Horror Aficionados discussion

Am I the only one or has this genre run it's course. I feel each new title that appears simply rehashes the same old plot lines with very little to recommend it?

I think Paranormal Activity 13 just hit theaters. As long as people keep buying tickets, they'll keep making them.

I love zombies, in books and movies. I do think the genre could use a few new twists though.

I have a little zombie subplot in my new book, but more as an ironic commentary on the death of the zombie genre than anything else. ;)

I'm with Wayne. It takes a really excellent writer or some serious out of left field curve balls to make the sub-genre feel at all new at this point. Honestly, the best zombie-related things around in any media from recent years are probably The Walking Dead adventure game (and that's coming from someone who hates the television series) and The Last of Us.

Wayne, I don't think the genre has run its course, but it definitely needs some new blood. There are some very talented zombie writers out there who have big fan followings, and they're keeping the industry alive. Many of the other authors are just writing what's popular at the moment (how many Harry Potter and Twilight rip-offs did readers have to suffer through). I think in time the genre will cull itself down,but will always have a hard core following.

I agree that there are tons of zombie books out there. It just means I can be very selective in what I choose to read.

I just read a zombie thriller that was very gory and also featured a threat even deadlier than the Z's. It is:

A zombie/military series I LOVE is The Arisen series by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs, like:

and Jonathan Maberry (Patient Zero and the Pine Deep Trilogy) has written a very good zombie thriller: . The sequel is due out later this year. I will jump on that as soon as it comes out.

Hey as long as the tween vampire thing seems to be drying up, I'm ok with it.
Read somewhere that people are saying that jinni's are going to be the next big thing. I'm rooting for werewolves.

Amanda wrote: "I love zombies, in books and movies. I do think the genre could use a few new twists though."

I totally agree with that.

'Zombie Zombie, eh ye eh ye eh ye'
Cranberries anyone? Lol

I think zombies, werewolves, and especially vampires have run their course in fiction, movies, and television. I'm bored with the whole genre.

I agree Melissa, if someone has a fresh approach I am happy to read it. Just had enough of the whole rehash.

I think the zombie things getting a little bit stale but I did read Zombie, Inc. which I absolutely loved.

Zombies are definitely the hardest sub-genre. You can play around with vampires and werewolves enough to keep breathing new life into the undead (the success of the YA and paranormal romance vampires shows that). But zombie fans are hardcore, and it's not easy deviating from the norm to try something new that doesn't also alienate your readers. It's one of the reasons I moved away from writing about zombie and branched out into other monsters.

When zombies speed went up that was a sign right there that so much more could be done. Zombies will remain hot because right now people are still hoping for a zombie apocalypse and since there's likely not going to be one, they settle for the next best things...tons of books and movies on the subject matter.

I think the thing is that we're being drowned in a flood of zombie fiction. It all gets a bit meh after a while. I took a break from the genre a while back, and upon my return, it looked a little better. I suspect that once things cool off a little, the genre will regain its appeal.

Reading Scott's comments above, I will say that I agree with him. There isn't a huge lot one can do with zombies thanks to the expectations that people have about their behaviour.
I had written a trilogy in respect of the things and it was hard to try and find something new to say about them. So I didn't. I just hung a few rules on them and stuck to those rules as best I could throughout my books. Sometimes I deviated a little, just to serve the plot, but generally I stayed within the bounds of shambling monstrosities. I suspect that people will see my stuff as generic and that’s ok. I wasn’t looking to do anything totally drastic with the things.
Like Scott, I have now moved away from the genre and I'm now working on something entirely different and it's refreshing to do so.
There is one thing I did notice from reading some other authors works that did annoy me. It has become something of a trope nowadays and that is, the hero is somehow immune from zombie bites and there is always some shadowy organisation trying to capture the hero to dissect him/her. I think that once you are bitten by a zombie, there is NO CURE. This sort of thing does not happen in any of my books and as a consequence, some of the characters within them die.
I am also not a huge fan of the running zombies either, whilst different from the usual slow walking creatures, they have one major problem that writers might not have thought hard enough about. Fast moving zombies will very quickly overrun everything, everywhere; characters will stand no chance at all. So the book might as well end at the first chapter if that's the case. The heroes will certainly never be able to escape a horde of running maniacs coming at them from all directions of the compass. Unless of course the writer(s) come up with a lot of coincidences in order to write the characters out of the various jams they find themselves in.
The slow moving zombies are also a problem (unless one is surrounded by the things) people can outrun them or merely climb up a fire escape.
I’d made mine neither slow nor fast but able to move at a rapid walking pace. It does seem to overcome the problems there as far as I’m concerned.
Apart from that, there isn't a whole lot one can do with them that hasn't already been done. The variations, such as intelligent zombies do not ring true. To me they are not zombies but some other creature!

Steven, I could have written this post word for word. I feel the same way. The danger of slow zombies is getting trapped in the center of a horde and getting eaten or trapped somewhere until you die like a house or closet, etc.

Luke