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1. Zombie apocalypse is an end of the world scenario that can't actually happen, so it's a safe kind of scary.

2. Zombies are the great leveler, the ultimate everyman. This can be seen in things like the cathartic moment in Land of the Dead when the racist let them eat cake aristocrats get munched by the working class super zombies we are half rooting for.

3. Zombies secretly feed the Mary Sue in all of us. Let's laugh a little at the hare krishna zombie or the shuffling hordes returning in undeath to the mall. They are all mindless sheep but we, the heroes, are hard bitten survivors.

4. I think there is something in all of us that wants to break the rules: steal the copter, loot the mall, run over all those slow shambling people in our way.

5. Why now? Imaginary zombie apocalypse survivor fantasies are a lot easier to handle than the real political situation here and abroad. some of us also feel we are surrounded by scary mindless sheep voting to destroy everything we hold dear. Also, some of the best zombie narratives look suspiciously like accounts of the Iraq War. I think this is the same impulse that caused people to do things like talk about the Vietnam War through things like MASH. Looking directly at the horror is painful and depressing, but filtering the national trauma through a fictional lens gives the viewer/reader enough distance to start processing.

World War Z never mentions the name or party of the US president, but it's clearly talking about things like Iraq and Katrina and Halliburton, even as it skewers the Russian disorganization and the callousnesses of it's government and that of the Chinese. The global catastrophe is created by the sins of world governments and the greed of private individuals. The world is also eventually saved by a combination of individual intelligence/heroism and tough minded governments and individuals who do the right thing. It is ultimately about hope and destruction both. So is Land of the Dead which intimates that maybe humans don't deserve to continue if this is how they treat each other, but offers a more mutually cooperative zombie culture that is just beginning during the course of the film. These are essentially telling the flood story, the destruction of a corrupt world to make room for something new. It's a dark vision, but understandable in the face of violence abroad and rising fascism at home.

6. The heroes in zombie apocalypse stories are also everyman characters. In a zombie apocalypse, ordinary people are much more valuable than obnoxious rich bastards. The cop, the paramedic, the nurse, the mechanic, and the truck driver are worth way more than someone with a stock portfolio. In the zombie apocalypse working class people are finally recognized for their real value, and the audience cheers when the rich cowardly opportunist buys it. Tell me that doesn't have a deep psychological appeal to the average movie goer?