I’m really digging The Walking Dead and The Strain. It’s a golden age for monster shows and movies! 28 Days Later kick started that for me, with running zombies going around tearing everything up due to the “Rage” virus. I loved the atmosphere and story of that movie, as well.
I can dig the supernatural stuff now and then, but it’s mostly garbage. Most of these movies have to resort to “jump,” “shock,” and other “scare” tactics to make me notice. The story has to be really well done in order to get me to suspend belief and this is an issue with supernatural movies – they just don’t do it for me! I don’t believe in ghosts and demons, so it’s hard for me to completely let go. Most of the time I’m just waiting for the special effects or the sudden movement or loud ass noise; sometimes it gets me, most of the time it doesn’t.
On the other hand, monsters, be they zombies, vampires. and even aliens, may be just as impractical as ghosts, but I get sucked in to these stories more because there’s always an element of reality. Before you roll your eyes, hear me out here:
- The Walking Dead and the Strain are both modern shows that add an element of nature to their monsters. The zombies and vampires in these shows and in 28 Days Later are caused by unknown viruses. Plus, zombies do exist in nature. Click here to see 12 examples and here for 5 more. Zombies are real and bats are vampires!
- Aliens – we just don’t know! I agree with Carl Sagan here, as he believed that aliens may
exist, but we have not had contact. The universe is so large, that it’s hard to imagine we are the only intelligent life (deities excluded!). Stephen Hawking also concludes that odds are, there is life somewhere (although making contact would probably be a bad idea).
So, take a good monster story, add cool makeup and special effects, gory scenes and BAM, you have a winner in my book!!!
While these shows in themselves aren’t scary, they are more satisfying. They have deep story lines and again, you can almost picture the worlds they create.
So my question today is this: Which do you prefer? Vote below and may the best monsters win!
[yop_poll id=”3″]
