On a quiet night at home with my parents, flicking through the channels, I landed on the 2009 film gem: Zombieland. Putting aside my weird obsession with Woody Harrelson, as I watched the film for the sixth or seventh time, I was struck by the picture it painted of our nation’s post-zombie apocalypse identity: a landscape bereft of life, ravaged by the undead, survived only by four lucky humans.

Oh, and the legacy of Hannah Montana.

That’s right, this fantastic, though mostly ignored horror-comedy piles on a heavy load of pop culture references, strangely situated in a world where culture has descended into blood-splattered, flesh-eating chaos, as it piles up the undead body count. Watching the flick as a member of pre-apocalyptic America, I was left wondering: Can something as simple as a package of delicious, fluffy Twinkies define us all?

Oddly enough, I think the answer is yes. Give me Twinkies or give me death, the epitaph of my hero Mr. Harrelson’s character, might seem a tad irrational, but these preservative-ridden pastries represent far more than heart attack shaped like a stick, in Zombieland and in life outside the Starz channel.

In the movie, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) understands Harrelson’s love of Twinkies as a symbol for something beyond sugar. Twinkies, he says in one of his narrations, are a link to the past. To the survivors of the apocalypse, Twinkies are the inexplicable, squishy building blocks of society. A product that makes no sense in nature, Twinkies are more cultural construction than sustenance. To Tallahassee (Harrelson), they’re stuffed with marshmallow memories of nonsensical civilization.

Despite the fact that the world has crumbled around them, the characters in Zombieland still relate to each other, to themselves, and to us through the iconography of our culture: Twinkies, Hannah Montana, Facebook statuses, Willie Nelson, and even Bill Murray.

In fact, the most surreal moment of the movie occurs completely sans cannibalistic half-deads, and instead in the Bill Murray mansion, where Tallahassee meets his idol for the first (and last) time. For two full minutes, we awkwardly watch a character played by the iconic Woody Harrelson admire the similarly iconic Bill Murray, playing himself.

We even watch a few minutes of Ghostbusters with Eisenberg as he educates the youngest survivor, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), about Murray’s acting career. Of course, the scene of Ghostbusters we watch is the scene that references Twinkies, adding to the convoluted layers of imagery we are now experiencing. It doesn’t help that Eisenberg is now the face of Facebook, thanks to The Social Network, making his shared distaste for Facebook statuses feel a little weird.

What’s really going on in all this mess?

Well, during all this mess, we’re laughing. Because, like the zombies respond (usually by salivating blood) to bells, lights, and a few infamous chords from “Dueling Banjos,” we respond to these pop culture references. They are the glue that holds us to the movie. And although they seem unimportant, trivial even, they truly are the glue that holds our culture together – the touchstones that everyone can reach. If all else were to fail, perhaps they alone would survive amongst us.

And so, when Tallahassee bids farewell to Columbus with a line from Babe, we know he stole it from a movie, and yeah, it’s a pretty lame good-bye. But we laugh, we smirk knowingly at the fellow popcorn-munchers on our couches, and we notice they’re doing the same.

We can barely ask more from a pre- or post-apocalyptic Saturday night than a little human togetherness, even if Twinkies are the common denominator.

That’ll do, Zombieland. That’ll do. 

You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.

image – Zombieland

1. She throws a tantrum when she doesn’t get her own way. Her hockey team lost, which makes it time to smash in windows and steal nothing but Louis Vuitton bags and Pringles. Sounds a lot like retail therapy.

2. She’s not allowed to drink liquor unless her parents buy it and supervise her. With the most archaic liquor laws this side of Singapore, Vancouver is awash with illegal drinking and speakeasies. The city was founded by loggers looking for prostitutes and hooch, and in an attempt to clean up the city, strict liquor laws were enforced, most of which stand today. Up until the mid seventies, there were still two entrances to a pub; one for “gents” and one for “escorts.” The government was able to determine the color of the rug in bars, and round tables weren’t allowed as they promoted fraternizing. The provincial government purchases all beer, wine and spirits, and marks up the price so much that BC-produced wine is as expensive as wine from overseas. In addition, anyone wishing to open a bar or live music venue must purchase a pricey license from an existing location, and the province has been known in the past few years to purchase licenses themselves and nullify them. Not only can you not open a new bar, but there are less of them now than ever before.

3. Her bad side isn’t dangerous, it’s just repetitive and annoying. Vancouver is home to the poorest neighborhood in the country. However, you won’t get mugged, shot, or abducted there. Rather, you’ll be berated repeatedly by zombies asking for change or cigarettes. After a while it becomes less maddening and you end up tuning it out.

4. She’s pretty but can’t dress herself. Vancouver – with its mountains and ocean fronts – still shock even lifelong citizens with her beauty, but the buildings are miserable and out of place in the same way that young girls tattoo their bodies like they doodle on their binders. Most of the buildings are from the 1970s and were built on spec, many with cork floors. The architecture is lacking so much that buildings with little more than a brick façade are admired for standing out.

5. She has terrible taste in music. For a city that has had a wide ranging influence on pop music (The New Pornographers, Pointed Sticks), the flagship band of Vancouver is Nickelback. If you think for a second that just because the growly, “modern rock” band is from the city that it doesn’t mean its taste is poor, consider the music played during the Stanley Cup playoffs. While the Boston Bruins were blasting Jane’s Addiction, and “Who Do You Love?” during faceoffs, and adopting the Standells’ “Dirty Water” as their official theme song, Rogers Arena in Vancouver was playing Pitbull-soaked mashups. Even the organist was playing dickless, top forty songs instead of classic hockey rally melodies.

You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.

A couple Mondays ago I was sitting at the kitchen table trying unsuccessfully to read when my roommate showed me the recently premiered AMC show The Walking Dead on his computer.  He mentioned that it was about zombies and said that I had probably seen the promotional posters in the NYC subways.  I did not expect it to be a show that I would find very intriguing. I expected it to be television’s usual attempt at transforming a classic cinematic genre to fit the T.V. format, such as how True Blood or Dexter each turn their respective (vampire and serial-killer) genres into fairly formulaic television.  I thought, “Zombie-movies themselves are usually—on the whole—unreliable, yet alone if they have to go through the kind of retarded format/formula of T.V.”

Surprisingly, The Walking Dead has not fallen into any such quagmire, and the show’s adeptness at developing long and cohesive story lines fits well with its 45-minute episodes.  While some of the dialogue is cliché and the acting is a bit weak, the show’s premise and plot quickly fed on my addiction-prone nature.  Pivoting around a small-town Georgia cop (played by a Liev Schreiber look-alike, whose actual name is Andrew Lincoln, who I guess was in the movie Love Actually), the show opens with him falling into a coma in the line of duty.  When he wakes from the coma he is in a deserted hospital and meets a plethora of zombies as he attempts to find survivors (in this respect, the show is suspiciously similar to the 28 Days Later film series, although I don’t know at whom exactly my suspicion should be directed).  The show also goes along similar lines as that film series’ through having a very blatant rural-urban juxtaposition in the progression from scene to scene (Atlanta being the featured city).

I don’t really understand how I have become so easily enthralled with this program; I guess the endless violence and delayed drama are my main attractions to it.  There have definitely been several times throughout each episode when my roommate and I have cheered, “YES!” or “FUCK….” as a human gets bitten by a zombie or a zombie gets their head chopped off by a human.  But the violence, while it gets me off, is nicely complemented by the show’s ability to delay drama and get me thinking not just about how explicit the violence is but about also the humans’ contribution to the insanity of its world.  The plot is pretty predictable, but such is television.  I think that the drama that the show is able to build each episode (as we repeatedly wonder how someone will survive death, or how far insane a survivor of the zombies can become) is effective not in surprising twists but on the suspense it builds as it goes through those twists. The cinematography is what most helps create the suspense: it shows great talent at lingering on single shots and scenes rather than fucking around with different angles and montages (this makes sense, as the show is adapted from an acclaimed comic book of the same name).  On the other hand, the show’s score is somewhat corny in a calculated fashion, but this fits the zombie-genre perfectly.  It creates a surreal atmosphere wherein the show’s talented depiction of an apocalyptic world is given a soundtrack that is so appallingly campy that it fits with the show’s genre perfectly.

But if you are already a zombie-lover, then you are probably going to check this show out, but you may be wondering what it adds to the genre itself.  In this respect, its main strength is that it follows the very realistic bent of films such as 28 Days Later, but that it doesn’t seem to take itself quite as seriously as a statement about politics or society.  That being said, there are a couple of white brothers (inadvertent pun) who are very racist and there are scenes dealing with gender issues, but the show doesn’t allow itself to get bogged down in making too many grand statements about the human race.  My usual thoughts during zombie movies of “are the survivors really any different than the zombies? (or ‘walkers’ as the characters call them)” have gone through my head as I’ve watched the first few episodes of this show.  I feel as if the show is honest that this was one of its thematic purposes yet also honest in that it realizes that people want to get sex and violence when they watch the show (because a show about zombies in which there is nothing edgy won’t make money, and would probably be very boring). Also, the television format actually aids the show in that it is able to develop sex and other dramatic tropes that would seem more ridiculous and less fitting if restricted to a 90-120 minute film.

The Walking Dead should fit well as part of the AMC brand.  The other “AMC original series,’” Mad Men and Breaking Bad, are also part of my small television show list, and I believe The Walking Dead will probably become and remain a “staple” of my limited television experiences (it should be noted that another AMC series, Rubicon, premiered this fall as well, but I found it utterly exhausting in its attempt to emulate 70s conspiracy-thrillers).  Of course, there have been many shows that I have watched for several episodes or so and then realized I was wasting time.  The Walking Dead is a show that will attract people who want to have a show that they can relax to as they watch but still be stimulated at the same time. Further, the show could very well join others dramas such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire as the evidence towards the promise that aspects of the current generation of television offers, and this hope may be its central draw.

When the zombie first appeared on film in the 1930s, audiences became hooked on what they saw. Often depicted with crazed, transfixed, and bloodshot eyes, an insatiable hunger for human flesh and above all, a reckless disregard for human life, these terrifying creatures were slow-moving pack travelers. Audiences loved witnessing the random chaos visited on everyone and everything by these soulless corpses. As popularly conceived, a zombie is an infected human who has died from a virus, only to rise up as the ‘walking dead’ with a severe attitude problem.

These eerie creatures first identify, then surround, their victims, spreading infection at high speed, rampaging as they go. No wonder they became an enticing subject for film makers who, over the last century, have created thought-provoking and horrifying films built around them.

When George A. Romero released The Night of the Living Dead in 1968 he began a new era in zombie film making. Romero raised the creature’s profile to definitive cult status and inspired both fans and film makers around the world with his unique take on the zombie genre: a mix of classic horror/gore overkill with humor that established a new standard. Sequels like Dawn of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Diary of the Dead followed suit. His work has continued to spur exciting contemporary directors to make modern zom-com classics like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland which pay homage to Romero’s work. Other directors like Danny Boyle have taken a more serious and thoughtful stance, examining our drive to avoid irradiation as well as the impact of “total infection.”

Whatever the take, zombie films live on, and there’s no doubt that zombies will continue to dominate our screens for many years to come. With the firm belief that every zombie freak should have his day and draw up a list of the ten best, here’s mine.