For a second zombie moment for this week, check out Matt's list of zombie moments here.
I had a hard time picking one moment out of World War Z, because it’s made of big moments. Each single-chapter vignette could be called a great moment in zombie fiction, but most of them felt just a little bit too big, too complicated and shrouded in research and analysis, to stand alone in a list of pieces small and simple enough for the word “moment.” This one, I think, is self-explanatory enough.
By this point in the book, the worst of the zombie war is over. Humanity is devastated but has pulled itself back together and gotten organized enough to start focusing on eradicating the zombies and reclaiming the planet rather than simply surviving another day. Of course, the best and worst thing about zombies is that they’ll keep on attacking no matter what the odds are, so the easiest and safest way to root them out of an infested area is to stand in an open space nearby and make a lot of noise.
So that’s exactly what all the different extermination teams do, all over the world, in their own ways, and it turns into a celebration of humanity’s return as much as a weapon. In the British Isles, they use bagpipes. China uses bugles, South Africa uses Zulu war chants, and the Americans get to live the dream of actually blasting heavy metal while firing at walking corpses.
Like many fans of the book, the only screen adaptation I ever eagerly envisioned for it was an R-rated HBO-style miniseries imitating a History Channel-style documentary, and I still hope such a thing may yet exist someday far down the line.
This chapter, though, has that cinematic, everything coming together, final-confrontation-musical-montage feel that takes me back to some of my favorite Broadway-inspired movies.
A contender for a zombie-loving bookworm’s favorite moment? Yes. Definitely.