Zombie Midterm Examination

 

Between Tuesday March 6 and Saturday  March 17, you will complete the midterm examination. 

Remember, too, that you have an essay to write before the semester's conclusion. I suggested a couple topics with you over the first films, asking you to complete the essay by a specific date. For the essay, you can also develop your own topic, but do get the essay to me in time for me to make comments so that you can revise your work.

You will find the link for the midterm in the Assignment Folder on Blackboard. 

You will respond to five prompts.  For each prompt, you will address it in terms of the prompt's significance.  You will write at least eight sentences for each, using examples for support of your assertions, both from the readings and the films we have seen. 

You can return to the prompts as many times as you like in the time the exam remains open.

Consider these potential prompts:

A. Discuss briefly the significance of Bela Lugosi’s character in White Zombie or the role of the zombie in I Walked With a Zombie.

B) From “Copper”: “I remember Fetus before the war took his and him and all he ever was and never was, all he ever had and all he ever might have been but wasn’t and will never be” (49).

A) Discuss three ways in which George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead affected zombie films.

B) From “In the Dust”: “Then I knew what I had to do before returning to Bindy, because I couldn’t go back to her with half-truths and suppositions. I had to make sure that we were safe and that our prison had become our refuge” (101).

A) Address three aspects of parody of the original Romero film in Dan O’Bannon’s (1985) Return of the Living Dead.

B) Address what strikes you as the significance of Seabrook’s The Magic Island for zombie cinema.

: A) Discuss the role of Barbara in the remake (1990) of Night of the Living Dead.

B) From “Delice”: “Your work is done here, ma pauve. I have no more need for you. Soon you will sing again. This time with the angels” (129).

A) Address the significance of Barbara’s comment at the conclusion of the remake of Night of the Living Dead: "They're us. We're them and they're us."

B) From “Family Business”: “Every dead person out there deserves respect. Even in death. Even when we fear them. Even when we have to kill them. They aren’t just zoms, Benny” (157).

 A) Discuss briefly the role of Peter in Dawn of the Dead with respect to the film’s argument about consumerism.

B) From “The Wind Cries Mary”: “Mary died a week ago. She’d gone outside just for a second to dump the bucket we’d been using as a toilet. A dead crow pecked her neck” 

A) or B): Discuss briefly three films or books that influenced George Romero and his first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead.

B) Discuss briefly the juxtaposition of the familiar and the unfamiliar in the context of zombie films and Freud’s theory of the “uncanny.”

 A) Discuss briefly the significance of Fran’s character in Dawn of the Dead.

B) Offer a brief analysis of the famous eye-ball scene in Fulci’s Zombie 2.

For a potential essay topic, you can write 2.5-3 double-spaced pages on one of the following two films. Make use of the critical texts in your essay:

 

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