Last week, horror artist, Lynne Hansen, talked with us about her love of zombies. She discussed her favorite movies and how she fulfilled a life-long dream of becoming a zombie in a B-movie, which moved her to make the award-winning zombie short film, Chomp. This week she’ll discuss other things zombie.
Hansen stated that she has an almost equal love for virus-created zombies and reanimated corpses. However, she says, “[V]irus zombies just barely edge out reanimated corpses because I love watching the demise of the world through the lens of a viral outbreak.” There is a horrible virtue to reanimated zombies too. “You WILL die, and you WILL be resurrected as one of the things that killed you,” Hansen says of the reanimated zombie apocalypse. She can find strong and terrifying points for both style of the living dead, which leaves her saying that she “likes both of them.”
The other eternal zombie question is fast or slow zombie. Much like viral or reanimation zombies, Hansen likes both the fast and slow varieties of the living dead. She believes that the speed of the monsters depends on the story. “Some plots are served best by slow zombies, like Shaun of the Dead, where the fact that they can walk among the slow zombies is integral to the story,” she says. Hansen points out that the use of fast zombies in the remake of Dawn of the Dead turns the audience expectations on their ear. She says that the original version of the
movie’s zombies is so iconic and slow that when audiences see the remake’s fast zombies they know, “buckle up and hang on.”
Moving away from movies, Hansen stated that she has some favorite graphic designs that feature zombies. “I love the Shaun of the Dead poster where Shaun is smooshed into a subway train (technically the London Underground) and surrounded by zombies,” she points out. Hansen discusses how striking the use of color is in this poster. She says that even though the character may never use the Underground in the film, the viewer knows what is going to happen in the movie. “Shaun travels across London to apologize to his girlfriend while surrounded by zombies.”
Hansen has designed some zombie book covers in her time as graphic designer. She says that she has not designed many zombie book covers but her favorite was for The Dead Bear Witness by James Chambers. “The zombies have eyes in weird places on their bodies, and there’s this terrifying scene where zombies who are still “alive” are thrown on a bonfire. So chilling! I loved being able to bring that scene to life for the cover,” she says. Hansen says that she is about to redesign the cover for Jeff Strand’s The Sinister Mr. Corpse. She designed the original cover for the book not long after becoming a cover designer, and she says of working on the new cover, “I
can’t wait to wrap my arms around that book again.”
Even though she does not design a lot of zombie book covers, Hansen does not feel that zombies will ever die. “Zombies are the most malleable monster and can reflect the spirit of the times better than any other,” she says. Hansen adds that there will always be “bad zombie stories” like other monsters have “bad” stories written by “bad/lazy writers and filmmakers.” She points out that every time there is a major shift in the culture, zombies will “lurch” back to life.
Hansen says that she has thoroughly enjoyed discussing her love of zombies and thinking of the reasons why. Although, zombies never die, this post must end. If you would like to follow Hansen, here are her links again: http://www.LynneHansenArt.com
or on social media
@LynneHansenArt on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.