Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Genre Character of the Week: Ben

Last weekend my daughter Kaia and I watched the original Night of the Living Dead, you see, she's become a pretty big fan of horror comedies, and as she has her eye on Shaun of the Dead, I figured that she should actually see some of the movies that those guys were parodying.

Anyway, as we watched the movie I realized that I hadn't done many classic horror characters as genre characters so I thought I would look at the one I liked best from that film, Ben.

Here's the thing about the characters in the film, with the exception of Ben (who's last name we never learn) everyone is pretty much ruled by their emotions or in a state of shock. Understandable, yes, but useful in a zombie apocalypse scenario - not really. Ben shows up about 20 minutes into the movie and up to this point we've just had Barbara freaking out by all the zombies chasing her. Taking shelter in an old house, she meets Ben, who begins to systematically set up the place for a siege.

What I like about Ben, he's pretty no nonsense, he's clearly the best guy to put in charge and he's working to save everyone's life. Also I'm fairly certain that he was the inspiration for the character Greg Preston (my personal favourite character in the reboot of Survivors - also a pretty no-nonsense guy who makes sure his first stop after the end times come is a camping store).

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