[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD is one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. That was fast paced, clever, realistic (as far as Zombie movies can be realistic), satirical, funny, and quite gripping. It came at a time before “Zombies” were everywhere again, practically a “revival” of these horror creatures from 70s/80s exploitation/splatter cinema.

I have not read Max Brooks’ “Word War Z” (but saw the movie), but his prior book, “The Zombie Survival Guide”, was a hoot, I read that way back when it was new. It’s written as a realistic self-help book about how to survive the inevitable Zombie apocalypse, and let’s you know how to fortify your home, how to proceed in different terrains (from desert to jungle to urban) or how to find and select weapons.
(Short snippet from the chapter about zombie outbreak detection:

Knowing what a zombie is will not help if you are unable to recognize
an outbreak before it’s too late. This does not entail building a “zombie
command post” in your basement, sticking pins in a map, and huddling
around the shortwave radio. All it requires is looking for signs
that would slip by the untrained mind. These signs include:

1. Homicides in which the victims were executed by head shots or
decapitation. It has happened many times: People recognize an outbreak
for what it is and try to take matters into their own hands.
Almost always, these people are declared murderers by the local
authorities and prosecuted as such.

DAWN OF THE DEAD and “Zombie Survival Guide” inspired me way back to write the “Zombieplagelieder”, or “Songs for the Zombie Apocalypse”. Songs which can be sung with friends, family and groups together in the dire days of the Zombieapocalpyse. I passed these around colleagues back then and we had a blast. Mostly spoofs of popular folk and Christmas songs. Considering I wrote these in my late 30s, I suppose I never grew out of anything. 🙂