...And Why Pit Such a Cheery Legend Against the Horror of Zombies?
by John Mayer
Although this very question sounds paradoxical, the horror genre has always been at its best when it injects the shocking, the gruesome, the profane, the unknown, the ugly with the everyday lives of people and when it pits horror against cultural homeostasis. This conflict creates tension in a story and of course anyone who has taken a college creative writing course 101 has been taught that conflict moves a storyline. Frankenstein befriends a little girl, he admires a gentle flower; Dracula enters the peaceful and safe bedroom of sleeping damsels, and Satan started out as an angel and the favorite of God. And, every Stephen King piece starts with some idyllic setting, beautifully detailed before all hell breaks loose.
So, as long as we have had horror stories they have frightened us with evil entering into everyday life. Current horror fads, such as the slasher movies, echo this age-old formula. The happy, good-looking, care-free teenage culture is preyed upon by an evil maniac. Popular horror films of the last two years such as Get Out and Us, by Jordan Peele are set in pleasant everyday life, then the horror comes. The winning formula for fundamental scariness. Peele builds the atmosphere of ‘living the good life’ in both films then, BAM! It all goes horrifically bad. Many theologians posit that this is the most frightening horror of all, when the evil doer has no clear reason why they are choosing these people are their victims.
Recently, the Zombie genre has taken up subjects such as gentile setting of Pride and Prejudice (The film: Pride and Prejudice vs The Zombies) and the iconic Abraham Lincoln (vs Zombies), daring to pit zombies against cultural icons. Santa vs Zombies takes these recent treatments even further into our cultural ethos and challenges us to consider Santa at war with Zombies. Think about it, in our story we have Santa Claus, possibly the one purely joyful (jolly) tradition that is untouchably good and never associated with evil. Even God has enemies, has vengeance, inflicts his wrath on sinners, but Santa is pure joy and giving and kindness. In our story our Santa is all that, but he starts out tired because of the conditions in the world and the disbelief in him that is widespread. Like a Jordan Peele set-up, Santa innocently prepares for ‘one last ride’ on this Christmas night to spread joy and good cheer as always. But, when he arrives at his first stop he plops right into an apocalypse!
With only a limited time left, join the cheerful fray and support Santa Vs. Zombies on Kickstarter here!
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ABOUT SANTA VS ZOMBIES Meet Santa. He’s having a mid-life crisis. He hates his job and wishes he was doing anything else other than being Santa. He’s just going through the motions and that’s why he doesn’t notice the zombie apocalypse until it’s almost two late. Saved by two kids, he at first tries to get back to the North Pole only to discover that his reindeer have been eaten. On the run and just trying to survive, Santa befriends the kids and falls in love with their recently-divorced mother. Soon Santa rediscovers his Christmas spirit and does everything he can to save Christmas for the kids—even if it means his own death. ABOUT JOHN MAYER John Mayer is a well-published author both in fiction and non-fiction with three previous novels, two screenplays and a performed stage play. With over twenty non-fiction books published. His latest, Family Fit: Find Your Balance in Life, which was published by Healthy Learning, one of the world’s foremost publishers of instructional materials for health/wellness, fitness, exercise, sports medicine, and camp professionals. Mayer’s day job as a clinical psychologist specializing in violent behavior has him consulting to law enforcement regularly. His 10,000 Twitter followers (@DrJohnMayer) (@jemayerbooks) look to his daily tweets for advice on psychological issues. He is an associate staff psychologist for Doctor on Demand (doctorondemand.com ) as well as a provider (Telemedicine) on DoctoronDemand. Mayer is also a writer for a cable TV series, The System, that is currently in production with the pilot episode completed. ABOUT KOJI STEVEN SAKAI Koji Steven Sakai is the founder of Little Nalu Pictures LLC and the CEO of CHOPSO (www.CHOPSO.com), the first Asian English streaming video service. He has written five feature films that have been produced, including the indie hit, The People I’ve Slept With. He also produced three feature films, a one-hour comedy special currently on Netflix, and Comedy InvAsian, a live and filmed series featuring the nation’s top Asian American comedians. Koji’s debut novel, Romeo & Juliet Vs. Zombies, was released in paperback in 2015 and in audiobook in 2016; his graphic novel, 442, came out in 2017. In addition, he is currently an adjunct professor in screenwriting at International Technological University in San Jose.