The fire alarm went off a few days ago, and the firemen didn’t manage to turn off the flashing lights for quite some time. We were allowed to go back into the dorm after a few minutes, but the lights kept flashing. And all of the alarms were emitting a low, crackling noise. Like a wire had been severed somewhere. Not many people had returned yet, since we had just all been let back into the building. As I walked down the almost deserted hallways of my dorm, I thought to myself, “Wow, this would be a pretty good beginning to a zombie movie.”

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.