So last week, I was on a luxury cruise. And sitting in a hot tub, watching the Pacific Ocean roll by, mulling over what flavor of margarita I should order next, I felt a tremendous sense of peace.

For the first time in years, I was safe from the living dead.

This is like Hometown Buffet for the living dead.

You see, I live in Manhattan. New York has many things going for it–world-class museums, vibrant nightlife, and a subway system that you are legally allowed to pee in (I’m pretty sure). But one major disadvantage to living here is that I will most likely be devoured by flesh-eating zombies.

Think about it. All pandemics hit the major urban areas first and hardest. That was true even in the days of the Decameron, in which the frame story involves young Florentines fleeing the Bubonic Plague to a villa in the countryside. But when the zombies hit Manhattan, the odds of me getting a Metro-North ticket out of here are pretty slim. I’m probably going to end up dashing across a bridge, carrying my son and my XBox on my back, trying desperately to escape the tristate area before it becomes the DIEstate area. But I might not even get that far – in the pseudo-zombie film I Am Legend, the government quarantines Manhattan and blows up the bridges.

I could, of course, just stay put. If I lock my front door, I’m pretty sure the zombies aren’t getting in. (I live in East Harlem, where we take front doors seriously.) I’ve got plenty of canned food, and I could get plenty of clean water out of the tap before that goes kaput. I figure I could make it a month or two, no sweat. But staying put is really gambling that the government will be able to turn the tide and fight back the zombie menace, or release some sort of airborne cure, or organize some sort of massive rescue effort. And although I’m a proud Democrat, and I believe in the government’s ability to accomplish many things, I don’t have much hope that FEMA can take on a zombie horde before I run out of Easy Mac.

Actually, the zombies may never have a chance to get be. I wouldn’t be surprised if the military panicked and fire-bombed the entire city. I’ve seen Outbreak.

So living in New York, I’ve gradually come to accept my doom. The cruise ship was another story.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Joshua McNeil, and John Perich to overthink the astonishing commercial success of New Moon, romancing the undead, marketing quadrants for popular entertainment, TV versus books, Oprah’s big move, Magic the Gathering, and the beginning of VerhOeverthinking It week.

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Download Episode 73 (MP3)

In the Thriller music video, Michael and his date have the misfortune of passing by a graveyard right as the dead start to rise. To make matters worse for MJ’s girlfriend, he becomes zombified as well. In most zombie movies, this is the part where she gets her brains eaten. But this is not a standard Zombie Apocalypse. This is a Thrillerocalypse.

Sadly, YouTube isn’t letting me embed the actual dance. But here’s some Filipino prisoners giving it their best shot.

My question is: why do the Thriller zombies dance? The obvious answer is: it’s a music video, and people dance in music videos. However, I think there might be a plot-driven reason too.

Dan O'Bannon, apparently wearing some sort of bathrobe or kimono.

If you’re any kind of a geek, you’re currently saying to yourself, “But wait, isn’t George Romero the undisputed creator of the modern zombie?” Night of the Living Dead did indeed make zombies into one of our collective nightmares. But it was Dan O’Bannon’s lesser known Return of the Living Dead that introduced some of the big “rules” for zombies that are now almost universally accepted in the genre.

What’s interesting about the zombie is that it’s the only major movie monster that didn’t reach maturity in the 30’s or 40’s. Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Wolf Man (1941) created pop culture archetypes that were pretty cemented by Pearl Harbor. There were also plenty of zombie movies being made during this period. In fact, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Kenemore, the author of the very clever self-help guide The Zen of Zombie, and he told me one of his favorite zombie films is actually from 1941.