To celebrate the premiere of The Walking Dead on AMC this Sunday, we here at Techland will be picking out our favorite formerly deceased monsters across comics, games, film and other media. The zombie myth’s been around for centuries and has been reinterpreted almost as much as vampire lore. At their most basic, though, zombies represent us and everything that can go wrong (or right?) on the dark side of human nature. We’ll be trying to show off some of the most intriguing examples of that symbolism as My Favorite Zombie rolls out.
See everyone else’s favorite zombies here.
Until Shaun of the Dead, zombies were grossly misrepresented and, as a result, mistreated. While it is true that they brutally gnaw on your vital parts and tear your limbs off when all you really want to do is hold it together, zombies are still a species deserving of life, or better yet, unlife.
Zombies like Ed from Shaun of the Dead act on pure instinct, without malice or greed. Their nature makes it so that they don’t know what they are doing is wrong. It’s precisely that reason I don’t fear Ed: It’s just not right to get mad at someone for trying to hurt you if they had no comprehension of their actions. Instead, people attack zombies with their shovels and chainsaws, trying to exterminate the creature for something he or she did not know was wrong in the first place.
I’m not saying that we should let our fellow zombie roam free without repercussions for what he or she did. As of the end of the movie, zombie Ed couldn’t hold a high-powered job or even go to the store without having his violent nature provoked. But despite the atrocities he may have committed while in his zombified state, Ed still proves to be a great companion to those around him, especially his best friend Shaun. He’s still a fun person to play video games with and a shoulder to lean on when Liz starts nagging Shaun again. Eventually, when he’s calm enough, I would like to think that he would enter one of those zombie rehabilitation programs that the movie hinted at and be returned to the rest of society when he is deemed fit. But, our first instinct – to go straight for the head – is an act of vengeful spite. Ed sacrificed his life to save his friends, and just because he may have done some wrong without knowing it doesn’t mean he should be murdered.
That is why Ed from Shaun of the Dead is my favorite zombie. He reminds us all that sometimes the wrong that others have done might have been in their nature and completely out of their control. Even though zombies may seem like the worst creatures in the world, they, like anyone else, always have something to offer.
More on Techland:
Origins: What Influences Scott Pilgrim Director Edgar Wright
PSA: Don’t Forget to Unlock the Zombies in the Scott Pilgrim Game