TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

I don’t watch much television, but I love movies. I love disappearing into a story for two or three hours, losing sense of time, and forgetting—for the most part—my own life. I love becoming so engrossed with the characters that I forget they’re actors, that I forget it’s make believe. I love noticing the use of color and light. And I love when the music swells, or when it stops and lets the silence become its own score. 

Seeing a good film is always time well spent. But “good” means something different to us all. My list of favorite films is pretty varied. It includes quirky indies like Rushmore and Magnolia, and terrifying horror movies like The Shining and The Babadook. 

It might surprise you to know that one of my favorite genres is the zombie movie. I like my zombies fast, like in Train to Busan and 28 Days Later, and I like my zombies slow, like in the old classics directed by George Romero. In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies shamble so slowly, people can run right by them. They seem unable to figure out doorknobs and fence latches and cars. It’s black-and-white, so the gore isn’t that gory: the blood and guts are gray! It’s still scary, though—because the zombies are seemingly uncontainable. They just keep coming at you.  

Today’s poem has been a favorite of mine for years, and it seemed like the right choice for Halloween.

Night of the Living, Night of the Dead
by Kim Addonizio

When the dead rise in movies they’re hideous
and slow. They stagger uphill toward the farmhouse
like drunks headed home from the bar.
Maybe they only want to lie down inside
while some room spins around them, maybe that’s why 
they bang on the windows while the living 
hammer up boards and count out shotgun shells.
The living have plans: to get to the pickup parked
in the yard, to drive like hell to the next town.
The dead with their leaky brains,
their dangling limbs and ruptured hearts, 
are sick of all that. They’d rather stumble
blind through the field until they collide 
with a tree, or fall through a doorway
like they’re the door itself, sprung from its hinges
and slammed flat on the linoleum. That’s the life
for a dead person: wham, wham, wham
until you forget your name, your own stinking
face, the reason you jolted awake
in the first place. Why are you here, 
whatever were you hoping as you lay 
in your casket like a dumb clarinet?
You know better now. The soundtrack’s depressing
and the living hate your guts. Come closer
and they’ll show you how much. Wham, wham, wham,
you’re killed again. Thank God this time 
they’re burning your body, thank God 
it can’t drag you around anymore
except in nightmares, late-night reruns
where you lift up the lid, and crawl out
once more, and start up the hill toward the house.

“Night of the Living, Night of the Dead" by Kim Addonizio from TELL ME © 2000 Kim Addonizio. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions.