Alternative characterisation strategies in contemporary mainstream zombie cinema

This paper explores the nature of alternative zombie characterisation through contemporary mainstream cinema. As Hegel laments that madness is 'a derangement of a person's individual world' (Hegel, 408 Z), 'an attempt at self empowerment where the power of the divine is experienced as either absent or irrational' (Berthold­Bond, p.152) this kind of consideration is amongst a misguided if not misinterpreted reasoning nested within cinema that portrays zombies as blundering, blood­thirsty monsters instead of what Hegel further considers to be 'a religious disillusionment' (ibid.). This paper will challenge the archetypal limitations of screen zombie characterisation by presenting test cases of the films Shaun of the Dead (dir. Wright, 2004), Zombieland (dir. Fleischer, 2009), World War Z (dir. Forster, 2013), and 28 Weeks Later (dir. Fresnadillo, 2007) into the philosophical frameworks of Hegel's notion of madness, Socrates notion of morality, and Nietzsche's will to power. The intent of such is not to provide a critique of these three perspectives but rather in reverse, to establish a model by way of deconstructing the aforementioned films through a means that plays out a deeper understanding through characterisation of the genre and the limitedness of determinism in recent zombie-­based cinema.