Editorials
We Need to Talk About the Pathology of the Zombie Virus on “The Walking Dead”
The thirteenth episode of the second season of “The Walking Dead” is a particularly noteworthy hour, as it was the one wherein Rick revealed to the group that it’s not actually a bite from a zombie, per se, that turns one into a zombie. “We’re all infected,” Rick told the group. “At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it.”
In other words, *anyone* who dies in the world of “The Walking Dead,” unless that death causes their brain to be destroyed, will return to life as a walker. We’ve seen this exact sort of scenario play out before, perhaps most notably with Shane; Shane was stabbed in the chest by Rick, and soon thereafter re-animated as a zombie.
But we’ve also seen bites turn humans into zombies, right? Well, not exactly. We have indeed seen several characters die after sustaining zombie bites, but it’s actually been the infection and/or loss of blood, brought on by those bites, that has ultimately killed them. So it’s not the bite that infects characters in this world with the “zombie virus,” so to speak. Rather, they’re all already infected with the airborne virus, doomed to the fate of returning to life as flesh-eaters whether they die from a bite or heart attack.
That’s all pretty easy to wrap your head around, but why then did a character like Carl have to die after being bitten by a zombie? The bite itself wasn’t severe enough to cause Carl to bleed out, but the infection that the bite caused did end up taking Carl’s life. With the right antibiotics, given what Carl’s own father told us about the pathology of the virus back in Season 2, couldn’t Carl’s life have been saved? If the infection that the bite caused had been cleared up with the proper medicine, couldn’t he have survived?
Knowing what the show has told us, and knowing what Rick himself most definitely knows, why did Rick not at least make an attempt to get the infection under control?
In the wake of this past Sunday night’s episode, I find myself even further confused about the pathology of the virus. Last night, we saw that Father Gabriel has been infected by what appears to be a lesser form of the zombie virus, presumably as a result of his recent exploits with the show’s patented “zombie cloaking device” technique; Gabriel and Negan covered themselves in walker guts to avoid detection, which seems to have passed some sort of infection into Gabriel’s bloodstream. Not, however, into Negan’s.
Gabriel has been slowly dying from the infection, and last night he was rendered almost completely blind cause of it. And yet, the infection isn’t going to actually kill Gabriel, it seems, as happenstance (or perhaps it was a divine act from God himself) led to him stumbling upon a couple bottles of antibiotics. It seems the antibiotics will get Gabriel’s infection under control, at least for the time being, thereby saving his life. So if antibiotics can save Gabriel from zombie-transmitted infection, why not Carl?
To add even more confusion to this whole thing, the episode ended with Negan devising a new plan of attack. Partially inspired by Gabriel’s health troubles, Negan realized that the blood of zombies can be used to intentionally infect his adversaries. The Saviors are going to coat their weapons in infected zombie blood, allowing them to administer “kisses of death” at their leisure. Presumably, this form of infection will play out similarly to Gabriel’s, rendering untreated victims sick, blind and, eventually, dead.
Negan told his group, “You all know how it works. You get a bite, some kind of wound from one of these things, something from them gets in you, and you die.”
But wait a second. Didn’t we learn in Season 2 that EVERYONE is *already* infected, the virus inside of them only triggering upon their death? If that’s the case in the world of “The Walking Dead,” then why is Gabriel even infected after playing around with zombie guts? Similarly, why would a stab from a zombie blood-covered knife do anything more to a human character than a stab from a knife *not* covered in zombie blood? Well, according to what the show has shown us in the recent past, it actually wouldn’t.
Not only have characters multiple times rubbed zombie blood and guts all over themselves, without getting infected, but you may remember an incident involving a machete and Rick’s hand back in Season 6. In that season’s third episode, titled “Thank You,” Rick cut his hand on a machete that was literally embedded inside of a zombie. The machete was no doubt covered in that zombie’s blood, which presumably got into the fresh wound on Rick’s hand. Alas, however, Rick never got infected.
So again we ask, how exactly does one get infected with the zombie virus on “The Walking Dead”? Is every remaining human on the planet, as revealed in Season 2, already infected, or does it require a bite and/or zombie blood entering one’s bloodstream in order for one to become infected? If the former is the case, Gabriel’s infection doesn’t make much sense, nor does Carl’s 100% unavoidable death or Negan’s new plan. These continuity issues date back much further, as you surely remember Hershel’s leg being cut off in order to stop the spread of the infection after he was bitten back in Season 3. You could argue that zombie DNA exacerbates the infection already inside everyone, but again we point to the incident involving a machete and Rick’s hand.
Are we missing something or are the rules ever-changing to fit current narratives?
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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