The Zombie as the Undefinable Monster: A Reflection on the Impermanent Self

A zombie wanders around towards an unknown destination and interacts with the world around her. All the while, the voice of the late Dr. Lauren Maldonado's essays plays overhead, completely unaware to the corpse's behavior. The essays, explorations of zombies' roles in media, are revealed to have been written by that zombie before she was turned. Dr. Maldonado's body eventually stumbles into her old self’s office. Here, she begins to eat the papers she finds on the desk. The Zombie as the Undefinable Monster is a non-fiction analysis on the zombie metaphor in media paired with a fictional narrative. For each scene, there is a short analytical essay to match. In conjunction, the five scenes with the five essays explore the relationship between zombies and identity. Within the narrative, those five essays are written by the deceased character Dr. Lauren Maldonado. Her zombified body serves as the main character of the story. Preceding the storyboards and the essays, there is an appendix written outside of the narrative containing two additional essays. The first is an artist statement detailing my creative and thinking process. The second is a written explanation of the zombie mechanics within the narrative.