"My latest research collaboration was unique in that my colleagues wanted to identify factors beyond personality that contributed to people's psychological preparedness and resilience in the face of the pandemic," Johnson explained. "After factoring out personality influences, which were actually quite strong, we found that the more movies about zombies, alien invasions and apocalyptic pandemics people had seen prior to COVID-19, the better they dealt with the actual, current pandemic. These kinds of movies apparently serve as mental rehearsal for actual events.

To me, this implicates an even more important message about stories in general -- whether in books, movies or plays. Stories are not just entertainment, but preparation for life."

Personally, I never want to see a god damned zombie movie again as long as I live, but I was kind of there already even before the pandemic, because I was so sick to death of how terrible The Walking Dead and its spinoffs were.

But I will make an exception for the first zombie movie that focuses on zombie denialists.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.