Zombie
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Zombies are corpses that have risen from their graves, usually by magical means, who commonly feed on the flesh of the living. Zombie stories originated from the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodoo, which claimed that a powerful sorcerer should raise the dead to do his bidding.
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The Average Zombie
- Slow-moving, often shuffling, though there are exceptions.
- Actively decaying, which means body parts are prone to drop off regularly.
- Usually mindless, or driven to mindlessness by desire of human flesh, which brings us to our next point.
- Desires human flesh, particularly brains. Why the zombie metabolism so desperately demands human flesh or flesh in general is a question that remains unanswered.
- Hair will often fall out rapidly after zombification, as the body will cease growing hair as a bodily function after it becomes technically deceased.
- Can normally only be killed by head injury, though removing the head from the body will often serve the same purpose.
- Zombies do not normally feel pain, and are prone to impaling themselves without even realizing it.
- Inability to understand even very simple concepts, so a zombie strapped into a car by a seatbelt is effectively, screwed.
Modes of Zombification
Zombies have a tendency to multiply at an alarming rate, and spread their undead plague to others by various means. Some of the means seen in media are:
- Oral contact, IE, biting. Introduced when the audience misunderstood what was going on in Return of the Living Dead
- Fluid exchange. (See: Necrophilia.)
- A voodoo curse
- Zombie powder (containing toxins that put a person into a zombie-like state)
- A virus
- Hypnosis (for old-school voodoo zombies)
Different Varieties of Zombies
- A Fast Zombie is a zombie which possesses uniquely agile characteristics and normally maintains a more realistic image than your usual shuffling brain-eater. They are more likely to be victims of a man-made plague than voodoo magic or a curse, and sometimes still retain some of their human attributes, such as rational thought or problem-solving ability, albeit with heavy levels of aggression. They are rarely dead before they "turn", and cannot suffer the major injuries that their slower cousins can. Their blight may spread via airborne pathogen rather than physical contact.
- Old-school/voodoo zombies weren't undead per se; they were merely in a stuporific state induced by toxins or hypnosis. This variety is often portrayed as completely curable.
- Animal zombies are zombified animals.
Terry Pratchett's zombies, such as Mr. Slant and Saturday, from The Truth and Witches Abroad respectively, are not traditional zombies at all. They are simply souls returning to their original bodies when they either can't find the underworld or need to live becuase of revenge, or in Mr. Slant's case, I believe, pressing legal matters. In this way, they can live for hundreds of years if they can find a handy Igor.
History & Origins
Tales of the living dead date back to ancient times. The Epic of Gilgamesh mentions living dead that feed upon the living. Other places in other times believed in various forms of the dead raising from the graves: revenants rose in medieval France to avenge crimes committed against them in life, vampires roamed in the Slavic areas (and spread to other parts of Europe), and in China the jiang shi (also known as the Chinese vampire) wandered around.
The zombies we know and love have their roots in Haiti, where voodoo sorcerers (bokor) were believed to be able to raise the dead as mindless slaves. Feeding the zombie salt was said to restore it to its senses.
It is believed that various toxic compounds including tetrodoxin (which causes paralysis, but not unconsciousness) were used to place victims into a state of near-death. The toxins would possibly cause damage to the brain that would keep the victim in a near-mindless state once it "came back to life."
Zombies came to Hollywood in 1919 in the film [Das Kabinet des Doktor Caligari] (The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.) Insane hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses "somnambulist" Cesare to carry out various horrific deeds. Cesare introduced Hollywood to the zombie shuffle that would become iconic of zombies later on. Cesare may not have been undead, but he certainly fit the traditional idea of a zombie being a mindless slave.
The word "zombie" was first used in Hollywood in the 1932 film White Zombie. A hypnotist/voodoo sorcerer attempts (and nearly succeeds) to transform a young couple into zombie slaves to work at his sugar mill. This film was followed up with Revolt of the Zombies in 1936. A man sent to Cambodia to find and destroy the zombie formula instead uses it to transform people into zombies, including the woman he wants to marry. After realizing that she will never love him, he throws himself to his death, freeing his zombie slaves.
Several other zombie movies were released over the years, fairly well following the traditional voodoo concept of the zombie: a mindless slave created through a potion. (Pretty female zombies seemed to be quite common among these films.)
The 1954 novel I Am Legend featured undead with decidedly vampiric traits. The novel would be made into the 1964 film The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price. While the undead were modelled on vampires more than zombies, they behaved much like modern zombies: travelling in slow-moving groups in order to find humans on which to feed. Certainly this was the first time something that could be considered a "zombie apocalypse" was seen. The film would have heavy influence on the 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead.
Night of the Living Dead gave birth to the modern zombie. Radiation from a falling satellite caused the dead to rise and feed upon the living. Since the undead hadn't been dead for long, there wasn't a whole lot of rottery going around, although there was plenty of flesh-munching to be done. These zombies were dull-witted, slow moving, and impervious to pain. The undead in this film were never actually referred to as zombies - when a name was needed, the term ghoul was used.
After Night of the Living Dead, its directors George A. Romero and John A. Russo had different ideas as to where their films would go. The directors split ways and proceeded to produce films going in the directions that each wanted. Russo's films would carry the "Living" prefix' Romero's would not.
Dungeons & Dragons introduced a few variant zombies in 1974, one of which was the "Fast Zombie."
Romero followed Night of the Living Dead up with Dawn of the Dead in 1978. Picking up where the first film left off, the shambling undead are gaining in numbers and becoming an even bigger problem. A character in this film was bitten by a zombie and died from the resulting infection, giving many people the impression that the zombie bite was what caused him to later become a zombie, although the actual cause was the same as in the first film: anyone who died would become a zombie.
Toxic gas as a zombie-causing agent would be introduced in the 1981 film Night of the Zombies.
As for the Living Dead series, John A. Russo's side of the story had Night of the Living Dead followed up by Return of the Living Dead in 1985. This film features the first brain-eating zombies. This time, the zombie-causing agent is 2-4-5 trioxin gas. Unlike Romero's original zombies, Russo's zombies are fast, intelligent, and capable of speech. While Romero's zombies could be taken out by a shot to the head, Russo's were impervious to such injuries. The film and its sequel, Return of the Living Dead Part II, had a fairly comic tone.
The 1985 film The Re-Animator featured undead created by a mad scientist, but it wasn't until the release of the 1996 PlayStation game Resident Evil that the concept really took off in popular culture. This time the zombie-causing agent was a lab-created virus known as the T-virus. The T-virus didn't just create zombies; it created horrific mutant zombies. As of 2008, the game series consists of fifteen games. The Resident Evil franchise also includes a trilogy of movies: Resident Evil in 2002, Resident Evil: Apocalypse in 2004, and Resident Evil: Extinction" in 2007.
Also released in 2002 was the British film 28 Days Later. A contagion known as Rage is inadvertently released when animal rights activists release infected chimpanzees from a laboratory. The disease spreads throughout the populace, turning people into vicious monsters. While they are not zombies in the sense that they never died, the concept of a virus causing a zombie outbreak was once again established in the public consciousness.
Further Reading
[Zombies of the Early Horror Movies] [How Zombies Work @ How Stuff Works]
