An Island During a Zombie Outbreak; Movie Chat - Survival of the Dead

Using an Island During a Zombie Outbreak

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Movie Chat - Survival of the Dead

  

 

Those of us who love reading and watching zombie stories, have all wondered if an island would be a great way to wait out a zombie outbreak. Whether the outbreak ended or stretched out into an all out apocalyptic event, it might be a great place to hunker down.

Two classic movies came to mind immediately. One was Dawn of the Dead. At the end of the movie, the characters head toward an island using a small boat.

I've always been disappointed they didn't follow up with the characters' story. I hate being left hanging. The island seemed to be overrun when they got off on the dock, but then some of the characters were kick-ass, especially Kenneth (Ving Rhames). I like to think they survived.

Good idea? Maybe. Questions arise – Is the island taken over by the undead? If so, will the group be able to rid the island of the zombies so they can live there? Guess that would depend on the number of undead and gun-power, plus abilities of the characters.

Then there is the question of sustainability. Is the island big enough to sustain the number of people wishing to live there? Is the soil viable; can crops and animals be raised on it?

The question of rich soil for crops or poor soil made me think of the movie with this situation as the core problem. Darn, I can’t remember the name of it and a search didn’t help. But survivors get to an island where there are other people. This place had been used for nuclear testing, or nearby. Thus, all the fruit and vegetables were uneatable. Bad situation. Result, the survivors had made the decision to eat people to sustain their life. Yuck! If anyone knows the title of this movie please post in comments.

At the present time I can't see resorting to cannibalism. But who knows what they will chose to do in dire circumstances until they are hit by them. There is a big difference between consuming those already dead like the poor soccer team who crashed in the Andes, and the people of above named story who killed people for food.

Other considerations: Are there other people already living on the island? Would they be agreeable to having visitors from the mainland join them? If not, can the group approaching the island take over? Are they willing to kill the islanders or can they work out an arrangement?

Having an island already occupied brought to mind Survival of the Dead. I know this is a Romero film, but I did not give it good marks. And a lot of other zombie fans complained about the same issues.

So you have an island with houses and farms. People have gardens and farm animals. Pretty sweet set up.

Then the islanders. One half wants to keep things status quo, the other want to keep their zombie relatives intact, sure a cure will come one day. Of course they fight and can't come to any kind of agreement. 

The biggest kicker was the zombie girl riding her horse. It was beautiful and sad. But then her father is determined to teach her to eat horse flesh so zombies can learn to consume animals instead of humans.

Horse pucky!! It was horrible when she finally started biting on her once beloved horse. So now she is going to go chasing pigs and chickens? And even if she did, soon the population would have to become vegetarians when they had a nice farm set-up. Better hope they have lots of beans! And no more cake, cornbread and other nice homey foods once you lose your chickens and their eggs.

The islander wipe each other out of course, the released zombies helping out on either side.

Money. This was a theme here, and in The Living Dead. My daughter and I could not understand the thinking. All these rich people paying to live in the head guy's luxury hotel/apartment building. I'm not a wall street type, but money is based off the gold a country has in its vault. Or a healthy one is.

So people are paying with worthless money. Hello, anyone remember Confederate money?

But the soldier at the end of the story, takes the cake for stupidity; only interested in taking the money (I seem to remember a million) and escaping to the mainland. Life of luxury here I come!

Really? Hadn't he been paying attention while the world went to hell under zombie onslaughts? An island was a perfect place for anyone during the apocalypse.

The only message I got from this movie was people are greedy and dumb. Maybe a lot were, but I just couldn't swallow every one of those folks was an idiot.

That's my rant about a movie and people who took a perfectly good island to survive a zombie outbreak, and turned it into madness and stupidity.

Myra Nour

www.myranour.net

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If you missed any of my previous blogs they are:

 Monday, June 27th - Book Chat; review of horror novel The Adominable

 Wednesday, June 22nd - Book Chat; review of zombie novel Rise Again

 Monday, June 20th - Securing the farm house from zombies in Night of the Living Dead

Friday, June 17th - Where would you hole up during a zombie apocalypse? 

Thursday, June 16th - Welcome to my blog and what we'll be discussing