Love them or hate them, you already know that flesh-eating zombies have been shambling roughshod through pop culture these days. Surely, the more we see them on the screen, the less we would believe in them — except perhaps for those Great Falls, Montana residents who were spooked by yesterday’s  TV-broadcast warning “that the dead of are rising from the grave.”
KRTV, a local TV station in Great Falls, fell victim to the prank, which was presumed to be the work of hackers. Using the Emergency Alert System, the broadcast interrupted the regular programming (“Teen Cheaters Take Lie Detectors”), with a murky voice declaring that “Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living….Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies, as they are considered extremely dangerous.” Meanwhile, a scrolling message confirmed the same.
The station itself was quick to respond, stating on their website that the “message did not originate from KRTV, and there is no emergency.” Eliciting more confusion than outright panic, those responsible for the prank haven’t stepped forward. Neither have the the bodies of the dead, for that matter.
The viability of a zombie apocalypse is as much a source of humor and conversation lately as it is an enduring subgenre of horror fiction — especially in the wake of AMC’s The Walking Dead, whose mid-season premier aired Sunday night to a storm of speculation and water cooler talk. Also fueling the flesh-eating fire are movies like Warm Bodies and World War Z. The latter is based (somehow) on the New York Times Best Seller novel of the same name. The book was pretty good. The movie, though, features Brad Pitt, who will probably not be eaten by zombies as fast as some of us would like.
(via the Business Insider)
- Warm Bodies isn’t just zombie Twilight
- New World War Z trailer is a chaotic mess, as it should be
- The science behind a zombie apocalypse
