Monster crossovers are nothing new, you’ve only got to look at the Underworld collection of mediocrity – only marginally bailed out by Kate Beckinsale in skintight leather – to see Vampires get it on with Werewolves.

Slightly less monster-y are the ongoing quickie cash-ins such as Boa Vs Python and Dinocroc Vs Supergator (both absolutely terrible – but I guess more fool me for watching them).

And I’m still trying to forget about Alien Vs Predator… all of them.

In saying that I am trying to short cut the inevitable “that’s hardly original” comments that come with pitting X Vs Y. I will justify Vampires Vs Zombies by saying that they have simply owned the last decade in horror, there’s been a couple of werewolf films (all sucked by the way), a few ghosties and the unwelcome torture porn fad, but constant through it all were Vamps and the Undead.

So with Ringworm in tow we recently had a few beers recently and tried to flesh out the criteria for a decent monster-battle: we came up with the following categories:

• Best 80s flick

• Best foreign language flick

• Best low budget flick

• Best comedy

• Best TV

• Most promising

• Most iconic character

• Best franchise

• Figure who has done the most for the genre

• Best of the best

Winner gets to either eat or drain a Hollywood teen starlet of their choice… Pass the Amanda Seyfried please!

Best of the 80s

Nominees

Vampires:

§                     Fright Night

§                     The Lost Boys

§                     Near Dark

Zombies:

§                     Day of the Dead

§                     Return of the Living Dead

§                     Serpent and the Rainbow

Verdict: This one was pretty straightforward, the great Near Dark, the fun Fright Night vs the weakest entry (at the time) of Romero’s “Dead” trilogy and a couple of OK but interchangeable and not all that memorable zombie pics.

Not a good decade to be a zombie.

Best 80s Flick: Winner – Vampz

Best foreign language flick

Nominees

Vampires:

§                     Let the Right one in                          8.5

§                     Thirst                                                  6.5

Zombies:

§                     Rec                                                       6.0

§                     Dead Snow                                          6.0

§                     The Horde                                           7.0

Verdict: Not the strongest category, in fact each genre only boasts one film that I would categorise as “worthwhile” (though I might have been a bit hard on Rec:). Even with Vampires only having two nominees that I could come up with Let the right one in simply towers over the competition in this event, realistically it would be LTROI first, daylight second and The Horde third – but the daylight would kill poor little Eli so we can’t do that!

With new horror films being released practically every minute all over the globe it won’t be long before this situation changes.

Best Foreign Language Flick: Winner – Vampz

Best low budget flick

No contest = No nominees

As mentioned in the best foreign language category every year sees hundreds of new entries in the horror genre from all over the world, many of these are low budget and many show great creativity and innovation – horror is of course one of the easiest ways to get noticed with little cash.

But that all pales into vampiric complexion when we consider the following two seminal titles. Note: even if we exclude The Evil Dead from consideration (I was on the fence but let it in) it would still be a no-braaaaaainer.

§                     Night of the Living Dead       Budget – $114,000        Profit – $30,000,000

§                     The Evil Dead                         Budget – $375,000        Profit – $29,500,000

Say what you want about the zombie intelligence and the shuffling work pace, but they continue to get the job down and can turn a tidy profit.

Best Low Budget Flick: Winner – Zombeez

Best comedy

Nominees

Vampires

§                     +      : From Dusk Till Dawn

§                     Dogs: Vampire in Brooklyn / Lesbian Vampire Killers / Bordello of Blood

Zombies

§                     +      : Shaun of the Dead

§                     : Planet Terror

§                     : Zombieland

§                     Dogs: Doghouse / Big Tits Zombie / Zombie Strippers

Verdict: Look From Dusk Till Dawn remains one of the more rewatchable films of the last 20 years, but similarly any such list would also include Shaun of the Dead, Planet Terror and Zombieland – a trifecta of hilarity that can’t be surpassed. I could even have argued Slither into the zombie side of the contest but really didn’t have to worry.

I included the list of cinematic dogs to show that they can’t all be home runs. Strangely enough the main similarity seems to be an attempt at titillation in the Fails.

Best Comedy: Winner – Zombeez

Best TV show

Nominees

Vampires

§                     True Blood

§                     The Vampire Diaries

§                     Buffy / Angel

Zombies

§                     The Walking Dead

§                     … (nuttin) …

§                     … (silence) …

Verdict: I only included this category for two reasons:

1 – I needed 10 categories.

2 – To spruik The Walking Dead, a very promising zombie TV show, and the first entry into zombie TV that I know of.

But 2 episodes – no matter how promising – just can’t stack up to the sheer weight of numbers that can be found in vampire TV land. It seems the vampire character lends itself to hot young actors who like to suck… neck. Who would’ve thought TV watchers would like to watch attractive young people in various states of undress nibbling on each other.

Best TV Show: Winner – Vampz

Most Upcoming titles

Vampires: 24 Titles

Zombies: 18 Titles

Again – 10 categories – but while we can only judge some winners based upon output, it’s interesting to see exactly how many bandwagoners there are out there for 2011 and beyond.

At this stage Twilight seems to have “inspired” a great many projects banking on the fact that the pre-teens who adored Bella and Ed will age a few years and might be ready for more adult vampire fare. (Makes sense, Dora the Explorer got older and more “mature”.)

A whopping 24 fangy films already slated for 2011 (!) but no amazingly interesting titles though. What I did find more interesting are some of the titles in the upshuffling zombie genre: Zombieland 2 (always gonna happen), The Evil Dead remake and *gasp* 28 Months Later…

Conversely a bunch of seemingly “hilarious” titles in both fields provides cause for great concern.

Most Upcoming Titles: Winner – Vampz

Most iconic character

No contest                                            Dracula

Verdict: Even easier than the low budget argument – which was in itself incredibly easy.

You “Family Feud: Survey Says” name a Vampire and you’ll get a few names nowadays – Ed, Sesame Street’s The Count, Angel and maybe some True Blood guys…

But if you ask for more than 2 names you’ll get Dracula listed. That’s a guarantee.

Try it tomorrow. EVERYONE OVER 15 KNOWS DRACULA!!

Depending on who you talk to HE IS THEvampire. That’s brand recognition right there.

The same survey for zombies won’t get a single name from 99% of respondents – Bub? Fido? Gas Station Guy? In fact the best one I can think of is Michael Jackson in the Thriller film clip. After that you’re into cartoons like South Park and The Simpsons.

Most Iconic Character: Winner – Vampz

Best franchise

Nominees

Vampires

§                     Blade

§                     Twilight

§                     Underworld

Zombeez

§                     …Of the Dead

§                     Resident Evil

Verdict: This category was more competitive than I first thought, but in the end the sheer legendarinessitude of the Dead series – especially the first three – won the day.

Blade was basically the awesome second film book-ended by one average and one ordinary film, Underworld was consistent…ly mediocre, and Resident Evil started promisingly but has devolved into a suckhouse of pain.

That leaves two – and there can be only ONE.

Sure Twilight might have made more $ and sold more Extra Small size T Shirts, but for quality and influence on an entire cinematic genre you can’t go past George Romero and Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Land of the Dead was OK, Diary not so terrible and Survival a sure sign that even the dead should sometimes be able to die with dignity.

But we’re not here to worry about how it ended, two classics and a solid third effort trump a teen-teasefest in any argument.

Best Franchise: Winner – Zombeez

Figure who has done the most for the genre

Nominees

Vampires: Bram Stoker

Zombies: George Romero

Verdict: Seems tight on paper, but let’s first look at Bram Stoker of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” fame. Stoker was an Irish guy who 110 odd years ago wrote about a historical figure famed for among other things drinking the blood of his vanquished foes.

Decades later someone gave the guy pointy teeth, long fingernails and pushed him in front of a camera and Nosferatu was born. Other films were made, some terrible and some pretty good, leading to the point where as I said earlier two dozen vampire films are to be released next year.

Stoker didn’t invent the Vampire, but he gave others a pretty solid template to work from that has remained largely unchanged for a century – until someone thought it a good idea to make them sparkle…

However, consider the fact that George Romero similarly took an existing concept or legend and put some bones on it… so to speak. Romero made them mindless ghouls who hungered for flesh and were quite single minded in their quest, shuffling around aimlessly like teenagers at the mall until a breather had the misfortune of wandering by.

Sure shaky wide eyed vampires can be scary but a nip on the neck pales into comparison against the concept of being rent in twain by a scabby, stinky eating machine and having your very innards gobbled down hungrily.

Since the original Night of the Living Dead there have been many more scary zombie movies – Romero himself contributed a few – than there have been vampire flicks, in fact I can’t actually recall a genuinely nerve rattling vampire flick. Vampires are now seen as exotic, misunderstood… even sexy.

Ask any non-goth, non-headbanger if they would take one for the team from a zombie… Zombies are scary, gross and generally unpleasant: Romero is widely acknowledged as making them so cinematically speaking. For that alone he takes the prize on behalf of the Zombie Nation.

Figure who has done the most: Winner – Zombeez

Best of the best

Nominees

Vampires

§                     Near Dark                                          8.5

§                     Blade 2                                               8.5

§                     Let the Right one in                         8.5

§                     From Dusk Till Dawn                      8.0

Zombies

§                     Evil Dead 2                                        9.0

§                     28 Weeks Later                                8.5

§                     Dawn of the Dead 2004                  9.0

§                     Planet Terror                                    8.5

§                     Shaun of the Dead                            8.5

Verdict: Look it seems clear cut and it really is, if I was going to go down the list from 1 through 9 based upon the titles above Zombies would occupy a minimum of 4 of the top 5 spots and 5 of the top 7, and that’s before I point out that Slither, Evil Dead and Army of Darkness would all be above From Dusk Till Dawn and would technically all be considered zombie films.

Best of the best: Winner – Zombeez

So after a dramatic 10 rounds it seems that we have an UnDead heat! On to the tiebreaker rounds.

I toyed with two different negative categories for a while, deciding which would ultimately be sufficiently important enough to rule a line through either Vampire or Zombie and declare the other the winner.

In the end I think they are both equally powerful arguments – and they suit in any case as in both scenarios we arrive at the same outcome.

Biggest in-genre argument

Nominees

Vampires                 Exposure to sunlight: Sparkling vs disintegrating.

Zombies                   Shuffling vs running.

Verdict: It should first be noted that in each scenario it shouldn’t matter a lick as we are discussing fictional characters. Therefore if we want zombies to only wear pink shoes in a particular movie then dammit they wear pink shoes – that doesn’t make it good common sense or interesting filmmaking though – and that’s what I’ll be arguing.

The shuffling / running debate has been in play for many years now, it flared up nicely when the Dawn of the Dead remake came out in 2004, and similarly melted down internet chat rooms and discussion boards when Danny Boyle and co had the temerity to let his undead Londoners bolt after Cillian Murphy and friends in 28 Days Later.

I have long since made my position clear as “I don’t care if they run, jump, shuffle or boogie board as long as the movie is OK”, so I will shelve this argument and let it go back to the rightful mulletted owners sitting in dormrooms and basements all over the globe.

However… SPARKLING!

Now that I can’t ignore.

The consensus for at least last century has been Vampires don’t like sunlight, because it… Well, sorta kills them. Which is as good a reason as any I think. But the Twilight assertion that they get all sparkly and stand out from the crowd is – to put it mildly – incredibly girly and basically removes any shred of danger or menace that might otherwise have existed.

I realise that the author probably could care less about making Ed scary but is in a Vampire film after all, what’s the point of having them in there if they aren’t using all the tools? Might as well have the forbidden love with a milkman. I haven’t even gotten around to mentioning the “non-human vego” diet either – the argument is over without it anyway.

LOSER: Biggest in genre argument – Vampires.

To make Vampire fans a little happier I put in the photo to the left… makes me happier anyway!

Winner: Zombeez

Finally…

Twilight Vs non-Twilight

Nominees

Vampires                      Twilight

Zombies                       Non-Twilight

Winner and Champion of the Undead!: Zombeez

It proved a torrid battle and a brave performance from both horror sub-genres, and it warrants mention that both will always retain great cinematic potential. But ultimately until someone writes a series of zombie based books that feature cringe-inducing, immaculately coiffed, Hollywood pretty and vacuous punces falling in and out of forbidden love: Zombies will always be cooler than Vampires.

That’s just how it is.

Sparkle on Vampires.

Shuffle on Zombies.