Zack Snyder: "My dream is to adapt Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ " Me: "That explains so much..."

"zombies could be replaced with any event that forces people inside" *looks at upload date* uh um

Some Night of The Living Dead facts: -It's main source of inspiration was I am Legend, which had similar monsters but it was explained in the beginning that the monsters were actually vampires that were so blood-starved that they lost all sense of self. This actually makes me wonder how audiences eventually settled on "zombies" as the go-to term. It's probably a racial thing considering everything else this video talks about -The ending was Duane Jones's idea, because to him getting "accidentally" shot by police ostensibly there to save other survivors was a more realistic ending than getting rescued by them. This is still true to this day.

Fun Fact: Robespierre and the Jacobins (the name for the most leftist members of the French revolution) actually supported the Haitian Revolution and even passed laws that outlawed slavery and granted full rights to Black denizens of the French Republic. However, when Napoleon came to power all these laws were rolled back because he wanted that sweet, sweet sugar money. You can learn all this and more in Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James.

"of the Living Dead, Night" is funnier to me than it has any right to be. How dare you, Scaredy Matt

The real zombie was the movies we made along the way.

thanks scaredy matt for saying "a dracula" one of my favorite jokes

Matt, I want you to tell me things about stuff all the time forever.

"If I wanted to criticize The Walking Dead, I would mention how bad it sucks" *breaks my computer hitting the like button*

George Romero has said in interviews that he didn’t think he was making a zombie movie, because he was familiar with zombie movies from before Night of the Living Dead, and he recognized that it was an entirely different thing.

Some really good zombie movies: Train to Busan, The Girl With All The Gifts, KL Zombi, Shaun of The Dead, Pontypool, Wyrmwood, and Little Monsters. I hope people will try out some of these. They’re my favorites. Mix of old and new and serious and funny.

Pretty much every negative cinematic trend in the past decade can be blamed on either Zack Snyder or Christopher Nolan.

The idea of a once human 'monster' suffering the contempt of humankind as a metaphor for humanity's inhumanity to other is also present in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, at least through modern lens

Fun fact: France was the first to abolish slavery within the borders of the nation proper (way back in 1300!) and also the first to abolish slavery in its colonies, though only temporarily before Napoleon re-instituted it. Didn't stop them from being right bastards to their colonies, though.

I only recently learnt what zombies used to be, raised on the idea it was just "the corpses are bad now and headshots look cool"

I often think about the scene in Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters involving the zombie attacking a shark.

Train to Busan brought new life to the genre

It is genuinely horrifying how many genres and hallmark ideas Zack Snyder has managed to ruin in his career.

I love how Max Brook's "World War Z" (no real relation to the awful Brad Pitt film) actually catches all of the positive aspects you mention here and uses them well, and it's a shame it's a film we'll never see.

You should check out the new anime Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, it un-ruins zombies so hard. Also the manga name drops Marx.

I want to see a zombie movie where a gay man gives that whole "I first knew I was gay" speech, but instead of a joke it's, like, a human moment of longing and empathy that shows that our heroes still have a connection to the world that was lost.

My dude, you keep making great shit and I keep watching it. Except my brain mashes your channels together to create SCAREDY SLIME.

At this point I'm just binge watching all your videos. This was a fantastic pov on zombie movies. Wish your videos were longer more in depth.

Original Dawn Of The Dead I think is my favourite film, I don’t know exactly why it works for me but it’s both simple and complex with such a gorgeous soundtrack... gonna go rewatch it quick.

I mean, I have no idea what you mean! that scene from the Bad Day of the Dead is accurate to the gay experience... I too randomly start recounting my gay awakening at any given moment to whomstever is listening because I too like being very icky to the hetereroes. Anyway time to go sachay into the ever hungry, shuffling mass that is the algorithm!

What a coincidence, talking about my hatred for Zack Snyder is my favourite hobby.

Love this so much, and i hope that in this holiday season, a million unsuspecting apolitical tube viewers stumble on this channel and suddenly feel the irresistible need to zombie swarm their bosses and gobble them sweet bossy bods.

I think one of the interesting things about Z-Nation is that despite its rather wacky nature and low budget. It actually goes on to subvert a lot of the cliches about zombie media nowadays. For instance, the series actively reminds the viewer about the humanity of the zombies with the Post-Apoc Lingo for killing a zombie being "I give you mercy" or "Have Mercy." Etc. And the characters who are badass which is noticeably not the main character are shown as they become more proficient in killing to also be a bit more brutal, and unforgiving in their pursuits. To put others at risk in the pursuit of whatever mission they have. At least with Addy, and Warren. Some of the rotating sixth members of the group are played pretty straight with this. And even the closest we get to just an uncompromised badass in the main cast is 10K who was raised by an end of the world, doomsday prepper type guy. Which would normally be glorified in this type of show, but besides his impeccable aiming skill. 10K is shown to be rather stunted by it actually. And not in like a cool, manly, doesn't show emotions way. But to have missed out on a lot of life, and to be genuinely awkward around others. And I think the main character, Murphy is a bit of a play on the normal kind of zombie protagonist. He starts off as a whiner, and a bit of a mealy-mouth coward really, not even directly killing a zombie until like the fifth season. And despite his miraculous immunity and other powers. It's him seeing himself as very special which, this inflated sense of self that causes him to do some... Pretty terrible acts later on. Most of these fueled by his feelings that he is somehow 'owed' something by society. Not to mention the fact that the seasons have the major enemy across seasons be things like big tech conglomerates millionaires who don't care about what happens to others, The U.S Government's desire to 'win a cold war', Literal actual racists trying to usurp a democratic government. And I think a lot of these choices were legitimately intentional. As the prequel series, Black Summer that was put on Netflix, a more standard kind of zombie drama, goes out of its way to include things like deaf people, an Asian Woman who only speaks Vietnamese and generally reinforcing that the social ties among the groups are what's helping them survive, and the unreliableness of the government.

They outta make a zombie movie where the inciting incident is food companies putting something in the food that makes people hungrier and hungrier in order to increase their profit. Oh wait that's just sugar lol

Totally digging the new Spooky Slime channel.

I’ve heard of movies being “discovered in editing,” but maybe Night Of The Living Dead was “discovered in casting”

Between 5 and 7 years ago (don't remember the exact dates) I was fascinated with the proliferation of apocalyptic fiction. I read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos about it slowly understanding that their appeal came from the idea of being relieved from the burden of living a civilized life, and from destroying the system that makes you a simple cog in the machine, so you can live a life in wich the consequences of all your decisions feel inmediate and simple (you make a mistake, you die). I learned that decades ago books like Earth Abbides or The Day of the Trifids argued about those weirdly possitive feelings arising from the end of the world (I think the best summation of this idea is a dialogue early in Kevin Costner's The Postman, where the fascist villain says that prior the apocalypse he was a Xerox salesman, and how the end of civilization was the best thing to happen to his life). But after I understood the appeal, the power fantasy of it, but a question remained: Why now? ("Now" meaning "mid 2000' to around 2014") then it clicked: the rise of Social Media and the saturation of information. People felt overweld, they felt small in a very big world, the felt alone in a sea of opinions* (all different to their own, all different between each other, all with massive followings). "Make the noise stop!" the public prayed in their subconscious "make me big again! If millions had to die for me to have control over my own life again, so be it! Make the million voices into zombies so I can silence them myself" ... that's why apocalyptic fiction in general and zombie fiction in particular became such a trend. And thats why it died out as the superhero movie rise up, because at the core of the superhero fantasy is the idea of a big individual "fixing" society with his own hands thanks to some "power" that separates him** from (and elevates him above) the rest of the regular people. That's also why I think the capper of the 00's apocalyptic trend is Edgar Wright's The World's End, because it literally ends with a loser choosing the end of civilization so he can finally archieve the life of greatness his Ego thinks he deserves without being bog-down by "laws" or "decency". * for white supremacist the increasing influence of minorities in all spheres of society probably added up to the anxiety, but the zombie trend was a global phenomenon, thats why I speak in therms so broad they could apply to persons of all the racial, cultural and political spectrums) ** At that point in modern mainstream film history, it was always a HIM *** Sorry the bad English, I became to warp in by the rant to do things like spellchecking or proof-reading

I'll confess. I ruined zombies. I'll take my punishment now

Hey Matt! I love both your channels, and I really feel this take on the zombie trend of late. Just wanted to comment that at least for me, the audio of the movie clips was WAY louder than the audio of your voice, so I kept having to turn up my headphones and then jump out of my skin then hurriedly turn them down during the clips.

How couldn't it have been zach snyder?

I had to look up where that scene from the '04 Dawn of the Dead came from, and apparently it's from the directors cut which had 10 more minutes of scenes for "character development". Gross.

I love this new content, looking forward to the next video!!

This is not quite on topic, but Dawn of the dead is always gonna be my favorite, because I met Ken Foree and he's a genuinely cool guy. My stepdad ran a little con for a few years that Ken agreed to come out to as long as we paid the plane ticket and just took him to look at historical stuff in our town bc he loves history. I was going thru a bad break up at the time, and Ken Foree was v nice to lil 15 year old me and was being v fatherly that weekend. Later, when I graduated high school, he couldn't make it in town, but he sent me 100 dollars. He's a good guy

Have you seen Little Monsters yet? It's a funny and heart-warming little zombie film that has some interesting possible reads and a few nice jabs at the US military.

The way you describe Walking Dead makes it sound like the perfect example of post-9/11 fiction for future analysts.

A L G O R I T H M I C E N G A G E M E N T

zack snyder is like a vandal, ruining all my favourite nerd shit. i'll never forgive him for watchmen

If there's the possibility it was Zack Snyder's fault something bad happened then it's definitely Zack Snyder's fault the bad thing happened. This is the law of Snyder.

Fulci's 'Zombie' had the most terrifying creatures. They looked the part.

I got sent here by Curio, who recommended (and referenced strongly) this video in her larger Why Zack Snyder Sucks essay, "Zack Snyder: A World Based on Spite"!

I'd really like to see a zombie movie based on haitian mythology because "perpetual enslavement without even death to free" is definitely the most terrifying interpretation of the concept I know off

The real zombies are people who mindlessly request subjects for you to cover without adding anything meaningful to the conversation at hand. Please talk about Hellraiser at some point ❤❤❤

Dope shit, brah. Your perspective is salient as fuck! High-five for the cathartic dissection of ever-evolving social mores and their interactions with media and politics, dawg.

I've watched and enjoyed several of your videos thus far but it wasn't until you said "Fuck Zach Snyder" that I subscribed and hit the like button. We are kindred spirits, you and I.

I can't speak for newer Walking Dead as I checked out after Negan, but what I saw showed the characters (particularly Rick) pushed to the brink of evil by the brutality of their circumstances, and then reminded of the value of humanity and stepping back from that dark threshold. Characterizing the message of that show as "you have to become terrible to survive terrible things" is missing the crucial capstone of "but do not become lost in fear and rage and lose sight of what it means to be human; of love, compassion, and the pursuit of happiness"

Half way through and I already love this video.

I ended up quitting on The Walking Dead comics because of the things you mentioned, where all relationships were transactional or risky, and the only way to win was to get better at killing (though the comics did it way better than that show) The video game however is amazing. It uses the same idea of the walkers and has a different story and characters, and truly makes you feel different characters’ struggles as they decide between survival and empathy, and whether to trust others or go it alone, as well as those who become simply unhinged and a danger to others. The main character Lee is amazing with the best sad ending I’ve experienced in a piece of media.

I don't know where else to comment this, but I really love this channel's logo it's really cute.

I think this is only the third time I've EVER heard anyone correctly assess the horrific implications of the original Haitian zombies, and the second time I've heard Romero-and-after "zombies" correctly identified as ghouls.

Zombies don't just gobble brains, they gobble arms, legs, shoulders, knees, toes, ears, eyes... eyeballs...

I have been describing zombies as humans with no money, credit, or hopes of getting either one ever. They are only trying to satisfy a gnawing hunger that any of us may eventually experience.

Loving this series and sharing it with my horror friends. Thank you, Matt!

1:50 - 1:58 As an actual Haitian, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed and LOL’d at this part of this video

Revisiting this video and the lack of Bobby Duke surprised me so much that I laughed. I had completely forgotten that he's a recent bit, and I was so excited to hear Bobby Duke that the lack of him was also hilarious. Love your work!

Snyder's Dawn of the Dead was the FIRST of the Dead movie I ever saw, and in spite of its many flaws it got me into George Romero's first three zombie movies (plus The Crazies) and I think everyone agrees those are the best. You could round it out with Return of the Living Dead (by Dan O'Bannon!), 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead. Also Life After Beth. The Walking Dead does represent a very bleak and conservative mindset behind it all, no wonder it was so popular. Why does that guy insist on wearing the sheriff outfit when there's no sheriff's department anymore, like it's some kind of Halloween costume? Did that not bug anyone else?

Do you really have no opinion on DAY OF THE DEAD? Weird, I’d that that movie would speak most directly to your politics. It also has the best effects my a country mile.

You have good video horror essays and I like how you don't end with a conclusion. Living us to sit and think about what we heard but with an abrupt ending. Much like a horror movie does.

The fact that Zach Snyder is making yet another zombie movie, this time in the middle of a resurgent civil rights crisis, already has me pounding my head into the wall.

Zack Snyder literally ruins everything his stinky fingers touch

George A. Romero- I wasn't making a statement. 😉 Everyone- Right. 😉

oh my GOD the last few lines were hilarious thank you very much. also the rest of the video is all kinds of real good. thanks for making this channel :)

As silly as resident evil is as a movie series, I like the design of their zombies.

It might actually be more impressive if Romero really didn't intend to comment on consumerism in Dawn of the Dead, because that would just speak to how intrinsically linked the idea is into the mindset of an American citizen.

Now I really want to see Matt review Army of the Dead lol.

Number of times I giggled and said aloud "I love you Scaredy Matt" while watching this: at least 5

I find this video to be even more important now with the coronavirus pandemic.

Perfect description on this video.

i could listen to you talk about zombie movies for hours.

I'd really like to see a Zombie film where a cure for being a zombie is found really early, well before society collapses and the problem becomes widespread, but all the prepper murderlust types can't accept that they don't get their moment to feel badass and kill things without consequence so they end up ruining everything to make sure an apocalypse does actually happen.

I'm all for blaming Snyder, but can't we also spread a little shame to James Gunn for writing the remake's smugly misanthropic script?

Solid essay! In a sense, the best zombie-film in recent (ish) years have no zombies at all, and it's "The Road".

OT but connected: The modern movie zombie has virtually nothing to do with vodou or Haiti, except for the term. In its original context it refers to somenthing akin to classical "anima", ie. "soul", but not neccessairly as a conscious or personal entity, but rather as "life spark", wether it animates (which is what "anima" does) a body or a disembodied consciousness. In vodouisant metaphisics there are different kinds of souls jointly animating a human (or other) being, hence there are different kinds of zombies. The walking corpses or corpse-like people in a seemingly catatonic state referred to as "zombies" were a staple of horror movies at least since The White Zombie (not situated in Haiti, but elsewhere in the Caribbeans, by the way). Thats probably why the term became connected to a hugely successful Romero's movie, even as it virtually superseded any previously existed notions of what a cinematic zombie was (and they had never been any consistency between various movies in that regard). If we were to find any pediggree of the modern cinematic zombie, we could list among its ancestors: 1) the original, folkloristic and Byronian vampyre; 20 the Germanic aptrgangr - the inspiration behind Tolkien's barrow-wights 3) the Caligari-style somnambulist figure.

I've always been bothered by how brain eating was a niche quality rarely used outside of movies with a comedic slant.

Why the video start by describing zombies as though they're eyeballs?

What could be a better critique of mindless consumerism than for Romero to have accidentally created one? Like, he just looked around at his lived experience and unintentionally found a scathing critique of capitalism, and he didn't even realize he did it.

Eager to see how the Pando will effect zombie movies in the future.

send more paramedics

Maybe the real zombies were the movies Zack Snyder made along the way

My parents buy me zombie stuff as birthday/Christmas gifts from time to time and they haven't quite gotten yet that what I like are zombie *comedies*, not just any old movie with zombies thrown in.

Leave it to zach snyder to poorly adapt something

kinda disappointed that you didn´t say "Maybe the real zombie was the movies we made along the way"

I feel like that the message in the Walking Dead is that being nice takes more strength than anything else, and that's why hardly anyone is doing it.

To be fair, in the Walking Dead, a group of people pretended to be peaceful and kind, leaving maps offering shelter just so they could lure people in and eat them.

I mean it's probably why one of the better zombie movies of the last decade was romantic horror movie Warm Bodies where in the violence is self perpetuating, and an end can only be achieved through understanding

I think you give the walking dead a bit more of a hard time than it deserves in terms of messaging. It's still kinda shit but it definitely doesn't argue that getting strong and tough is the answer - in fact, character's inability to help others is continually their downfall. The whole recent Negan/Saviors story that lasted far too long was an obvious story about the dangers of capitalism and that workers rising up and overthrowing their bosses is the thing to do. Hamfisted and poorly done, sure, but not arguing that the answer is to get tough for toughness' sake

I find it ironic and interesting that the concept of zombies have become a meta commentary on how we mindlessly consume one gimmicky product after another, how its a power fantasy for a lot of people to live out a sadistic thrill, as if it would make them happy.

I feel like TWD is about finding your humanity despite living in an inhuman world. Its one of the themes I’ve always enjoyed in the show

if Zack Snyder was a zombie, would you enjoy putting him out of his misery?

Oh my god, hearing Zombie with a picture of Zack Snyder 2 days after trying to inflict ARMY OF THE DEAD to myself is too much. Are you a prophet?

Zombies have been done to death (Dad pun intended), but Brand New Cherry Flavor includes a form of them and uses them as background characters and not as the antagonists of the show. They are also far more like the zombies of Haiti than The Dawn of the Dead. I literally just finished that series the other day. I had considered how their use of zombies was more subtle, but now after this video, I get a better sense of why this use of zombies was more effective when I walked away from the Walking Dead years and years ago.

Does anyone else hate when zombie media goes out of its way to not say "zombie"? It's always shufflers or rotters or walkers or deadites (yes I know, demons) or freaks or whatever. Just say zombie.

2:17 I want a whole video about that, please.

both the book and the movie of Warm Bodies have issues (ssssso straaaaight) but uhm a story from the POV of a zombie who's existence is a poetic exploration of crippling depression, social anxiety and and social isolation is really good? also compassion, community and love saves a dying world. And it's really frustrating how the Zach Shnyder approach has led to so many 'strong boys' dismissing the story cuz zombies are supposed to be scary (nevermind that the boneys are terrifying and also the existiential horror of the gaping sky mouth that they fucking worship)

Way back before the current zombie craze, I remember reading an opinion piece by a zombie movie aficionado that began "There is no such thing as a good zombie movie."

Ironically bad Dawn of the Dead is the only enjoyable movie Zack Snyder has made. You're not wrong about the message, though. Me, I can't watch any zombie thing anymore without comparing it directly to Train to Busan, and that's not a fair standard to hold most movies to; it's way too good.