Zombies (aka re-animated corpses that usually snack on the living) have had somewhat of a horror renaissance at the box office lately. I think Zack Synder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead from 2004 revived the zombie horror genre. Ever since then, box office seemed to exploded with films variations of the zombie mythology, most notably with the continuation of the marginally successful Resident Evil trilogy.

Zombies have been part of the film horror lexicon since the 1940s, most notably portrayed in RKO’s I Walked with a Zombie (1943). This film decided to take use voodoo spells to conjure up zombies.

And of course who can forget the 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, which was shot entirely on 16mm format and then transfered to 35mm for theatrical exhibition. In this film, a chemical spill created the undead epidemic of dead bodies rising from their graves. There have been countless remakes and sequels to George Romero’s original film (most of them by himself!). My favorite sequel was the camp-tastic Return of the Living Dead (1985) where the zombies could talk and use machinery! Hilariously, all they could say was the word “brains” over and over.

Every film purports their own back story of how and why the zombies appear. My favorite explanation of events was in 28 Days Later where the “rage” virus was created in a lab and spread into the human population with a simple bite from a lab monkey. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later further pushed the idea of zombie-ism as disease by suggesting there was a possible cure tucked away in the dna of individuals that have different colored eyes.

My favorite comedy-horror hybrid of the mythology is Shaun of the Dead starring the hilarious Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Bill Nighy. It’s a dark satire that portrays a London based zombie infestation that is hardly noticed by the city’s inhabitants until it’s too late. And in the end, they domesticate the afflicted and have them performing menial jobs!

Empire Magazine reports that Brad Pitt has joined Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards to “play a Tennessee hillbilly who leads a band of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take out some rough justice on the Nazis.”

And looks like Simon Pegg is in talks to join the cast as a British officer! Wow, I’m utterly giddy at the prospect of Pitt and Pegg sharing screen time. Pegg can do cheeky, but it seems weird to picture Pitt personifying that Tarantino camp and fast talking dialogue. Come to think of it though, if you look at Brad Pitt’s resume, he actually does have a formidable acting range. He can play the serious father in Babel or a dim-witted blackmailer in the upcoming dark comedy Burn After Reading. I’m sure he’ll make Tarantino’s character his own with ease.

Damn you Quentin Tarantino and your mega casting, now I simply must see this flick. I was kinda meh about the whole thing until hearing this casting news. The hype for Tarantino movies starts so ridiculously early these days. You read inane blurbs every other day on the film blogs about the script completion process, heated debates on whether Tarantino will be able to finish the movie by April 2009 etc. So basically, I didn’t want to hear anything else on Inglorious Bastards until a trailer was posted or a poster was created!

Add Pitt and Pegg, and see how I’ve changed my tune. Supposedly, we’ll see how all this works when Tarantino premieres the film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.