There should have been an animated Saturday morning cartoon version of The Fly. Brundlefly could solve crimes! And he could have that fly with a human head (from the first version of the movie) for a sidekick.

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Nope. Vampires get called vampires.

Except in Near Dark. And Ultraviolet (the TV series).

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Most of the original vampires of folklore (pre-Stoker et al) were reanimated corpses that shambled around, craving blood instead of brains. It's almost like zombies evolved in the popular imagination (post-Romero) to replace the original vampires in the horror ecosystem.

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Someone just informed me that TV tropes has a trope about this very thing.

No, I'm not linking.

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Art Nouveau Amy Pond, et al.

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Watching this week's Fringe... Cool to see Aaron Ashmore (Logan from VM, Jimmy from SV) and Shawn Ashmore (Bobby from Xmen) playing the twins they are.

I really liked this ep. Some scenes were really delicately written, like when the wife enters the room.

Allyson & Jilli (and Pete) there needs to be an info graphic on how to tell if your date is a zombie/vampire/Jeff Goldblum

Eta: iSpellcheck repairs

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Wow, you guys are zombie hardliners.

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right?

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Garlic, crosses, silver, stakes through the heart, all that vampire lore is somehow dealt with in each new media representation of vampires.

I don't think that's the same thing. With mummies & vampires & werewolves & ghosts, you can refer to (and cherry-pick from) centuries of actual folklore. You can bring in archeologists and gypsies and priests and doctors to offer exposition and quote obscure legends. Most of those stories are about the ancient versus the modern at some level, so referring to the history enhances that: "This happened because you scoffed at the old ways, but here is how you can lift the curse."

The (non-vodoun) zombie is about modern terrors. Part of the essence is that it's unprecedented; it's abrupt and societal and existential, and anything that allows your characters to be the least bit prepared lessens the horror. I'm sure it can be done, but referring to other zombie stories within your own is going to add another layer between the audience and the characters. And it raises a lot of "If they've seen zombie movies why are they even bothering to try that?" questions.

If your characters need to consult an expert, they're running to... a film geek? I guess you can treat your audience to a long debate about whether they're fast zombies or slow zombies or hopping zombies, and are they kind you can kill with a baseball bat or do you have to dismember the corpse, and so on. That's what I meant about the story becoming metafiction about what stories your fictional characters are familiar with. And as a viewer, that's when I'd put a gun in my own mouth.

I assume that in Cloverfield the characters don't pause to say, "Hey, this is kinda like a Godzilla movie." Because where does that take you? Someone replies, "Yup, it is. [wink] Well, let's resume fleeing in terror." When you play those games there's a good chance that all you accomplish is reminding the audience that they could be reading/watching a better version of the story you're telling. (As with that Dracula sequel last year, where every attempt to 'subvert' Stoker's novel just reminds you how stupid the book you're currently reading is.)

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I'm sure it can be done, but referring to other zombie stories within your own is going to add another layer between the audience and the characters. And it raises a lot of "If they've seen zombie movies why are they even bothering to try that?" questions.

In Feed, humanity is able to survive the zombie apocalypse precisely because decades of Romero movies had prepared them. That's just a small part of the worldbuilding, though, and it's not brought up every five pages as if the movies are some sort of reference material.

I can't remember whether Zombieland referenced zombie movies or not, what with all its survival rules.

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