Back from the undead
Pushing Daisies
Shuffle on down to Live in the Studio for a serious look at all things undead.
If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed zombies have recently overtaken werewolves and vampires for pride of place as the favourite ghoulie on screen.
Zombies, or the reanimated undead (depending on your definition) have been cropping up with increasing frequency (and in all different forms) in films from 28 Days Later (2002) to the more recent Zombieland (2009) and on TV in Pushing Daisies and Dead Set. Whether mindless shufflers or beautifully reanimated with limbs and wit perfectly intact - 'zombies' are most definitely among us.
If you need to brush up on zombie lore, a little background: in 1968, director George Romero released the independent black-and-white zombie film Night of the Living Dead. Although not the first, it inspired a rush of zombie films and together with its sequels spawned countless imitators that borrowed elements of the 'zombie rules' instituted by Romero.
Night of the Living Dead has also been paid tribute to or parodied (depending on your point of view) in films such as Night of the Living Bread (1990) and Shaun of the Dead (2004), and in episodes of The Simpsons and South Park.
Our panel, led by Dr Saige Walton, lecturer in Screen Studies at The University of Melbourne and Assistant Curator with ACMI, will investigate zombie evolution on the big and small screen and find out what it takes to get into the 'zombie club' these days.
Featuring Associate Professor Angela Ndalianis (The University of Melbourne), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (Latrobe University) and Martyn Pedler (University of Melbourne and film critic for j-mag), come along and dissect the inner workings of zombie lore.
Dead Set: Zombie TV is on at ACMI on Thursday 25 February from 7pm in Studio 1, so shuffle on down.
For more information and tickets, click here.
Published Thursday, 18 February 2010
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