the Hive, a top-secret genetic research facility owned by the Umbrella Corporation located beneath Raccoon City, a current employee stole and threw a vial of the T-Virus into a lab causing it to escape into the air vents. The vial breaks and the facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen, detects possible infection. It seals the Hive, trapping and killing everyone inside. A group of special task force agents went underground to the Hive to investigate and when the police rebooted the system, they unleashed a breed of zombies that, when they ate fresh human DNA, they mutated into a never before seen zombie creature.
Resident Evil the movie goes, on to have four more sequences to the first. This movies explains how zombies were created in an experimental lab and the out break process. The military/ regime in this movie were in control during the entire movie saga, the governing officials watched the zombies destroy the Raccoon City, from above and below. This makes one think how good the military/government is at keeping a secret, like zombies.
The movie Return of the Living Dead in 1985 was shot at a cemetery. The plot was as follows: A grounds keeper hired two new people to manage the property at night. As he was showing the new employees around the graveyard, they went to the basement and a barrel from the military was there and contained a corpse that was used in experimental weaponry. As he began to wipe off the glass to show the dead body on the inside, the glass cracked and the fumes from within leaked out and the story of the dead rising begins. Just inhaling these toxic fumes caused a chemical transformation within the two new employee’s body, which turned them into the walking dead. Realizing what happened, the grounds keeper called the number that was located on the side of the barrel.
Throughout the movie, the dead came out from the graves and killed a few people, turning those people into zombies, the authorities released a nuclear bomb destroyed that community and buried all those secrets once again. These movies are examples of how some basic fears can become a reality. Not all viruses come from governmental labs, nor are they owned by a corporation that intends to use them for war and with the military. Some viruses are created in a house directly next door, by a mad person that just wants to cause ciaos in the world.
In the “movie world” and in “real life” there are scientists that work on composing viruses that can be unleashed on the general population because they want to be the one to find a cure for that virus and become famous. Then, there are the “mad scientists” that have been banned from working at the hospitals, CDC, and within the military because their experiments are too out there even for the adventurous scientists. Two movies that explore the minds of mad scientists are “Quarantine released on October 10th, 2008 and “Flight of the Dead” which was released in 2007. Quarantine takes place in an apartment building and Flight of the Dead takes place on an airplane.
Picture being home watching television and you suddenly see your apartment building on the news. The building has been quarantined by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Instantly you pack your bags, run downstairs to find that you are not allowed to leave. In the movie Quarantine, a form of rabies is released in this apartment structure. A dog was taken to a local veterinarian and the CDC was called and traced the dog to that apartment building. The CDC had never seen a form of rabies that displayed such aggression in its victims. One of the residents showed signs of flu-like virus and transforms into a never before seen zombie. These zombies were fast and foamed at the mouth, as if infected with rabies.
According to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Rabies is an infectious and contagious disease of the central nervous system. It has been known since the ancient days of 2300 B.C. This lethal virus still exists in almost all parts of the world. Once infected, and left untreated, this disease is usually fatal. The rabies virus is concentrated in the saliva, mucous membranes and central nervous tissue of a rabid animal. Only humans, and other mammals, can become infected through a cut or scratch from an animal with rabies, or if the rabies virus comes in contact with the moist tissues of the mouth, nose or eyes.
According to Dr. Charles Patrick Davis, after the first exposure (in most people, an animal bite), the symptoms of itching or discomfort like pins or needles pricking the skin occur at the bite area. In addition, the person may develop fever and a headache. Investigators suggest these symptoms may last from about two days to weeks. This is the acute phase or the acute incubation phase of the disease. Unfortunately, there is another incubation period before the next set of signs and symptoms develop. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) suggests that the average latent incubation period is about three to seven weeks, although they do report a range from seven days to 10 years, with the longer time periods occurring infrequently.
The symptoms and signs of rabies in humans may consist of some or many of the following according to the CDC and NIH: In the movie Quarantine, the director used some of the above resources to make the movie as accurate as possible. Using the fears of a rabies outbreak and including zombies can generate fear.
In the movie Flight of the Dead, a routine red eye flight from Los Angeles to Paris, a renegade group of scientists has smuggled aboard a container holding a fellow scientist infected with a deadly genetically engineered virus which reanimates the dead. While the 747 crosses through violent thunderstorm, and no place to land, the flesh-eating zombies quickly spread the virus, infecting passengers and crew, the few survivors must fight for their lives stranded in the air with no way out. These movies are examples of different ways zombies attack and spread viruses. These are the movies that add a sprinkle that one day thought of having an outbreak of a virus or infestation of zombies.
Horror movies are intended to terrify the audience and educate them in thinking that anything is possible. Zombies are scary in theory and if you think about it, we have charactertics of zombie-like people living amongst now. Examples of this would be: people on drugs walking around lifeless, people having the same task to complete daily, and people that transmit contagious diseases to other people on a daily bases. Zombies and rapid virus outbreaks are indeed possible. It takes seconds to sneeze and spread germs everywhere. The world has so many different issues such as over population, low income areas, high number of homeless people, and the process and handling of food. Viruses have many entrance ways to make contact with any host.
History tells us that outbreaks from viruses have destroyed hundreds of thousand of lives in the past and have almost wiped out the world. The Black Death also known as the Bubonic plague, in the early 1330’s, was one of histories contagious “monster “ virus that mainly affected rodents, but was transmitted to humans from flea or tick bites. The more recent outbreak of small pox killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans per year between1892-1898. Outbreaks will continue to happen, if precautionary procedures are not followed and/or revamped to protect the lives of the earth’s inhabitants.
Now, close your eyes and think of how scary these movies are compared to the real life past outbreak occurrences. Think of an outbreak in your town today, the world exactly the same way it was described in the movie Zombie land, and in Resident Evil. You and your family are trapped in an apartment building with no way out and being attacked by a zombie or infected by an air borne virus. How would you survive, if you woke up one morning and the world as you knew it was in total disrepair with flesh eating zombies on the move? Not too frightening to visualize, because deep down you know it’s not real, although it is feasible.