By Stacey Harrison
Follow @ChannelGuideSRH
The season finale of Deadliest Warrior — premiering at 9pm Wednesday on Spike — takes the show to a whole new realm of “what if?” matchups. For the first time, the experts will weigh in on a fantasy pairing, pitting “Vampires vs. Zombies” in a battle of supernatural supremacy.
Viewers will get to see — finally — whether a Vampire Claw is enough to get a fanged beast through a horde of the undead. Along to help the usual crew will be special guests from the world of horror, including Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero, 30 Days of Night scribe Steve Niles and World War Z author Max Brooks. The second part of the two-and-a-half-hour finale will feature a more traditional face-off, “Gurkhas vs. French Foreign Legion.” Making the night extra special will be a live event, with Niles and a special mystery guest joining Deadliest Warrior hosts Richard “Mack” Machowicz, Geoff Desmoulin and Dr. Armand Dorian in answering Facebook and Twitter questions from fans in real time. A poll also will be available on dwlive.spike.com, with the results being updated live.
I caught up with Niles and Brooks at Comic-Con in San Diego this summer for a brief chat about the episode, and why a thirst for realism has crept into the horror genre.
As this episode of Deadliest Warrior indicates, there is a trend in horror of looking at supernatural creatures scientifically. Why do you think that is?
Brooks: I think it’s because we’re up against a Google generation. When we were kids, we’d go see a movie and we’d have to take it as gospel because that was it. Nowadays, kids go watch movies with iPhone in hand. If there’s something that doesn’t ring true, they can Google it. They can call foul.
Niles: I’m going to give you a perfect example. Super 8. Great movie, [but] a kid has a Creature from the Black Lagoon doll that was made in the ’90s. (Note: Super 8 is set in 1979.) It drove me insane. It’s just that type of thing. That completely took me out of the movie. That’s part of making monsters much more realistic, because it makes it scarier. What’s scary about if all you’ve got to do is not invite them into your house?
Brooks: You have a generation of fans who have the facts to back them up, and therefore they demand more of us. We have to do our part to create something that’s much more realistic and much more believable, and I think that’s why for this episode [of Deadliest Warrior] they pulled out all the stops. We’re saying, “Prove it.” They’re trying to woo a whole crowd they normally didn’t have, so they really had to step up their game to make it as scientifically believable as possible.
You guys also mentioned that there’s also a tendency in horror to “Twilight“ing everything, that eventually someone willl Twilight a zombie. Can you explain that a bit more?
Brooks: It applies to everything.
Niles: Eventually they figure out a way to homogenize everything and mainstream it.
Brooks: That’s every culture. For every Chuck Berry, you’re going to have an Elvis. For every Public Enemy, you’re going to have an Eminem. You’re going to take something that is dark and scary and a little bit taboo, and then somebody is going to find a way to make it accessible to tweens. That’s where the money is.
