As a side note, it seems like all of my blog posts are set in “a few days ago.” This is really just code-speak for “some time in the past which is not so far gone that I have forgotten to write about it.”

Imagine if our humble floor in Burton-Conner were the only remaining bastion of humanity, with the rest of campus, nay, the rest of the world overrun by hordes of flesh-craving zombies. Slow-moving, dimwitted zombies, of course, but zombies nonetheless. This being a movie, of course, means that the residents of Conner 2 would all fall into clearly predefined zombie movie stereotypes:

Leader

Someone would clearly have to be the battle-hardened leader of our ragtag band of zombie killers. This person seems a bit cold at first, and might even argue fiercely with the other characters, but ultimately this all stems from a deep desire to fend for the group’s best interests. If this person does end up dying, it is always near the end of the movie at an emotional low.

Big Brother

In any group of friends, there tends to emerge a big brother figure. The Big Brother is, in many ways, similar to the Leader in that he/she feels personally responsible for everyone else in the group. Instead of appearing cold and distant, though, the Big Brother is immediately likable and generally funny. Unfortunately, the Big Brother will almost always die saving one or more of the others in his group, inevitably due to a mistake on their part.

Smart Ass

The Smart Ass functions as the comic relief of the zombie movie, and may or may not actually kill zombies himself (this character is also almost always male, for whatever reason). He has seemingly limitless supply of one-liners and smarmy comebacks, and never hesitates to throw in a healthy dose of sarcasm at inopportune moments either. The Smart Ass is inevitably killed off in an amusing and somehow not tragic death as the movie progresses, since he also gets exponentially more annoying (and less funny) as time goes on.

Eye Candy

An unfortunate reality of most zombie movies is a small host of clueless teenagers, generally of the aesthetically pleasing variety, whose only purpose is to provide for pretty things to look at and a number of special effects laden deaths with satisfying little character development.

Love Interest

An even more unfortunate exception to the Eye Candy character, this person (almost always female, not necessarily true for plain Eye Candy) functions as a girlfriend of sorts for one of the main male characters in the movie.  Because of this, the Love Interest is practically immune to death, as long as the male character remains alive.

Traitor

Whenever someone gets bitten by a zombie in any zombie movie, they will always hide the wound and infection from the rest of the group until it’s too late.  Barring that, someone will end up betraying the group to some evil external group (faceless corporation, Nazis, etc.).  Karma usually operates here, and dictates that the Traitor die a messy and crowd-pleasing death as a result.

Do you ever watch a movie where the characters, who are otherwise just regular shmucks trying to make it through another day, get tangled up into a conflict larger than most people see in a lifetime? Frodo never asked to leave the Shire. He seemed pretty happy right where he was, but he ventures out; he risks his life for something bigger than himself. People in movies like that go through trials and torments that are only tolerable to witness because we have a the protection of reality, a thin screen dividing Frodo and his ring from our safe, air-conditioned seats and overpriced popcorn. Those giant robots that tore through buildings like so much tissue paper are placed safely in the realm of impossibility. Even movies where the element of fantasy takes a backseat to the element of realism are thus tamed.

Good movies erase that boundary, if only for an hour or two.  We can all easily sit back and point out all the reasons why giant autonomous robots from Cybertron could never crash land on our planet.  It’s more fun to lower your defenses for a while though, suspend your disbelief, and for just a little while, live vicariously through the characters on the screen trying desperately to save their world from extinction.  It’s a strange and exhausting sensation for me, to feel all of these big, noble emotions.  Maybe we all want to taste, even for a second, what it feels like to have something more to worry about than whether we’re going to finish our next project on time.

When I walk out of a movie like The Lord of the Rings or Transformers, I always feel exhausted.  More than that though, I always have trouble going back to my life, unenhanced by special effects and unplagued by absolute evils, and not feeling a little insignificant.  How can I possibly have any real problems compared to those characters?  I don’t have any worlds to save, evil rings to destroy, or Persians to defeat in glorious, slow-motion combat.  All I have are my comparatively inane worries that I’m not getting enough sleep, that I need to make myself dinner tonight.  Ironically enough, my life is the one that winds up feeling contrived and artificial.

The feeling never lasts too long though.  I guess I just go back to my regular life and get used to it.