Who's the Undeadest of Them All: People are dying to get into a movie lately, and it's not only because you practically need a generous bequest or a life insurance stipend to cover the cost of two adult admissions and a large popcorn. (True fact: Want an evening showtime for "Appaloosa" at the Arclight Hollywood in Hollywood, Calif.? That'll be $14.50, please. Per ticket. And you thought $8.50 to catch "Death Race" at the Cinemark 16 was sucking you dry.)

No, the corpselike people are the ones moving around on the screen. I mean, have you seen Robert De Niro (65) and Al Pacino (68) playing homicide cops in "Righteous Kill?" With Brian Dennehy (70) as their lieutenant? That's not a police department, it's a zombie jamboree.

I jest! Speaking of zombies, however, remember when you saw them in practically every other movie that came out? You had your funny zombies in "Shaun of the Dead," your video game zombies in "Resident Evil" and even your super-fast bloodthirsty zombies in "28 Days Later."

The problem with zombies is that they're gross. There's the whole living person = smorgasbord thing going on, and even if it wasn't seriously yick to think about "live human breath," zombies have worse table manners than werewolves. (Did you ever see a zombie wipe his mouth?) And all of that rotted, decaying flesh ¬ -- ewww.

So, yeah, it was probably inevitable that vampires would take control of the undead scene again. They have all of advantages, such as living forever, being played by Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise (or even Antonio Banderas), having perfect hair, teeth and eyes and not needing to ever diet, or even eat. Also, blood kind of tastes like Diet Coke if you drink it enough. And if you're a "nice" vampire, you can drink the blood of hamsters and guinea pigs, instead of people.

Take your "Twilight" lumps, fellas. The pendulum will swing back in time. After all, it's not for nothing that there's that one saying. Zombies are from Mars. Vampires are from ...

-- Cody Clark