Mon. April 13

Zombies? As part of the Coolidge Corner's "Science on Screen" series? And we don't mean zombis like they have in Haiti. The religious mumbo-jumbo stuff wikipedia will tell you about if you pop "zombi" and "wiki" into your search engine. We mean the zombies George Rombeo so memorably created for his 1968 shot-on-a-shoestring, scarier-than-all-hell, shot-outside-of-Pittsburgh flick, "Night of the Living Dead." It is the grand-daddy of of 'em. Romero himself made three sequels - "Dawn of the Dead", the shopping mall zombies, being the best - and countless others have plundered the Romero oeuvre for their own take on these special, nuclear-radiation caused aberrations that roam the night seaking - why? - human flesh. (Question: Do zombies need sustenance? Why? They're always falling apart, skin and bones, protruding. Do they ever defecate?) Well, they just do it because they're zombies and that's what they do.
The original was, for me, the nightmare movie of my childhood. It was not, I emphasize, at the time, camp in the least. I saw in a theater at a university campus - it was hip for college kids, as a 13-year-old it had me wetting my pants in terror. I could not believe the tension, the perverted loyalties, the transformation of good ("living") into bad ("dead," now hungry.) I liked that the zombies moved slowly, deliberatly, men and women on a mission. I liked that they were young and old, male and female. I liked the idea that the hero of "Night of the Living Dead" was a black guy when black guys weren't too often portrayed as heroes on the big screen. And, really, when you think about it the zombies weren't really bad - they didn't know what they were doing. They were doing what a hungry black bear in the woods would do. Are they evil? No. They're just acting naturally, as Buck Owens might have it.
So, the Coolidge presents this Monday April 13 at 7 and before the film
psychiatrist Steven C. Schlozman, a self-described zombie film fanatic and pop culture enthusiast will explore the theoretical neuroscience of zombies and the psychological effects they have on others.
Isn't this a little like discussing Big Foot like he's real? Well, I dunno, but among Schlozman's quereies: What would the brain of a zombie look like?  Why are zombies so (physically) unbalanced?  Why are they always hungry?  Why do normal people, in the absence of being infected, descend to sub-cortical zombie behavior in almost every zombie movie?  And just what is it about the concept of the living dead that continually fascinates audiences? 

According to Schlozman, his interest in Zombie movies started when, as an adult, he was fortunate enough to mix insomnia with a late-night showing on television of "Night of the Living Dead." This led to an exploration of zombie movies that contributed to all sorts of sleep deprivation, waiting as was required to get the kids to bed in order to feed his growing habit.  Why the fascination?  “The Zombie movie is the perfect playground for the neurologically - psychologically- and humorously-minded pop culture enthusiast,” he explains.  Tickets: $9.75.

290 Harvard St., 617-734-2500 www.coolidgeorg/showtimes.