One way or another, everyone has an opinion on the recent slew of monster mashups that began with the unholy union of Jane Austen, zombies, and ninjas and has been hurtling along ever since, so for today’s edition of our ongoing Zombie Week survey, we had to ask:
Following in the shambling, undead footsteps of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and subsequent mashups, which work of classic or popular literature would you most like to see invaded by ravenous zombie hordes?
Our panel of zombie experts really took this one and ran with it, gleefully inflicting fictional zombies on all kinds of unsuspecting authors, novels, TV shows and movies. Click below the fold to see the delightfully warped results, and please chime in with your own suggestions in the comments…
Julia Sevin: I would like for all of Nicolas Sparks’s characters to be torn limb from limb, eaten up and shat out. (I’m not saying I’d read it, though.) Plus even zombies might not be able to stomach characters that poorly made. I doubt they like cheese.
David Moody: Twilight. Because it’s not scary, it’s not horror, and I’d like to see a flood of zombies descend and wipe out all the sparkly vampires, the puppy werewolves and the miserable teens. Put us all out of their misery.
Carrie Ryan: Watership Down: zombie bunnies.
Sarah Langan: Sophie’s Choice, because I’m sure it would be very tasteful.
Steven Gould: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Heck, he can take the year.
Walter Greatshell: Not literature, but I always thought it would be great if one of the TV networks devoted a whole Halloween to zombies, meaning that all of the usual shows—soap operas, sitcoms, dramas—would suddenly be invaded by zombies. Not in a funny way, either, but with the same sense of increasing dread as any good zombie movie. General Hospital besieged by zombies—I might actually watch that. Or The Office under attack, with Dwight becoming the hero of Dunder Mifflin. Somebody in Hollywood should pay me for this stuff…
Paula R. Stiles: Moby Dick! Come on; don’t tell me you don’t want to see a zombie whale.
S.G. Browne: The Wizard of Oz. I think if you replace the Munchkins with zombies, it would make for a much different welcoming committee for Dorothy and Toto.
Matt London: You mean aside from the one from my story in The Living Dead 2? I’d like to adapt a Neil Simon play into a story called “Brighton Beach Zombies.” It would be about old Jewish undead living in Brooklyn, wrought with guilt about the fact that human flesh isn’t kosher.
Or maybe a Raymond Chandler novel. Hardboiled detective zombies. “I was eating a college student on rye when there was a thump at my office door. ‘Oooaaaaghhh…’ I said, which meant Who is it? The thump came again, louder this time, and then a dame shambled into the room. This broad had legs that just didn’t quit until they reached her gnawed-off ankles.
‘Braaaaaaaains….’ she groaned. The broad was hungry. A two-bit ghoul with both eyes dangling out of their sockets could see that. I made her a hand sandwich and asked her what the trouble was. She told me her husband had vanished, and that I needed to find him. Of course, judging from the look on the dame’s face, the best place to look for her husband was in the dame’s stomach.”
Jamie Lackey: Romeo and Juliet. After they commit suicide, they come back and take revenge for their wasted lives. Or Wuthering Heights, but that’s mostly because I wouldn’t mind seeing all of the characters die horrible, horrible deaths. Jurassic Park for ZOMBIE DINOSAURS. Moby Dick for ZOMBIE WHALES.
Bob Fingerman: I’ve jokingly said I’m going to do Mein Kampf with Zombies. But now that I’ve shared it publically, my motivation has for some mysterious reason been dampened. Go figure.
Kim Paffenroth: Well, I do have one out myself –Valley of the Dead, which retells Dante’s Inferno but with zombies instead of demons and mythological creatures. But let me think. I’m thinking Lord of the Flies right now, where there are zombies on the island. Yeah, that sounds pretty interesting and nasty.
Christopher Golden: I can’t tell, because I might well write it myself. But I can say I’d love to see all of my favorite TV shows do alternate reality episodes where the world is overrun by zombies. House with zombies. Psych with zombies. Friday Night Lights with zombies. Sons of f**king Anarchy with zombies. OMG, imagine the possibilities!
Sean Bieri: Watership Down.
Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant): I don’t think specific works are nearly as much fun as general styles and genres. With that being said, Terror Tales from the City would be the touching story of one found family in San Francisco, and their efforts not to eat each other.
Amelia Beamer: The Bible. Except there’s already a guy who rises from the dead.
Catherine MacLeod: Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” The zombies wouldn’t stand a chance.
R.J. Sevin: I’m not a fan of this trend at all, and every morning I wake up, slide out of the bed and onto my hairy knees, and offer up this simple prayer: Thanks for my wonderful family, Lord, for my health. And thanks for making sure that the Steinbeck estate retains the copyright on his work. If ever I see some jackass has written Of Mice and Men and Zombies, I’ll probably become an atheist. Amen.
Bridget McGovern thinks modern theater would really benefit from an undead invasion: Equus, with zombie horses. No Exit (Hell is other people…and zombies). Waiting for Godot…and also Zombies. You want to know who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Hint: It’s zombies).
