Zombies Vs. Jesus, commentary
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I don’t like zombie movies.
That’s not to say I’m biased against the undead. I just don’t like horror movies in general. Or tear-jerkers. The way I see it, terror and sadness are two emotions I try to avoid in my daily life, so why would watch something that would induce them?
And yet I wrote a script called “Zombies Vs. Jesus.” Let me tell you why.
I was asked to write something that dealt with the theme of, “The Healing Power of the Eucharist.” My first script had a boy wake up one morning and everything the faced turned into a battle of some sort. The mother said he couldn’t have a car and then threw a grenade at him. His girlfriend broke up with him and then he had a ninja sword battle with her. At the end of the day he crawled into the chapel and cried, “Medic!” A priest came and gave him the Eucharist, healing his wounds and giving him strength to go and fight the “battle of his life.”
But that was deemed too violent. So I wrote about zombies.
Honestly, I didn’t think in a million years it would be accepted and was already trying to figure out another script idea when I got the call that they loved it.
The heart of the script was that sin makes us “the living dead” but through the Eucharist we are restored. Knowing that zombies like to eat flesh, I thought there was a cool parallel that our souls desire to eat flesh, too—the flesh of Jesus Christ.
Many of the scripts I write end up verbatim on the screen or with minimal changes. I would say of all the scripts I’ve written so far this one went through the most changes. And in this case, I think that’s a great thing.
Like I said, I don’t watch horror movies and I don’t do zombies. My original script was more of a parody of the genre. But the team that put this film together (Spirit Juice Studios and Outside Da Box Productions) did an excellent job of taking what I wanted to say and creating a tenser and grittier film that I would have been able to write on my own. It’s the result of a great artistic collaboration and I’m happy to have been a part of it.
But I’m really interested to know… What do you think?
7 Comments on “Zombies Vs. Jesus, commentary”
Leave a Reply to cheryl Cancel reply
My most popular book!
Deacon Bob Rice 
Also not my genre, but very cool! Great for youth ministry.
AWESOME! Can’t wait to post this on my youth group fb page 🙂
Well, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but after your commentary… well, I like it a little more. I think teens, especially the boys, will like it.
While I do love it, I still have this hesitancy in the back of my mind, for some reason so many of us (at least those I have come across!!) have difficulty equating Catholocism and a sense of humor, will have to blog about this…hmmm….
Big fan. Especially when I made the connection between the zombies and being spiritually dead. Well done! Looking forward to showing this to jr. high students…
Big fan! When I made the connection between being spiritually depraved and the Zombies, the possibilities for use for this (especially with jr high/middle school) grew exponentially. Thank you for your (sometimes kinda warped) sense of humor but especially for your love for God! Both are a great gift to the Church.
Simply amazing!!